Kathleen Parker, who had argued a few days before that Palin should drop off the ticket, gave her as a good a review as you could expect her to give. And even David Broder (not exactly a Republican stalwart) awarded her high marks and wondered why McCain doesn't use her more.
What weird alternate universe do these people live in? What bad drugs did someone slip into David Broder's Bran Flakes when he wrote this:
But [Biden] was no better than Palin. She appeared cool as a cucumber, comfortable with her talking points and unrattled by anything that was thrown at her.That's better? Did Broder pay any attention to any of the words that actually came from her honey-dripping lips?
Let's do a bit of scoring. On the merits, McCain an Obama talked their way to a draw. But it was a draw between two serious candidates. They've actually thought about the issues. They actually know things. They weren't just working from mental cue cards.
And then there was the Biden-Palin debate. Biden was crisp, to the point, on top of the facts and in command of the larger landscape. Palin was a winking, shucksing "g"-dropping prop. Her grasp of the issues isn't much thicker than any of the lustrous hairs in her now-trademark coif. If you actually listened to the words these people spoke and thought that Palin is ready to step in as president, I don't know what you think presidents do.
Kathleen Parker admitted that even if Palin managed to keep to her talking points, we can still ask: "Does that mean she's ready to lead the free world should circumstances warrant?"
"That question remains," Parker writes. "Right next to same question about Barack Obama."
Please. Let's agree that someone could have doubts about whether Obama is really ready. But what's the scale? If you think Obama might not be ready, then by any remotely sane measure Sarah Palin certainly isn't ready. Not. No way.
And by the way... if that's elitism, then elitism is just another name for common sense.
3 comments:
I think that what these reviews (which I must say I have not read) show, sadly but perhaps not unsurprisingly, is that the content of what is said matters very little. At least, it matters far less than how one looks while one is saying it. If you can look calm and confident, then the words may function merely as enabling the illusion that we're concerned with something substantive. Perhaps this is related to the view that being willing to stand by a position, no matter how misguided, is a virtue.
I think there are lessons here about how we should change the debate process. That is, assuming we want the ability to engage with and think about the issues to matter in the decision process.
That should be: "not surprisingly."
"If Candidate A says X about Candidate B, do not simply believe X."
The core skill of an American politician is "spinning", which some might call innocently misleading, but most simply call lying. The debates have nothing to do with who's right or wrong. They're all about who looks good selling their swill. Palin looked good, especially with the low bar she set with her interviews and the anticipated high difficulty of her opponent.
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