http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/23/AR2008102302489.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
Something About Sarah
By Kathleen Parker
Friday, October 24, 2008; A19
My husband called it first. Then, a brilliant 75-year-old scholar and
raconteur confessed to me over wine: "I'm sexually attracted to her. I
don't care that she knows nothing."
Finally, writer Robert Draper closed the file on the Sarah Palin
mystery with a devastating article in this Sunday's New York Times
Magazine: "The Making (and Remaking) of McCain."
McCain didn't know her. He didn't vet her. His campaign team had
barely an impression. In a bar one night, Draper asked one of McCain's
senior advisers: "Leaving aside her actual experience, do you know how
informed Governor Palin is about the issues of the day?"
The adviser thought a moment and replied: "No, I don't know."
Blame the sycamore tree.
McCain had met Palin only once -- in February, at the governors'
convention in Washington -- before the day he selected her as his
running mate. The second time was at his Sedona, Ariz., ranch on Aug.
28, just four days before the GOP convention.
As Draper tells it, McCain took Palin to his favorite coffee-drinking
spot down by a creek and a sycamore tree. They talked for more than an
hour, and, as Napoleon whispered to Josephine, "Voilà ."
One does not have to be a psychoanalyst to reckon that McCain was
smitten. By no means am I suggesting anything untoward between McCain
and his running mate. Palin is a governor, after all. She does have an
executive résumé, if a thin one. And she's a natural politician who
connects with people.
But there can be no denying that McCain's selection of her over others
far more qualified -- and his mind-boggling lack of attention to
details that matter -- suggests other factors at work. His judgment
may have been clouded by . . . what?
Science provides clues. A study in Canada, published by a British
journal in 2003, found that pretty women foil men's ability to assess
the future. "Discounting the future," as the condition is called,
means preferring immediate, lesser rewards to greater rewards in the
future.
Drug dealers, car salesmen and politicians rely on this affliction and
pray feverishly for its persistence.
The Canadian psychologists showed pictures of attractive and
not-so-attractive men and women to students of the opposite sex. The
students were offered a prize -- either a small check for the next day
or a larger check at some later date.
The men made perfectly rational decisions, opting for the delayed,
larger amount after viewing the average-looking women. You know where
this is going. (Women, by the way, were rational no matter what.)
That men are at a disadvantage when attractive women are present is a
fact upon which women have banked for centuries. Ignoring it now
profits only fools. McCain spokesmen have said that he was attracted
to Palin's maverickness, that she reminded him of himself.
Recognizing oneself in a member of the opposite sex (or the same sex,
as the case may be) is a powerful invitation to bonding. Narcissus
fell in love with his own image reflected in the river, imagining it
to be his deceased and beloved sister's. In McCain's case, it doesn't
hurt that his reflection is spiked with feminine approval.
As my husband observed early on, McCain the mortal couldn't mind
having an attractive woman all but singing arias to his greatness.
Cameras frequently capture McCain beaming like a gold-starred
schoolboy while Palin tells crowds that he is "exactly the kind of man
I want as commander in chief." This, notes Draper, "seemed to confer
not only valor but virility on a 72-year-old politician who only weeks
ago barely registered with the party faithful."
It is entirely possible that no one could have beaten the political
force known as Barack Obama -- under any circumstances. And though it
isn't over yet, it seems clear that McCain made a tragic, if familiar,
error under that sycamore tree. Will he join the pantheon of men who,
intoxicated by a woman's power, made the wrong call?
Had Antony not fallen for Cleopatra, Octavian might not have captured
the Roman Empire. Had Bill resisted Monica, Al Gore may have become
president, and Hillary might be today's Democratic nominee.
If McCain, rightful heir to the presidency, loses to Obama, history
undoubtedly will note that he was defeated at least in part by his own
besotted impulse to discount the future. If he wins, he must be
credited with having correctly calculated nature's power to befuddle.
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