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Name:
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jalcz
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Subject:
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At least the Brits see it.
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Date:
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10/15/2008 5:35:28 PM
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Subject: The British press on Palin and American media
Flirting her way to victory
Sarah Palin's farcical debate performance lowered the standards for both female candidates and US political discourse
by Michelle Goldberg
The Guardian - Friday October 3 2008
At least three times last night, Sarah Palin, the adorable, preposterous vice-presidential candidate, winked at the audience. Had a male
candidate with a similar reputation for attractive vapidity made such a brazen
attempt to flirt his way into the good graces of the voting public, it would
have universally noted, discussed and mocked. Palin, however, has single-
handedly so lowered the standards both for female candidates and American
political discourse that, with her newfound ability to speak in more-or-less full
sentences, she is now deemed to have performed acceptably last night.
By any normal standard, including the ones applied to male presidential
candidates of either party, she did not. Early on, she made the
astonishing announcement that she had no intentions of actually answering the
queries put to her. "I may not answer the questions that either the moderator
or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people
and let them know my track record also," she said.
And so she preceded, with an almost surreal disregard for the subjects
she was supposed to be discussing, to unleash fusillades of scripted attack
lines, platitudes, lies, gibberish and grating references to her own
pseudo-folksy authenticity.
It was an appalling display. The only reason it was not widely
described as such is that too many American pundits don't even try to judge the
truth, wisdom or reasonableness of the political rhetoric they are paid to
pronounce upon. Instead, they imagine themselves as interpreters of a
mythical mass of "average Americans" who they both venerate and despise.
In pronouncing upon a debate, they don't try and determine whether a
candidate's responses correspond to existing reality, or whether he or
she is capable of talking about subjects such as the deregulation of the
financial markets or the devolution of the war in Afghanistan. The
criteria are far more vaporous. In this case, it was whether Palin could avoid
utterly humiliating herself for 90 minutes, and whether urbane
commentators would believe that she had connected to a public that they see as
ignorant and sentimental. For the Alaska governor, mission accomplished.
There is indeed something mesmerising about Palin, with her manic
beaming and fulsome confidence in her own charm. The force of her personality
managed to slightly obscure the insulting emptiness of her answers last
night. It's worth reading the transcript of the encounter, where it becomes
clearer how bizarre much of what she said was. Here, for example, is
how she responded to Biden's comments about how the middle class has been
short-changed during the Bush administration, and how McCain will
continue Bush's policies:
"Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You
preferenced [sic] your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now
doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan
to do for them in the future. You mentioned education, and I'm glad you did. I
know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher
for 30 years, and god bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right? ... My
brother, who I think is the best schoolteacher in the year, and here's a shout-
out to all those third graders at Gladys Wood Elementary School, you get extra
credit for watching the debate."
Evidently, Palin's pre-debate handlers judged her incapable of speaking on a
fairly wide range of subjects, and so instructed to her to simply disregard
questions that did not invite memorised talking points or cutesy
filibustering. They probably told her to play up her spunky average-
ness, which she did to the point of shtick - and dishonesty. Asked what her
achilles heel is - a question she either didn't understand or chose to
ignore - she started in on how McCain chose her because of her
"connection to the heartland of America. Being a mom, one very concerned about a
son in the war, about a special needs child, about kids heading off to
college, how are we going to pay those tuition bills?"
None of Palin's children, it should be noted, are heading off to
college. Her son is on the way to Iraq, and her pregnant 17-year-old daughter is
engaged to be married to a high-school dropout and self-described
"f_ckin' redneck". Palin is a woman who can't even tell the truth about the most
quotidian and public details of her own life, never mind about matters
of major public import. In her only vice-presidential debate, she was
shallow, mendacious and phoney. What kind of maverick, after all, keeps harping
on what a maverick she is? That her performance was considered anything
but a farce doesn't show how high Palin has risen, but how low we all have
sunk.
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008
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