> > O.K. folks how many more images can you bring to mind of
> > women you love to hate? Have at it.
>
> Bitter menopausal bull dyke Obama-hater?
How 'bout "Women so obsessive about their own
lack of accomplishment and their own sense of
victimhood that they'll identify with any woman
who gets into the news, even if she's dumb as
a post and against everything they stand for
personally, just because she's female and got
into the news and they didn't and never will."
Too long, I know. Dr. Pete's is shorter and
more to the point.
Sarah Palin is Not Secretly a Genius
And other obvious truths that shouldn't need proving.
by Daniel Polansky
Some very smart, very serious people have been spending a lot of time
lately working themselves into a tizzy trying to defend their ongoing
romance with the Governor of Alaska. "Okay," they seem willing to
admit, "Palin might be a little weak on foreign policy, domestic
policy, energy policy, financial policy, the economy in general, the
fundamental workings of the state and federal government, geography,
rhetoric, history and basic grammar, but these are just gaps in her
knowledge, easily fixable by a spending a few hours in front of
Wikipedia or flipping through flash cards. They don't in any way cast
doubt in some fundamental way on her intellect or character."
This is such a bizarre and indefensible thesis that one almost feels
bad responding to it, as one would the taunts of children or the
developmentally disabled. I had hoped that as the election subsided
the Governor's defenders would shrink away chagrined, the bitter
morning light revealing the object of their affaire de coeur a false
Aphrodite, her nails pasties and her luxurious hair a weave. But the
choruses of "Palin 2012" have not abated and thus it becomes necessary
to dispense with this whole "Palin is smart but untutored" meme once
and for all.
First, Gov. Palin may be young for a politician but she is not in fact
actually young. Forty-four is a lot of years to have spent walking the
earth without having learned all the countries involved in the North
American Free Trade Agreement (there are three, and she's a governor
for one of them.) The suggestion that she's some sort of prodigy who
just hasn't been exposed to basic civic information is absurd. If this
woman were anywhere near sharp enough to be put in charge of any major
undertaking she would have picked up this information solely by
osmosis after nearly a half-century.
There is also the assumption that all of these nuanced policy-related
questions are somehow out of her bailiwick, as if someone sprinted up
to her and demanded in-depth information about how to caulk a faucet
or snake a drain. But Palin isn't ignorant as compared with say, the
head of the CIA or the Secretary of Educationshe seems to lack
fundamental knowledge about basic information. Her inability to name a
Supreme Court decision in the Couric interview, or obviously the whole
is-Africa-a-continent thingthis isn't like being unsure of the
sub-chairmen of the Pakistani senate. Any reasonably intelligent
individual, interested in the workings of the society in which they
operate and the world in which they reside would have been able to
pick most of this stuff up. To return to the previous analogy for a
moment, this is the equivalent of expecting her to know that excrement
goes in the toilet and not the sinkyou don't exactly need to be Joe
the Plumber to have hashed that one out.
All this, of course, is putting aside the obvious truth that she is
not only a politician but also an elected official, and thus expected
to be capable of coherent speech about politics in general and the
government that she serves in particular. The entire purpose of a
representative democracy is that the people elect an individual of
appropriate intellect and character who is (or at least becomes) an
expert on the issues they face. Her ignorance therefore of political
issues represents not simply a disturbing lack of intellectual
curiosity for the executive of a state but an actual failure on her
part to faithfully discharge the duties of her office.
Against these varied and reasonable objections her defenders can offer
little. At best they mistake charisma for intellect, at worst they
rant endlessly about elitism, as if only latte-sipping New York
theater critics consider being able to present one's thoughts
coherently a prerequisite of leadership. If possible they prefer not
to enter into the debate at all, fiating simply that by virtue of
having obtained her post she must be an individual of substantive
intellectual standing. This is a cheap form of argumentum ad populum,
and its introduction into the debate is sophistry. I have no idea why
the citizens of Alaska elected this woman governorlikely they
intuited she wasn't exactly the reincarnation of Isaac Newton but felt
her sufficiently equipped to cut them their oil money check. Mass
democracy is a poor method of assigning merit. Hitler was elected
chancellor. The people of Washington, DC elected Marion Barry governor
(twice). One does not accept consensus opinion over the reporting of
one's senses and the judgments of objective reason.
It is understandable that people like Gov. Palin; she's quite likable.
I kind of like her. But it's unreasonable not to recognize that the
qualities one finds attractive in Palin are not the qualities that
would serve the country in good stead as a national politician.
Foremost amongst those traits not in the meaty section of the Venn
Diagram between "Successful Leaders" and "Sarah Palin" is the ability
to process and synthesize raw information. While it is true in the
abstract that intellect and knowledge are not identical, in practice
they are two horses that generally pull in the same harness. Ignorant
people tend to be stupid, and stupid people tend to be ignorant. In my
mind, any reasonable observer watching Palin's performance since
entering the national stage would have to conclude that she is both.
