A Post-Mortem of the Debate Post-Mortem: Trying to Refrain from Questioning Pat Buchanan's Motives.

Towards the end of last Thursday's vice presidential debate, Joe Biden was asked to explain how he would change the tone of political discourse in Washington. Biden eloquently described a moment when as a young senator who was furious with his colleague Jesse Helms. Apparently, Biden began percolating theories about the dark inner working of Helms's psyche. Another senator, Mike Mansfield pulled Biden aside and chided, "Joe, understand one thing. Everyone's sent here for a reason, because there's something in them that their folks like. Don't question their motive." It was a teaching moment for Biden that has remained with him during his decades in elected office. Where is my Mike Mansfield? Would that I could rise to the spiritual plain of taking views at face value. But it's clear that I'm not there yet. Consider my confession.

In their debate on Thursday, Sarah Palin was unwilling to address herself to a single question. She had the temerity to inform both Biden and the moderator, Gwen Ifill, "I'm not going to answer the questions the way you want me to" and then, dawgonit, went on her winking and cliché spewing way. When Biden contested her views on healthcare with what he took to be the financial details of the proposed McClain plan, Palin ignored him and blithely skipped on to another topic. Palin and her maverick mate are going to reform Washington. How? No clue. No specifics. Mangled grammar and all, it was a performance worthy of the movie Idiocracy.

Amazingly enough, some pundits piped in that Palin exceeded all expectations. True, the expectations were curb level to begin with. Still, David Brooks gasped, "By the end of the debate, most Republicans were not crouching behind the couch, but standing on it. The race has not been transformed, but few could have expected as vibrant and tactically clever a performance as the one Sarah Palin turned in Thursday night."

After effusing about Palin's appearance, MSNBC commentator, Pat Buchanan went beyond Brooks and burbled: "Palin was sensational tonight. She not only met the expectations. I think she wiped up the floor with Joe Biden, quite frankly." Buchanan continued, praising Palin's "fresh voice" and " new vocabulary." The slogan parrot is a fresh voice? Excuse me, but how could anyone with half a brain come to that conclusion? Perhaps it's when we are befuddled by surface meanings that we begin to look for motives.

In one of her rhetorical riffs, Palin pleaded,"Let's have some straight talk." Lets do that. Either Buchanan is a dolt, or, ...well...(and here's where I need my Mike Mansfield)...or we might think about understanding Pat's wild over-evaluation of one of Obama's opponents as emanating from the same inner voice as Buchanan's now infamous, "I thought Amos 'n' Andy was a great show, didn't you?"

For me, Gwen Ifill poses another temptation to ignore the Mansfield/ Biden wisdom. The week before the debate Republicans strategically moaned that Ifill was soon to publish a book, The Breakthrough:The Politics of Race in the Age of Obama. She must then, they complained, surely be in the tank for Obama. It was a clear case of working the refs and it worked. Ifill over-reacted to the controversy. When Palin decided she would only answer the questions on the cue cards in her noggin, Ifill should have gently nudged, "Thank you Governor but could you kindly repeat your response to the question that I posed." But the moderator demurred. Why?

Plato taught that one of the greatest temptations in life is the desire to be liked. In my benighted, motive seeking state, I can't help but think that Ifilll's silence was an expression of her fear that after the squabble about the book, her reputation would be tainted for being too hard on Palin. Ifill was so afraid of appearing unjust that she could not do justice to her job as moderator. But there I go again, speculating about motives.

Comments

[Gould123]

I have a simple request! I want to know were Palin stands on the economy/her/mccains plans. I want to know how they plan to help wall street recover/beyond that/world market-no smears-just answers!

[hollybork]

I empathize with you. Unfortunately, the voting public had only Gwen Ifill to rely upon. Its harder to get in college than get onto the republican ticket for VP. McCain chose an unknown VP, and then closed the lid on interviews. In the face of this, Gwen Ifill couldn't rise to the occasion as her civic duty, be focused and tough. Her duty was to expose Palin's general reservoir of knowledge, her cognitive habits and executive thinking capacity so we would not as voters be facing a "pig in a poke" choice. Palin preened and performed, winked and flirted, but Ifill was apparently too intimidated to pull back the curtain on the charade. Her questions were predictable and......yes, boring. We learned one thing only, that Palin admired Dick Cheney's constitutional heresies. I would have asked Palin her view on the constitutional arguments for and against unitary executive, did she think credit default swaps should be made illegal, what is the scope of executive privilege? Whom does she think controls our Justice Dept.? Why should the public pay for a full time political operative as assistant to the president? What was the cause of the missinformation which lead us into the Iraq war and who was responsible for that? Is it the attorney general's duty to enforce congressional subpoenas on employees of the executive branch? What power does the President have to unlaterally withdraw from treaties? Does water boarding constitute torture? Does she support an energy excess profits tax?

[AnAverageAmerican]

I would have handled Palin the same way as Ifill. Number 1) Palin was debating Biden not the moderator; 2) it does not matter how many times you ask the question, the fact is, Palin does not know the answer. That is why she changes the subject. So why belabor it when there is only 90 minutes in the debate.

[Dap]

Dear Professor Marino,

I must confess to being spiritually shallow in this regard to being enlightened by choosing not to ascribe "motive" as a reason for folks/person to move in a particular direction in personal philosophy­/ideology.

The gnosis interpretation Senator Biden spoke to, caught my attention, and I didn't know what to make of it, especially that it seemed so profound to Senator Biden.(Guess ya had to be there, inside Senator Biden's head?) I'm not there yet as well, it escapes me. Yet it has had me pondering, strange you should have spoken to this subject?

For the response to your post, it seems the subject is of interest to many, it is an excellent essay without question, I wish there was more space and I had the time to cover the many aspects involved, but alas, there is not enough of either. Agape.

[Gordon Marino - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks for taking the time to write. As I understood Biden there is a tendency to dismiss people's views on the basis of a perceived motive - to reduce their position to a motive - and we should try and take the opinions of others at face value. Thanks and best
Gordon

[Dap]

Thanks for your response, and I concur with what you wrote.
The problem, from my POV, especially that Senator Jesse A.Helms Jr. was the subject of the supposed profound insight use in the example, created a clear fallacy argument for me, Helms was a very bad example to use in order to proffer giving someone the benefit of the doubt, in such cases.

A political leader may be representative of their constituency or a political leader may lead their constituency in a given direction, knowing and understanding the difference is of paramount import, especially when problem solving. I know better than to give the likes of Jesse Helms any quarter, that's foolish.
All the Best back-at-ya Professor Maino

[Sandahl]

Gordon, can you plz dissect this one....

"Palin on Freedom of the Press

Is this some kind of threat against freedom of the press, or just a completely incoherent ramble? I honestly don't know. Either she's sinister or just way too dumb to be president:"

""As we send our young men and women overseas in a war zone to fight for democracy and freedoms, including freedom of the press, we've really got to have a mutually beneficial relationship here with those fighting the freedom of the press, and then the press, though not taking advantage and exploiting a situation, perhaps they would want to capture and abuse the privilege. We just want truth, we want fairness, we want balance.""

--Jonathan Chait

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/10/03/palin-on-freedom-of-the-press.aspx

[Gordon Marino - Huffpost Blogger]

Got me on that one. That one is an incoherent ramble.

best,
Gordon

[cherrycola]

To me, this is an instructive (even if extremely depressing) example of how much goodwill people are inclined to give toward someone who is "just like me." I am thinking of all of the job interviews where skin color, language / accent and other significations of familiarity played a large part in the decision of employers to forgive certain shortcomings in applicants for employment.
The same people who are dead-set against affirmative action ironically seem to be among the pool of people who will overlook such things as a record of academic mediocrity, woefully poor grammar, the inability to articulate a coherent thought and little in the way of knowledge in this white Vice Presidential candidate. In their minds we're all treated equal in this country and therefore affirmative action gives "undeserving" people of color too much of an advantage.

[Gordon Marino - Huffpost Blogger]

The just like me criterion seems inordinately important in the US. And thanks for the insight on the connectin with affirmative action. Never thought of it that way.
best,
Gordon

[Jezreel]

Morino wrote:
"Plato taught that one of the greatest temptations in life is the desire to be liked. In my benighted, motive seeking state, I can't help but think that Ifilll's silence was an expression of her fear that after the squabble about the book, her reputation would be tainted for being too hard on Palin. Ifill was so afraid of appearing unjust that she could not do justice to her job as moderator."

Those are my sentiments too.

[Gordon Marino - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks for taking the time to write. be well
Gordon

[notb observer]

In the past few days I've heard surrogates and "pundits" filling the airwaves with attempts at defending Palin's performance, both for the Couric interviews and the recent debate. I cannot help but wonder how it is possible for an American adult, parent, and most importantly, state governor to have felt no desire to be at least minimally informed on issues of import to the nation. Couric treated us with what appears to be a damning "caught on tape" moment where Palin could not name a single publication she had read, but claimed she had read all of them. The lack of response seemed so implausible that I wondered if she was simply experiencing a stage fright induced mental block, or if she had simply not been "prepped" for the question, and worried that if she named a publication that she did read, it might not be the "correct political answer", whether because the publication(s) she did read were not "Republican" enough, or worse yet, were along the lines of Good Housekeeping or Field & Stream... Does she not have intelligent trusted friends or close family who might have warned her that she was getting in over her head by accepting this nomination ? Her parents were watching the debate... would they not feel compelled to speak the truth to her ?

[ProudAm]

In all this (unfortunately for the American people) we see a classic example of authoritarianism, which is not just isolated to conservatives or the Republican party but is certainly rampant in its roles. It is hard for many of us to imagine (both here and abroad) how this is happening, these 'Buzz Windrip' candidates actually being considered for these positions of such great world importance!

Like a study that was done in the early sixty's, I believe (the Millgram experiment or something similar) it shows how people will follow an authoritarian leader figure even when it goes against their own moral or conscience belief of right and wrong. Isn't this how political and religious persecusions have been perpetrated throughout history?

In this and recent cases the Republican party is preying on peoples fear and using buzz words to stoke that sense of fear and ire. This is truly frightening from a number of fronts, are people (we Americans in this instance) really this stupid?

Mr. Buchanan is a classical authoritarian figure. Authoritarian leaders as opposed to followers tend to be exceedingly agressive, although authoritarian followers share that same quality to a lesser degree. John McCain is another authoritarian leader figure and like most other authoritarians the use of extreme rationalization is in play to justify their actions and beliefs.

What to do? Think, use your abiltiy for reasoning and of course everything that goes along with that! We must choose and cast our votes in Nov. !

[Gordon Marino - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks. I think you right about the fear mongering. The idea of the authoritarian personality is relevant here. The danger for me is one of demonizing people I strongly disagree with to the point where I too throw about my hands about the possibility of rational persuasion. Be well. Gordon

[Gordon Marino - Huffpost Blogger]

sorry- I meant throw UP my hands- give up on the possibility of even semi rational persuasion.

[notb observer]

Lately I've been struck (after someone pointed it out on TV) by how buzzword-centered the neo-con apparatus really is. The latest, coming out of the Couric interview was "gotcha journalism" and "trapdoor questions".
These are tiny mental morsels that in no way describe reality, but they are easy to remember and to digest, even though they are generally not true. Just like the often abused "Maverick" label, these meaningless buzzwords do nothing more than coalesce the ignorant unthinking masses.
I saw a great example immediately following the debate. Palin headed off to a rally/reception and as soon as she got on stage she whipped the waiting imbeciles into a frenzied chant of "USA, USA..." To be fair, I've seen adoring Obama crowds chant "Yes we can" on several occasions, so this unfortunate primitive phenomenon seems to be widespread :(
It's reminiscent of the mass of religious fundamentalists on the Sunday evangelical programs who repeatedly chant "Praise Jeebus" or whatever. The same can be said of the behavior of soldiers in training or in battle, but at least in the military context, the aim is to elicit immediate action and to disregard normal self preservation instincts.

[Gordon Marino - Huffpost Blogger]

I agree about the use of slogans. I caught the USA chant too- as though we were at the Olympics or something. Thanks
G

[ekrub]

Ifill probably understands that to press Palin for nonexistent answers would be an exercise in futility.

As for Brooks, Lowry, Buchanan, et. al., water rises to its own level.

[Gordon Marino - Huffpost Blogger]

Maybe but it at least would have made it plain that Palin did not answer the question she posed or on a more optimistic note , it could have prodded Palin into backing up and actually trying to answer the question.
Thanks
G

[studioh!]

I'd like to think that Ifill just ignored Palin because of the great uphil battle it would represent. Surely, most thinking people watching her performance would -and did- see through the betchas, gotchas, and hockeymomisms. This woman will bring divisiveness to a new level - that's why she's wearing the lipstick.
She should take her newborn special-needs baby and the rest of the family back home and do some nurturing. The baby on stage after the debate was totally inappropriate, but probably looked swell to the repug base.

"All your bases belong to us"

[Gordon Marino - Huffpost Blogger]

I hope your right about most people. I also thought her trotting her infant on stage at 11 pm was the ultimate in using your child as a prop. Thanks
Gordon

[UsofA]

While I am not a Republican conservative, I've always reserved a modicum of respect for writer David Brooks and commentator Pat Buchanan. But to see them disregard country for the sake of their party is nauseating. Here are men of supposed wisdom and intelligence fawning over Palin, an intellectual and ethical lightweight who, if elected, would very likely be handed the keys to our government. Now, maybe Buchanan and Brooks genuinely feel that their children, spouses and extended families would be in competent hands with McCain and Palin. I don't. I'm saddened at witnessing the Republican party and it's acolytes like Buchanan and Brooks dispense with reason and measured intelligence all in the pursuit of power. Power at the expense of everything America has traditionally stood for.

[maribelle1963]

I agree with every word you wrote.

One of the most frightening aspects of this campaign has been to watch intelligent conservatives WHO KNOW BETTER praising Palin. They know darn well she isn't up to the job. Very few have said so--and kudos to those who have, like George Will and Kathleen Parker (the latter recieved death threats from her side for doing so.)

I miss the old conservatives, like my Dad and Grandma. Thrifty but deeply compassionate, never greedy, conserving resources and against foreign wars. *sigh*

[Gordon Marino - Huffpost Blogger]

That is the part that got me- the ones that know better. Maybe I shouldn't have even expected better from PB.
best,
G

[maggieblue]

I think Ifill was put in the unfortunate position of seeming biased if she had questioned­/challenge­d Palin. Simultaneously, Biden would have seemed sexist/patronizing had he challenged her as well. Although I would have loved to see Ifill redirect Palin to the question and not let her "not answer", they had to play it neutral for the sake of not seeming to tilt the debate towards Biden. This was a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I am BAFFLED in regards to the ratings Palin got and the overexaggerated praise she received over her performance. It was clear that the bar was set on the floor, and all she had to do was step over it. She proved she can speak in complete sentences and stick to talking points when she doesn't know the answer. She proved she can change the subject quickly and having the audience forget what the original question was. She proved she can talk about energy independence, and how it pertains (or not) to the economy, health care, foreign policy, and any other issue that was brought up. Oh, and she apparently does not have an Achille's heel.

The media did America a disservice by praising this performance. I hope voters are smart enough to see through the smokescreen.

[schatsie]

Don't know whether the voters are smart enough... think about Bush and his speeches, if he got away with it, why would Palin not get away with it..

[scottowego]

And once again.... America has shown that it considers the elections of our highest offices to be the equivalent of a pro football game or a boxing match. Even the use of the term "ref" in this article. It doesn't seem to matter what the candidates say or espouse as long as our team wins. Screw what is best for the country. Time to wake up and realize this is not entertainment folks. This is about you, your kids and your grandkids futures.

[Gordon Marino - Huffpost Blogger]

That's right - politics as entertainment - pick the leader that you like, that is, can identify with the most. Imagine if we picked our docs that way- but they are only concerned with the state of our bodies not the health of the state. Thanks
G

[MathIsTruth]

The problem is NOT that America considers debates to be the equivalent of pro football. The problem is that debates are presented by the candidates as scripted professional wrestling.

We saw the real Sarah Palin in the Katie Couric interviews. At the debates, all we saw was other people's ideas and other people's words *performed*.

Clearly, if anyone saw the debating Palin as someone who reads newspapers, or who has detailed perspectives on foreign policy or economics, or who can succinctly express a point of view on any topic, well, that person has been hoodwinked by a good performance.

You can watch an episode of "E.R." and then fairly critique an actor's performance. But by watching the episode you learn NOTHING about that actor's medical expertise in real life.

If it's presented as performance, it is rightly critiqued as performance.

[Gordon Marino - Huffpost Blogger]

And then there are those who don't want you to learn about the candidate. They only want the candidate to win, at any cost.

[mrmoodmdh]

Could we not have just had a debate where Palin realized 90 minutes with Gwyn Iffil was not intended to be be synonymous with “Survivor”. The difference? The Vice-Presidential Debate is reality and Survivor is a reality show. No one is being voted off an island (however tempting the thought), someone is being voted into the office of President. Now, to be fair – this play of showmanship and charisma may 'shore up' support among those who want to know that someone average, with whom we might have a beer, is in office running things. Bush was Joe-sixpack. It's not that we've been there and done that. We ARE there and we ARE doing that. However, it will not shore up the support which serves as a sufficient embankment to build a legitimately stabilized infrastructure which can and will fortify us as a credible nation both domestic and abroad.

[Gordon Marino - Huffpost Blogger]

Great comment. Like survivor - that's it. best,
Gordon