It seems not a day goes by when on the editorial pages of my state’s two largest newspapers there isn’t at least one letter published written by a supporter of Sarah Palin that derides "libruls" for their supposed "fear" of the ex-Alaska governor. Here’s an example pulled from a letter in yesterday’s edition of one paper:
"...the Sarahphobia pandemic that has unhinged so many liberals. I don’t get it. What is it about this ditzy, attractive, conservative female that strikes paralyzing fear in the hearts of educated liberal males and the leftstream media, compelling them to attack the hapless woman like pit bulls on a Chihuahua?"
As an educated liberal male, thereby accused, I have since gotten to wondering: is this writer right? Has my heart been stilled by mortal terror of this woman so humorously referred to by the conservative British magazine The Economist as "Boob Bait For Bubba"? Have I taken to attacking this poor unfortunate victim of those librul' meanies Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson?
Does Sarah scare me? Does Sarah scare us? You betcha’, she does.
Now, am I scared of her, personally? No. Mrs. Palin is a great performer, and can sometimes be almost charming in a girl-next-door sort of way. Her wild syntax, folksy colloquialisms, and strings of clichés remind me of any number of neighbors and relatives when I hear them, too, talk of politics. And these people have caused me no cardiac arrhythmias or arrest.
What I am scared of is her incompetence, and her ignorance, and her narcissistic oblivion to both. She not only doesn’t know, she doesn’t know that she doesn’t know. As president, she would surround herself with people who will indeed know that she doesn’t know, anything, and who will know quite adeptly how to take advantage of her, and, by extension, us.
It is of these sycophants and schemers that I am afraid. It is the knowing that the GOP is full of such people, who would swarm to Sarah like lions to red meat, that "strikes paralyzing fear" in my heart.
Mrs. Palin herself is totally vapid, a human cipher without a stitch of credibility or bona fides on any critical subject. She knows most how to be a mom – and my guess is that she’s a good one. But, beyond that, she knows most where the cameras are.
She remains a newsmaker despite her abrupt and bizarre resignation as Alaska governor seemingly only because reporters have adopted a new definition of newsmaker. As in: ‘A newsmaker is someone who is newsworthy because they’re in the news a lot.’ Aside from being second banana on the losing side of a national election, what has Palin done to deserve anything approaching the level of attention she currently receives?
She has become the Paris Hilton of politics, now famous for being famous, and little more.
She gives speeches of no distinction. Garrison Keillor recently keenly observed that her Nashville Tea Party convention speech "was butterscotch pudding made from a box, add hot water and stir."
Mr. Keillor, ever the astute humorist, went on to note that "the tea partiers whooped for her standard Republican stump speech, which is like paying $750 for a hotel room and finding no clean towels and a lot of dead cockroaches and then circling Excellent Excellent Excellent on the customer questionnaire."
She gives terrible interviews. She would do well to remember this wise old saying:
When you are thought of as a fool it is better to remain silent than to speak and remove all doubt.
She is erratic and uneven, and unable to articulate a consistent core philosophy. She is vacuous – there really is no "there" there. She is, bottom line, an example of a bad education, an incurious mind, and a need for constant attention.
But that’s just it, I suppose. She is, in other words, a product of mainstream American culture.
And there’s the rub. Her fans see her as a "normal" person, like them. She speaks, thinks, and acts like a "regular" person, at least a "regular" person in modern-day ill-educated America. Millions look at her and see a glamorized version of themselves: patriotic, religious, family-oriented, hard-scrabble, unfancy, and "real".
Not to mention white and Christian.
Whatever you think of Palin, I offer that she deserves grudging praise for her canny knack and effortless skill in marketing herself as the personification of voter backlash against political and cultural "elites". Millions of ticked off voters truly, madly, deeply feel that Mrs. Palin is the only politician who really gets "it", even though she is unable to articulate beyond vague and empty one-liners what "it" is.
This gun-toting, snowmobile-cruising, moose-hunting former beauty queen has become a cultural icon, little understood by anyone outside this particular culture. She has become so well-entrenched as the darling of the Tea Party ilk that any criticism of her is perceived by her supporters as a pit bull attack on a Chihuahua, and experienced by them as a personal attack on them.
There are lots of honest, hard-working, salt-of-the-earth folks who support Mrs. Palin, of that let us be clear. But what terrifies me is not them, or her. What keeps me up at night me is every kook and krazy with an anti-government, anti-intellectual, anti-immigrant, and anti-abortion axe to grind who has grabbed on to the tail of her shooting star. And I’m afraid that Mrs. Palin lacks the wherewithal to recognize, much less slay, these demons she is unleashing.