Any remaining doubt that America has turned into a nation of drooling imbeciles was laid to rest this week. The New York Times Opinonator collated reactions to the spectacle of Sarah Palin in a vice-presidential debate. Peggy Noonan in the WSJ: "…she killed;" David Brooks in the NYT: "Somewhere in heaven Norman Rockwell is smiling;" Ezra Klein at The American Prospect: "Palin was confident, on-message, and at times, sharp." The right wing pundits weighed in and their verdict on Palin was "umm, umm, good."
But forget the burlesque-librarian looks and street-walker mannerisms; apparently it escaped the notice of the rightist punditocracy that nothing Palin said made any sense. One sample from the transcript, picked at random: "So it was Barack Obama who voted for that energy plan that gave those tax breaks to the oil companies that I then had to turn around, as a governor of an energy-producing state, and kind of undo in my own area of expertise, and that's energy." Huh? Although "undo in her own area of expertise" sounds like she wants to take off her bra on stage. But had she scratched her armpits and howled "eee eee eee" she might have been more lucid.
On the other side of the Atlantic, here's how Michelle Goldberg in The Guardian described Palin's performance: "… fusillades of scripted attack lines, platitudes, lies, gibberish and grating references to her own pseudo-folksy authenticity." Which just about says it all, even if you have to turn to a British newspaper to read it.
Still, in France Le Monde described Palin as "firm and aggressive… faithful to her image of candidate of the people." In India The Hindustan Times saw her as staying "on message." Maybe the language barrier prevented our French and Indian friends from recognizing gibberish for what it was. Maybe they were seduced by her girlish fringe and come-hither winks. Or maybe, like so many of us, they're merely drooling imbeciles.