We go through this strange dance every four years, where we all agree to a fiction. That fiction is politics. We, the people who cover politics, know that this is all a show and yet we all implicitly agree to not let the American people in on it.
Sarah Palin is given credit for a great speech Wednesday night. But why? We all know she didn't write it. It wasn't her thoughts, her ideas or even her decision. She read the speech they gave her like a good little student. She is not the decision maker. She is an actress, that's all. And we all agree to pretend she is the person who meant the words she spoke in that speech.
This is a huge fraud we perpetrate upon the American people. It is particularly egregious in the case of Palin because we all know she had absolutely nothing to do with that speech other than to deliver it. At least we presume McCain contributed to the ideas behind his speech, even if he didn't write the specific words (at least we hope that he at least contributed the ideas, but we're not even entirely sure of that).
So, it turns out Sarah Palin reads well from a prompter and the media declared it a "grand slam." Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper and Chris Wallace all proclaimed, "A star is born." Ironically, that is exactly what she is -- a star, an actress. Do we care what's behind the screen?
This is all doubly ironic because the McCain campaign have been complaining about how Obama is a "celebrity" and that giving a good speech doesn't mean you're ready to lead. But then Palin gives a good speech (which by the way was not really a good speech because it was a purely negative message that didn't relate to the lives and problems of real people at all) and, voila, she is judged ready to lead. Is anyone awake?
I was the first one to say we shouldn't underestimate Sarah Palin because I saw that she had a very good camera presence in her few television appearances and she did some things as governor that could appeal to independents. So, let me be the first to warn in the other direction. Her speech meant absolutely nothing. It proves zero, zilch, nada about her. It proves she was a surprisingly undervalued sports anchor.
This woman has more skeletons in her closet than a Halloween party. She was not vetted at all. You don't think that's not going to come back to bite them? They're going to be so lucky that they picked the one person in the country who is going to be completely clean by chance? The vetting process gets you down to the one person who is best able to withstand this scrutiny. If you don't do it, you're playing Russian Roulette with your campaign.
McCain has always been a wild-eye gambler. You know what happens with wild-eye gamblers? They get crushed. They lose everything they have. You haven't heard the last of Palin's troubles. One well-delivered speech does not wipe away all of the problems with her candidacy.
We are being asked to elect a person who was the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska two years ago. She won her last election for mayor by getting 909 votes. Not a margin of 909, just 909 votes period. She's been a Pentecostal for a long time (when do we uncover the tapes of her shaking and speaking in tongues). She was neck deep in petty, parochial politics. Why would she ever think that doing things like trying to get her brother-in-law fired in Alaska would come back to bite her?
And currently she has been studying foreign policy for a week straight to try to learn what she is supposed to say about national security. Nobody is that good an actor. If you don't know foreign policy, you don't know it. If the press can't expose that, they suck.
I have always thought the idea of having foreign policy "experience" is a bit of a sham. There are very few people outside of the president who have real foreign policy experience. So, the trick is to really know your stuff. To have studied for along time what the conflicts and issues are all about. What makes different nations, tribes, sects, religions, national leaders tick. Obama has been studying this for years. Biden has been working on it for decades. McCain has been involved in it for a long time, too (though I think he assumes he knows what he is talking about because he's a "war hero" and hasn't done the hard work of actually knowing all of the different factors involved in foreign policy). This is not something you learn in a week.
One of the reasons I say all this is because she is yet another empty vessel for the Republicans. God forbid she becomes president, do we have any idea who will capture her in the White House? Who will be her Dick Cheney and what incredibly foolish thing will they convince her to do? The fate of the free world cannot lie in the hands of a person who's most important qualification is that she reads well from a prompter. Please tell me we're not all that stupid.