The Bigger Picture: Why the Palin Problem Goes Beyond Gov. Sarah

by Leslie D. Poston, Editor-in-Chief

10.16.08

I admit it.  I’m tired.  Through with all the emails dictating and demonstrating how stupid Sarah Palin is.  The quotes, sound bites, and videos recording her ignorant comments that are spun as realness or folksy wisdom to the masses are lost on me.  My inbox is flooded with this…garbage.  The most charitable label I can give this “Palin Poop” is entertainment but it’s being sold as awareness.  And that’s my problem with it.  None of these peaks into her shallow personality are very effective.  They don’t change minds and I don’t find any of them funny.  It reminds me of “Bushisms.”  There are entire calendars of President George Bush’s most ignorant, out of touch, and bizarre comments that have been promptly published every year of the man’s presidency.  And aside from making a few people very rich, they’ve done nothing to change the course of history.  What’s more, they do not inspire people to change their minds.  For me, just one lone black female cynic, all of it is a muthafuckin’ waste of time.

Palin is not the problem.  Well, she’s not the real problem.  She is a symbol, albeit a dangerous one, of a much larger issue.  Do you remember when she was first announced as the Republican nominee for the office of Vice President?  A lot of Democrats were a bit baffled but cautiously ecstatic.  This was too easy, they thought.  Riding off of an Obama high, they failed to remember that it is never that easy.  The chick was picked for a reason.  She was selected because McCain and his camp believed that choosing her would secure him a win or at least greatly increase his chances of such.  McCain is a lot of things – impulsive, misleading, and even befuddled.  But he is not a stupid man.  There had to be genuine motivation behind this method and the madness it produced.

Like everyone else, I watched.  I watched somewhat reasonable people make a case for this political abomination who was so clearly ill suited for the role she was assigned to play.  I watched them – the pundits, commentators, actors parading as newscasters, and fiction writers disguised as journalists – attempt to paint this broad as a viable contender.  I witnessed them fall back on her gender.  They did not champion it, as she didn’t champion it in her own life.  Rather, they sought refuge in it.  It’s an important distinction.  For one is an ode to feminism.  And the other, the one they elected because she was selected, is a blatant strike against it.

So I watched this woman enter the stage and usurp a place in history that if not reserved for Shirley Chisholm, Gloria Steinem, or Hillary Clinton, should at least have been open to someone with a reasonable percentage of their sacrifice.  I saw this female handed a genuine opportunity to take over an increasingly critical office at a critical time and I groaned.  This is what they come up with?  This is how little they think of Barack Obama and Joseph Biden? Wrong question.  This is how little they think of the American people.  And sadly enough, time is proving how accurate they were in that thought.

But back to Palin.  The American public is presented with this woman whose dominating quality for admiration is a functioning uterus. She’s more than that, the liars say.  Really?  I watched the family use her youngest as a social agenda prop.  The fact that she has a baby with Down Syndrome is cited as proof that she does not believe in abortion.  How dumb do you want me to be?  Really?  That’s what it proves? Humph.  I thought it was a testament to irresponsibility.  Why would she risk it, I wondered.  Why would a perfectly sane woman with four healthy children gamble on a new life when she knows the increased dangers to baby (and mother) when a woman surpasses the age of 35 and especially 40? Well, a perfectly sane woman wouldn’t.  Along with this, I watched her pregnant, unmarried teenage daughter utilized as another confirmation of her stance on abortion rather than the perfect vehicle into her effectiveness as a parent.  Despite what the lefties said, I knew this would only work in her favor.  A pregnant teenager is a hushed but very shared American experience.

But the real questions were bushed over (yes, you read that right).  Marginalized.  Rather than call this chick out on her lack of seemingly everything – experience, intelligence, honesty, common sense, and lack of drive – she was given as much of a free pass as could be made out.  People fervently set about supporting her.  Why?  The answer to that question articulates the larger problem.  I’m going to discount those who are simply racist and don’t want a black man as POTUS.  They could give a shit who runs against him and there are many more of them than even the most liberal blogs and magazines highlight.

What upsets me are those who are supporting this woman simply because they like her.  What’s more, they like her for being the second in command of this large, crazy, complicated, and extremely powerful country.  They see her and they identify with her.  They view Sarah Palin as not only an echo, but also a mirror image of themselves on one or more paradigms.  She’s a wife.  She’s a mother.  She’s a hunter.  She’s moderately attractive.  But what appears to be her top selling point?  She doesn’t seem to know anymore than anyone about anything.  And that shit actually brings people comfort!  What the fuck?

It all comes back to the question repeated time and time again during both of George W. Bush’s presidential campaigns.  Who would you rather have a beer with? This is what the polls asked.  And the responses reverberated throughout the media.  People’s answers amazed me.  Who would I rather have a beer with?  That is the WRONG DAMN QUESTION!!!!  Here’s my answer.  The President of the United States should be too damn busy to have a beer with me.  On the real.  Conventional wisdom (which is these days lives up to the first word of the term rather than the second) stipulates that a leader can't be too far removed from the people.  That'd be fine if the people were not getting lazier, dumber, fatter, and further removed from the daily issues of an increasingly globalized world.  To put it plainly, if the people were the kind that acted in their own long term best interest (a cough for those who willingly signed into a mortgage they KNEW their asses couldn't afford), then the leader should be more like them.  But when someone knows more and does more than the general population, that person's actions in moving forward will automatically distance him (or her) from the population who is cool with being stagnant.  Keep in mind that in this day and age, stagnation and inaction translates into moving backwards. So returning to the whole beer question, if the male or female POTUS is holding it down and really attending to the morass that is this country’s economic, social, financial, and cultural situation, POTUS ain’t got the time to knock back a Heineken with me or any other average citizen. 

The President of the United States is not supposed to be my damn friend.  He or she is my political employee.  I pay him (a her has not yet occurred) to think, act, and judge with precision and the keenest of forethought.  We ain’t supposed to be getting drunk together or discussing our favorite sports teams.  Why people in this country have allowed the media (that they don’t own, but frequently patronize) to focus on this kind of shit is the real problem.  It’s the much bigger issue.  A revealing moment was Palin stating that quizzing her on the “issues” was the equivalent of playing “stump the candidate.”  Excuse me?  Issues are to be discussed and they shouldn’t even be viewed as fodder for stumping someone seeking to be the Vice President for the union workers, intellectuals, artists, rednecks, activists, and parents that comprise this country. Oh, did I leave anyone out?  Well, get used to it if this chick gets into office!

And this kind of thinking brings us far away from Sarah Palin and directly to Barack Obama.  I am going to vote for Obama in November, but I am not a wide-eyed fan of the man.  I’m not a bandwagon woman and I went through his policy and proposals during primary season.  I reviewed the policy (if you want to call it that) of John McCain as well as the other major candidates and common sense led me to hedge my bets on Obama.  Unlike most people, I detest hoopla.  The conventions did nothing for me (though I did read the transcript of Obama’s speech so I could get the meaning uninterrupted by both prompted and inspired cheering).  The debates are a moot point for me.  I have made my selection.  But amidst this country’s obsession with political candidates whom they can drink and party with, I was forced to observe the element of Obama that I respect most minimized.

The man is smart (sshhh – don’t tell nobody).  I felt it was really a shame that the brother had to dumb it down.  Sorry, but “Change We Can Believe In” doesn’t do it for me the way “Strategic Thinking and Action for Long Term Advancement” does.  Change We Need" is more on it, but still he was forced to distance himself from the true meaning of his hard earned academic pedigree and the finer elements of his political maneuvering.  Such is the polar opposite of what millions of parents, employers, and international industries tell college graduates they should do.  He does not want to be called an elitist.  While people act as though it is a reference to snobbery, I understand it differently.  He doesn’t want to be labeled an elitist because being intelligent with a smart wife to boot works against him in a country where the fruits of genius are praised while the process of becoming smart is shunned.  Being smart is only haphazardly admired and this ain’t just true in the USA ’s trailer parks and hoods. 

What the hell is so wrong with a President who is smarter than the citizens of the country he runs?  Have the last eight years not taught us the folly of desiring otherwise?  Bush was folksier, richer, and more attractive than Kerry or Gore.  But he’s clearly not smarter.  He just has privileged information.  Do we not understand how self-destructive such an arrangement is?  You know what being elite means?  It means that one is the best.  Superior .  What is wrong with being the best?  What is wrong with being superior?  It is gravely disastrous when a country wants more dedication, intellect, and precision from the athletes it sends to the summer Olympics every four years than the people it puts in the White House every four years.

People are hell bent on identifying with their presidential and vice presidential candidates rather than understanding the policies they aim to put in place.  I don’t fully identify with Obama.  For one, he’s way more optimistic than I am.  He’s also a man (I’m allowed to acknowledge that right) and he’s never lived in the city I grew up in and has rarely focused on the specific causes I devote my time and money to.  So the fuck what?!  I do think he’s smarter than me and much more ambitious.  He’s braver than me and most of the high, middle, and lowbrow people voting for him.  A lot of his most ardent supporters won’t even risk their child going to the “wrong” pre-school and here he is risking his life and that of his family.  So along those lines and many others, Obama differs from me.  And in some very critical areas, his knowledge and logic is above my own.  I’m not so vain, so shortsighted, so naïve, or so limited to need a presidential or vice presidential candidate who is on the exact same level with me in all things.

And I don’t know why the country wants that.  I don’t understand why people are so suspect of intelligence and admiring of ignorance (especially if it’s the brand they subscribe to).  The only reason that Palin made Biden seem safe and boring was because his competence wasn’t as sellable as her lack there of.  Take pause here people.  Only in a country (and it's not just our own) that consistently embraces emotion over logic could a Harvard educated man with one of the most assimilated backgrounds be labled a terrorist while an adroit liar married to a frontier-style separatist is granted the lable of a real American.  Another way to say this is that if Obama was white he woudln't be controversial, but we don't have to make Palin black (perish the damn thought) for her to be.  But back to the real problem: Some Ohio women interviewed by The New Yorker said they’d vote for Palin (and by default McCain) because they could see her sitting right there next to them having a cup of coffee. 

I don’t want the Vice President drinking coffee in diners.  I want him to be smart enough to extrapolate what those diners need and on point enough to enact the diners’ best economic interests through legislation.  I don’t want my President drinking with me in a bar.  I want him making sure that the latest financial maneuvering in Washington will not make it harder for the owner of my favorite bar to stay in business.  I do not want an equal.  I want a superior.  For if he is truly a superior, he will surpass my ability and in doing so meet my needs while exceeding them.  Do I think Obama and Biden will do this?  Remember now, I’m a cynic. What I can tell you is that McCain and Palin will not.  They won’t because they cannot and because they really don’t want to.  The possibility of Sarah Palin being the Vice President of the United States is a celebration of limited thinking and a complete disregard for progress or even maintaining the shabby state of the jacked up status quo.  It is beyond race.  It is beyond gender.  And it is both beneath and far beyond reason.

I honestly don’t think that Sarah Palin is a stupid person. Manipulators rarely fit the definition.  She’s just not smart enough to be my Vice President.  Her style of lying is so lazy and obvious that it requires her believers to dumb themselves down to a level I haven't experienced since kindergarten, if then.  She doesn't just piss on the American public's head and call it rain.  She goes so far as to tell us that we're actually dry during one of her downpours. And McCain’s selection of her for his running mate demonstrates to me that he is still playing games at a time when the world is as serious as a heart attack.  That disappoints me, but it does not surprise me.  It makes me very tired and it reminds me that being smart comes with a heavy price if one couples it with being aware.

I believe that Obama’s determination to CHANGE™ will be met with historic resistance.  I don’t like the idea of him being the one to enter office directly after the most bumbling “C student” in presidential history.  I think it’s a bit of a trap.  But I’d rather support a smart man walking into a trap than the one who is a major architect of it.  I do not like that these are my choices, but like a responsible citizen, I still choose.  Perhaps Sarah Palin, despite the separatist husband, racist future son-in-law (the whole family really), freshly issued passport, and propped up persona, is a real fun gal.  Maybe beyond the moose stew, aerial wolf sniping, and basic geography as a foreign policy strategy, Gov. Sarah is an engaging individual.  I doubt it, but even if that’s the case, it doesn’t matter to me. 

I don't want a failing classmate to run this country.  I’d rather give that job to a teacher.  And any good teacher doesn’t revel in knowing as much or less than his or her students.  NO, he uses his superior knowledge and experience to make them smarter.  For the great teachers, the ones who make good administrators, knowledge is not an enemy that stumps them.  It is an ally and a weapon that works to the advantage of them and their students.  Some people, some politicians, are suited to run the ultimate school of politics that is the U.S. Presidency.  And others are best left to yard duty during recess.  That way they can enjoy the wide-open spaces they’ve grown accustomed to and not worry about their credentials failing to meet those of their fellow teachers.  In other words, they can have their beer and drink it too.