Living in the predominantly conservative agricultural area of central Washington state, I don't get to listen to much in the way of progressive or Democratic talk. I must be satisfied with listening to the local conservative talk show hosts, and they have been spending a lot of time discussing Sarah Palin.
Let me go on record here as saying that I don't think that this fascination with Governor Palin advances our political discussion much. It tends to keep her in the limelite and the question of how much money she spent on clothes doesn't really affect how we will get the economy going again, it only serves as a kind of 'post mortem fascination body on the street' kind of thing. Yet, here I am writing about it. Go figure.
Be that as it may, our local conservative spokesmen seem mostly mystified as to how the Governor was rejected by America and where these 'rumors and lies' are coming from, along with how unfair it is. They talked about her recent spate of interviews and how 'relaxed and knowledgable' she sounded when not pressured by the hurly-burly of the election rush.
I decided that I had better listen to this as Ms. Palin's interviews during the campaign had reminded me of a quote by Foghorn Leghorn about the Old Biddy chicken that was always trying to trap him into marriage. "Nice girl, but about as sharp as a sack of wet mice."
After going through the recorded interviews with Fox's Greta Van Susteren and 'The Today Show's Matt Lauer, I was mystified myself.
I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why these people think that Ms. Palin sounds like someone that could hold national public office. Her speech patterns are very odd, substituting homey aphorisms for actual information and coming up with a sort of cloud of words that have only a passing relationship to the question. The classic example of this was her answer to Katie Couric about why the ability to see Russia from her house gave her national security experience.
"We have trade missions back and forth. We, we do, it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where, where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to, to our state."
I'm sure that Governor Palin is working at removing the image of her that has been flash-burned onto a lot of people's retinas by the heat of the campaign, and you certainly can't blame her for that. Whether she is pre-positioning herself for a run at Ted Steven's senatorial seat remains to be seen. But these interviews also reminded me of another quote by Will Rogers. "If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you have to do is stop digging."
I understand why the local talk show jockeys may want to defend her, but it doesn't say much for their judgment and I really wish that someone would just take her shovel away.