VP Deathmatch

And so it was during the vice-presidential debate last Thursday, where Biden stuck to his talking points and whole lot of policy (Bo–ring), while Palin stuck to her talking points, folksiness and, oddly enough, a whole lot of winking.[1] Reading the transcript afterwards confirms that there was very little substance to Palin’s responses and that to call them “responses” is being very generous. At least half of her answers were filled end-to-end with words and concepts completely unrelated to the question (refer to the chart to the left for a handy reference). Lucky for her, a very small minority of the people listening were intellectually equipped to notice, so her ability to remain standing for ninety minutes was initially rewarded with declarations of victory, and only later grudgingly downgraded to a tie as the know-it-alls with their unnatural focus on substance made themselves heard.

Representing the opinion of the reality-based community[2], the article Nudge Nudge Wink Wink by Hendrik Hertzberg (New Yorker) concluded that:

“Palin had nothing to say, but she said it without too much of the usual syntactical chaos[3] […] Biden succeeded in making a case for the Obama-Biden ticket. Palin succeeded mainly in making a case that she, Palin, is a person of near-normal intelligence and great superior adorability.”

The mainstream media’s reaction was different as they’d bought their own story about the different bars over which the two candidates had to hurdle. The disconnect between the media and the people of the U.S. grows as the delighted reactions of pundits[4] were not matched by polls conducted after the debate. Perhaps it’s because—as detailed in The Ifill Factor by Scott Horton (Harper's Magazine)—Gwen Ifill[5] was such a weak moderator. Or perhaps there’s a slim chance that people are finally coming around or—more likely—that the Sarah Palin experience isn’t selling as well as the Republicans thought it would. On the other hand, 37% of the people polled concluded that Palin had won, a fact on which Sarah Palin’s Rigged Redemption by Mark Ames (Exiled Online) attempts to shed some light[6]:

“This is what even Palin’s critics fail to understand about her appeal: it isn’t that she’s “one of them”–the Joe Sixpacks and the Dodge Durango-driving Bloodsport Moms. Palin looks nothing like Middle Americans–she’s too physically perfect, too confident, too healthy, with a perfect pearly smile. The reason she’s so popular is because Palin is the adult incarnation of the top Heather. […] It’s ingrained in our culture—middle Americans are drawn to bullies like John McCain and Sarah Palin on a level so primitive that it’s almost impossible to counteract.”

The only flaw with Ames’s argument is that it is typically myopically American, unnecessarily restricting this weakness for bullies to Americans. Are the Russians and the Italians not also currently lined-up behind their own respective bullies? Is not most of Africa eagerly electing one bully after another? Electoral malfeasance aside, it is remarkable that, in any of these cases, the bully comes close enough to winning fair-and-square that a bit of cheating puts them over the top. There is no other explanation for why McCain isn’t losing to Obama by dozens of points—as, policy-wise, he has every right to be—instead of barely trailing him by a few. People clearly don’t vote in their best interests and a subconscious kowtowing to the biggest bully in the schoolyard seems as good an explanation as any as to why.

The Democrats—or what passes for the left in America—doomed as they usually are to repeating their policy statements ad infinitum (see Joe Biden’s performance)—are also toying gingerly with another angle of attack: namely, at what point—and in what fashion—does it become appropriate to point out how mind-bogglingly unprepared Sarah Palin is for the job of Vice President. Granted, according to the constitution, the job entails only—as Joe Biden mentioned—breaking ties in the Senate. But, with her grasp of issues and mind for nuance, you might as well just flip a coin.

Some people can’t get around how gosh-darn colloquial she sounds. The article Everything You Heard Is Wrong by linguist Steven Pinker (New York Times) has an interesting analysis of her dialect, which he says “is certainly for real”. The folksiness of her dialect has nothing to do with her intelligence or grasp of issues—and to denigrate her for accent is to ignore the accents of others whose opinions we value or even to ignore our own variations in diction, which “all of us, regardless of accent, twiddle as we tune our speech to the circumstances.”[7]

“The concerns raised by the Couric interviews — that Ms. Palin memorizes talking points rather than grasping issues — should not be allayed by her performance in the forgiving format of a debate. […] voters judging Ms. Palin’s performance should focus on the facile governing philosophy that is symbolized by her speech style, not the red herrings of accent or dialect.”

Her accent should not be attacked. Period. Attack instead her content. Some of us[8] are decidedly sick of hearing State-of-the-Union addresses delivered in a southern, texas or mid-western accent. But, were the next SOTU to be delivered in a southern accent, but contain actual pearls of humanitarian wisdom, that would be just fine.

As for content? There were some truly stunning statements made with seemingly no shame or qualms, statements that should raise alarm bells. For example, when asked about Israel—which, honestly, should be waaaaay down the list of this country’s priorities right now, all things considered—Biden and Palin said the following:

“[…] (Joe Biden) no one in the United States Senate has been a better friend to Israel than Joe Biden. I would have never, ever joined this ticket were I not absolutely sure Barack Obama shared my passion. […] (Palin) I’m so encouraged to know that we both love Israel… (emphasis added)”

Is there any other country on this planet to which a presidential or vice-presidential candidate could swear such undying allegiance and get away with it? How is it that this type of talk doesn’t drive hyper-nationalistic Americans away in droves? Do Americans really love any country other than America?

Perhaps Palin has the advantage here because she is so mush-mouthed; though Biden is known for putting his foot in his mouth from time to time, he would likely defend his love of Israel under torture. Palin, on the other hand, probably just learned about how much she loves Israel last week. Palin, who makes even Bush sound like a silver-tongued scholar:

“I’m not one to attribute every man – activity of man to the changes in the climate.”

Nor does anyone expect you to, Madame Vice President.

[5] On a side note, the Exiled article includes the picture shown at right of the moderator, Gwen Ifill. Since the parties took a beating for consistently choosing old, white guys for moderators the presidential debates (for the last umpteen years running now), they went (typically) overboard in choosing a young, femal, black, handicapped moderator (well, her ankle’s broken, but she was in a wheelchair). For all we know, she probably rounds out the trifecta by being lesbian and a communist, as well. Well done to whomever managed to cover so many heretofore ignored demographics.↩