Palin, Sanford and the Art of Spontaneous Combustion

This week, self-immolation gold medalist, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, edged out former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer by thirteen months on the Olympic stopwatch.

Now quivering at the flameout victory dais is Alaska Governor Sarah Palin whose oddly-reasoned resignation will likely suck up some of Sanford's oxygen. How exactly can a governor stomp away from a small state capitol to escape political "blood-sport" mendacity to even contemplate a run for the presidency, which, if my civics is correct is, like, way bigger?

The one word that surfaces in virtually all scandal media analysis is "mishandled," as in "How could Palin and Sanford have mishandled their crises so badly?"

The question misses the point, and what's called for is clearer perspective in the form of a proper lens through which to view crisis management.

First, a crisis is, by its very nature, mishandled. Crises are not conspiracies, they are improvisational failures, at the root of which is banal humanity, not premeditated cunning. There is not a manual for how a family-values Republican governor of a major state -- one thought to be a presidential contender, no less -- can vaporize to get some covert action in Argentina using public transportation, and keep everything on the QT. Ditto Spitzer and Palin, who was jaw-droppingly unready for primetime upon her elevation to the national ticket.

The crisis-besieged, as a rule, are five steps behind the rest of us in realizing what's happening to them, much in the same way that it often takes a friend (or a mirror) to appreciate that we've got the remnants of a spinach explosion on our teeth.

The crisis-besieged are feeling their way through a dark forest in a foggy evening. The rest of us are wearing night-vision goggles in the form of saturation coverage in the print, broadcast and online media. "We" can see everything, even if it's wrong.

Then, from John Edwards to Larry Craig, we hear the inevitable barbs about bad advice, as if the most powerful people in the country, who have the broadest array of resources in the civilized world, willfully select imbeciles to advise them -- and then choose to heed the single most moronic nugget of counsel ("Okay, then, so I think I'll fire up this acetylene blowtorch while I spray hi-test gasoline in an around the tank of my Lamborghini...")

When the crisis catalyst is hidden deep within the soul, as is the case with most scandals, the challenge is even harder because the scandalized take a while to be wired to receive transmissions. Or, as David Foster Wallace said, "A dog, if you point at something, will follow only your finger."

Most scandal figures have perfectly good advisors, but pistol-whipping clients into submission isn't part of the damage control service. Moreover, when dealing with grandiose personalities (and organizations), the advisors that tend to stay around to bill another day are often those who learn to subtly pimp for the crisis-besieged, not throw cold water on them.

We are seeing with Sanford and Palin the fallacy of Explaining Oneself as the antidote to the public relations ailment. Truth is, there is no correlation between the quantity of one's rhetoric and the successful resolution of a PR mess. As Jon Stewart admonished Sanford, "God killed Michael Jackson to save your ass and you gave another interview?!" Governor Sanford: Journalists traffic in the "spill everything" canard because it's good for them, not for you.

Sanford will someday look back upon this period and suffer a catharsis, that moment of recognition where he'll want to pistol-whip himself. Many of us can invoke the Ghost of Passion Past and conjure up that cartoon moment when Bugs Bunny discovers his folly and visibly morphs into an ass. But most of us get to marinate in our self-loathing far from the tyranny of YouTube.

As Palin contemplates her future, if she is to find her way through the political forest, she's going to have to stop bleating about the meanness of public life and liberal media bias. She happens to be right on both accounts, but she should never say it. This chestnut came to me more than two decades ago courtesy of Ronald Reagan's legendary "image maker" Michael Deaver, who admonished a few of his very young aides on the White House tennis court that "you don't whine your way into the Oval Office."

What Americans respect more than anything is seeing how well our leaders can take the beatings we give them. While surgical concessions to attacks have been known to make sense, the Besieged would be well-served to consider just saying, "Fine. Sorry. Next."

Comments

[SpencerCat]

"she's going to have to stop bleating about the meanness of public life and liberal media bias. She happens to be right on both accounts, but she should never say it."

Wow. Can we stop the "liberal media bias" canard? Your use of this phrase immediately turned me off your post.

As if the media would fawn all over Sarah Palin if she was a Democrat.

[Willow207]

Mark Sanford
Sarah Palin

GOP Babblers..­..ramblers going nowhere except the trash!

[bdaved]

But some people do willfully select imbeciles to advise them, as long as the imbeciles advise them to do what they wanted to anyway.

[ZenBastard]

“You have to know what you're getting into…but when I hear a statement like that coming from a woman candidate with any kind of perceived whine about that excess criticism or you know maybe a sharper microscope put on her, I think, 'man that doesn't do us any good' -- women in politics, women in general wanting to progress this country, I don't think it bodes well for her, a statement like that. I mean, work harder, prove yourself to an even greater degree that you're capable, that you're going to be the best candidate... So it bothers me a little bit hearing her bring that attention to herself on that level.” – Sarah Palin

Those were Sarah’s comments when Hillary complained about excessive press coverage when HRC was running for President. This is a complete 180 from the way she has acted ever since she came into the national spotlight. As with so many things Palin-esque she has one set of rules for herself & another set that gets applied to everyone else.

So you can all stop whining about how everyone’s picking on poor little Sarah. She can dish it but she can’t take it. Typical double standard when it comes to Sarah Failin’.

[dali partin]

I'm tired of hearing about liberal media bias. SP got a million passes. Obama's minister was front page news. How about Sarah's witch exorcism? Questions about Obama's associations were front page news. How about the AIP? These things were documented and the mainstream press ignored them, and she still failed.

[cocl]

I quite agree! Inspired by a HuffPost article, I spent the weekend reading up on her religious affiliations, and it was like looking straight into hell. Her prayer network actually BOASTS about having helped to kill Mother Teresa and Princess Diana, having brought blindness and cancer on an Alaskan woman, having made car engines blow up and the basilica in Assisi suffer an earth quake! This is not Christianity, this is Satanism!

[dali partin]

I've seen those articles and they terrify me as well.

The thing that frightens me the most is that the media seems to be applying it's own gag order on these things. And she at least knows enough to keep her lips sealed on her own religious agenda. But it creeps into her speeches and I personally feel that it's her primary goal.

[sjones66]

PS That phrase "liberal media" is so '80's. When you look at the charts of those major media corps, you see that in the '90's, they began to become one huge conglom. It's all about money.

[sjones66]

Bingo. Liberal media???? Really? She never had to answer a question, have a presser, or explain her secessionist ties, her witch hunting pastor, her Holy War comments, the firing of so many in her past who did not agree with her, the accusations of mishandling money, the Recall Movement that was started soon after she became mayor of Wasilla....

Liberal media? Really. That is not reality. There is no liberal media. there is a military industrial media complex, owned by four big corporations. they vote republican, get big contracts, and all they care about is money (again, they vote republican). they care that they will be allowed to move their corp off-shore so they don't have to pay taxes here...but they do not give one iota of a crap about the fourth estate, doing their jobs as journalists, or feeding the liberal agenda.

[BarryS]

Actually, how is it that Gov Sanford doesn't see himself as an adulterer, merely someone deeply in love with his soulmate. He could have divorced his "problem" and then went on to the love of his life, but he chose to humiliate everyone: himself, his wife, his children, his souldmate, the people of SC.

It's not even a gray line he crossed. He professes religious belief, yet ignores an admonishment repeated 40 times in the bible. he goes to counselling [and gets a passing grade] and leaves the room to run to the mistress. How can he live with himself?

And, his wife is ready to forgive him over and over again, while they spew nonsense about sanctity of marriage, and how Gay people are destroying marriage. They have destroyed their marriage and by example are destroying many many others. What role models! What eqos.