This is also posted at Huffington Post.
In the post-debate, post-partisan, postpartum, postmortem by those that think about stuff, those vilified media types, it was a pretty clear consensus of what happened on that stage in St. Louis last week: Sarah Palin did well because we all know she’s not too bright. It’s like she won a gold medal in the Special Olympics. Yay! She’s a winner! The problem is that she’s been recruited to play in the majors. But she won the gold, doggone it! Somehow she gets extra credit for knowing less than Joe.
It’s disheartening to come out of a two term George Bush era and watch the standards get lowered even further for our political leaders. The Republican Party has been crying sexism since Palin was nominated. But sexism goes both ways. Instead of being held to a higher standard, like Hillary Clinton was, Sarah Palin is applauded for basic motor skills. Yay! She’s a winner! Somehow she also gets extra credit for knowing less than Hillary.
I’ve been describing Sarah Palin as scary stupid. Scary stupid is the kind of stupid where you don’t know enough to know – you don’t know enough. If you don’t read anything ”” you have no idea what else you haven’t read. If you don’t spend any time thinking ”” you never worry about how you’re not spending enough time thinking. Charles Bukowski once said that the worst writers have the least self-doubt. Well, the same can be said for the dumbest politicians.
Great ambition with little intellectual ability: Scary stupid.
Coupled with a bright smile, those Tinkerbell winks and some memorized jabs and you’ve got yourself a farce to be reckoned with.
That’s how she should be treated by the media that annoys her so much: as a lukewarm premise with an even lamer punch line. You know, how we treat all ventriloquist acts. “Oh how cute! She wants more constitutionally granted power than Dick Cheney. You have to read the constitution, finish your verbal moose stew then we’ll see ”” ”˜K peaches?” Yay! She’s a winner!
Why is she being treated as a legitimate candidate? Because she is a right-winger. And right-wingers believe she’s a team player. They say ”˜maverick’ with tongue in cheek. They don’t actually want someone that will ”˜shake things up’. They want someone that will shake liberals up. Shake up the people they don’t like, appease the one’s they do. They call her a maverick because the words ”˜conservative’, ”˜republican’ and ”˜warhawk’ have been tarnished by conservatives, republicans and warhawks.
True mavericks are not hyped by Republicans. Just ask Ron Paul.
Scary stupid: certain, decisive and dense.
Scary stupid never worries about nuances or facts. They just get in the way of the action. Palin has been going around the country saying that Barack Obama is ”˜palling around with terrorists’. This would be a good dig A) if it were true, and B) if she herself were not schtuping a secessionist. Her husband joined a group of Alaskans that wished to secede from the Union, yet she is happy to repeat,” Our opponent … is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.” She is sleeping with a dude that wanted to take half the land mass away from the US! Serious.
But scary stupid doesn’t care. Hypocrisy doesn’t bother scary stupid. Contradiction doesn’t bother scary stupid. Like Palin’s oft repeated global warming stance: “I’m not one to attribute every man — activity of man to the changes in the climate.” She said at the debate, “There is something to be said also for man’s activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet. But there are real changes going on in our climate. And I don’t want to argue about the causes. What I want to argue about is, how are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts?”
I don’t want to argue about the causes, I just want to argue about how to positively affect the impacts? “I don’t want to talk about evidence. I just want to say words without saying anything.” Scary stupid doesn’t actually like to argue anyway. Scary stupid just likes to be right and take down dissenters” and in Sarah Palin’s case ”” laughers.
Scary stupid: uninformed but armed.
Okay, okay, we’ve had our fun with the shiny new thing. Now we can see that it can recite lines and wink. That’s great. Legitimate candidates can have press conferences without imploding their running mate’s campaign. Legitimate candidates can be in spin rooms all by themselves. Legitimate candidates can take follow-up questions.
How much lower can we go?
It’s scary stupid to think about.