The one and only vice presidential debate of this election season was held Oct. 2. I’d been rather eager to see the debate, especially after Gov. Sarah Palin’s poor performances in just about every public forum in which she’s been. I was expecting to feel embarrassed for her, up there against a long-serving senator with an army of facts and figures to assist him. She can’t speak intelligently about any major policy issue, and her debating style is limited to deploying standard Republican talking points, and, when those don’t cut the vice presidential mustard, to winking at the audience and attacking the moderator for asking questions the American public doesn’t care about.
Only we do care. Our country is facing what could, quite seriously, become a serious economic recession, complete with breadlines, pandemic homelessness and, perhaps most terrifying of all, the inability to consume wasteful and needless amounts of stuff. One’s blood practically curdles at the thought.
We do care what she thinks about Israel, Iran, Iraq. We do care about her political views of a resurgent Russia. We do care about her views on education, health care and the environment. We do care about her views on the role of government in the marketplace. She can’t say that we need more oversight and then in the next breath say that government isn’t the answer. The cognitive dissonance must have a team of psychiatrists working around the clock to keep her head from exploding.
Her performance in the Oct. 2 debate was illuminating, for it demonstrated clearly her contempt for the average thinking American who won’t settle for vague platitudes and semi-erotic winking and colloquialisms like “doggone” and “darn.”
She lamented the old guard in Washington, while seeming to forget that Sen. John McCain is the oldest of the old guard. It makes one wonder whether she even knows that McCain is her presidential running mate. After all, the two of them had only met a handful of times, and McCain probably needs reminding every morning who this woman is.
It’s too late for McCain to change his mind and select a quality candidate. The election is less than a month away, and no matter how many times Henry Kissinger attempts to tutor her on realpolitik and geopolitical strategy, she’s not going to significantly improve her knowledge base.
The nomination of Sarah Palin represents an unprecedented opportunity in America: The opportunity to send a message to our leaders that lightweights like Palin have no business doing anything other than minding their own. Make your voice heard.