Sarah's Smiles

Watching Sarah Palin's behavior -- her upbeat energetic delivery, replete with smiles, winks, and other assorted facial expressions -- during the debate with Joe Biden reminded me of a passage from the bestselling book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales, by Oliver Sacks, a prominent neurologist and psychiatrist as well as an author.

Dr. Sacks described his work with aphasic patients. In one incident, he entered a ward to find most of the patients there watching President Ronald Reagan deliver a speech on television and laughing at him hysterically. Dr. Sacks explained, "Why all this? Because speech -- natural speech -- does not consist of words alone...It consists of utterance -- an uttering-forth of one's whole meaning with one's whole being -- the understanding of which involves infinitely more than mere word-recognition. And this was the clue to aphasics' understanding, even when they might be wholly uncomprehending of words as such."

The post-debate reaction has predictably fallen along party lines, Democrats thought Biden had won, and Republicans thought Palin had won; yet virtually all the commentators, including many Democrats, agreed that Sarah Palin's presentation was effective. But what was also universally agreed, even by some Republicans, was that Palin did not answer moderator Gwen Ifill's questions, while Biden did. The transcript of the debate presents a stark contrast between Palin's rambling canned non-answers and Biden's informed thorough on-point responses.

Unsurprisingly, Democrats were critical of Palin, while Republicans were forgiving. In the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan wrote, "Her syntax did not hold, but her magnetism did." In the San Francisco Chronicle, Debra Saunders wrote, "Sure, she had moments when she seemed to be working too hard trying to remember what she was supposed to say so she awkwardly regurgitated a string of campaign buzz words. Who cares?"

In any other walk of life other than politics, not answering questions would result in "a failure to communicate," that memorable line from one of the late Paul Newman's best films, Cool Hand Luke.

But in politics, presentation matters. David Kusnet, the chief speechwriter for Bill Clinton, wrote, "people don't parse debate transcripts; they watch the show on their TV screens. Palin looked and sounded friendly, funny, and confident."

After all, Barack Obama came out of obscurity four years ago on the strength of a single sixteen-minute and twenty-five second speech. Sarah Palin's sudden ascent to fame also came on the wings of a single speech, as did her near-death dive as a result of her disastrous television interviews with CBS's Katie Couric.

Did Sarah's smiles in the debate reverse her and her party's fortunes?

Comments

[sueno]

I have never seen any candidate other than Bush "wink" at the audience-
At first I thought Palin was a former stripper, with all the provocativeness,
Condie Rice and many other "well-qualified" women, wound never stoop so low.
Palin was actually a bad joke on stage, and if you don't believe me, research
where Rick Davis and Palin other "debate trainers" were?
They were afraid to be in the spin room afterwards- why?
Instead of actually being genuine, Palin spent most of her time
on false, weak lies, which have been unraveled, and now Palin
looks like a bigger clown.
Now that we are less than thirty days away-
the real circus is in town and "clowns" McSame and Fail'in
will entertain us until we throw up-

[JenMI]

A must read for those who took this silly debate seriously:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/opinion/04sat1.html

[BluePatriotWoman]

The creepiest moment was when Joe choked up and talked about his kids. In the close-up split screen on C-Span, Palin stands there with the smile still on her face, looking straight ahead. It was a true Stepford moment. All that was missing was one of her trademark winks.

Actually Palin isn't a Stepford candidate or even a Manchurian one. She's much more dangerous than that: she's power hungry and arrogant. So much so that in comparison George Bush seems humble!

[seatea1967]

No, her smile did not "reverse her and her party's fortunes". Next question?

[fishlover]

She could make more of the fact that she's a better shot than most men.

[hartkid]

a propos of the moment:

It doesn't matter what I say
So long as I sing with inflection
That makes you feel that I'll convey
Some inner truth of vast reflection
But I've said nothing so far
And I can keep it up for as long as it takes
And it don't matter who you are
If I'm doing my job then it's your resolve that breaks

Because the hook brings you back
I ain't tellin' you no lie
The hook brings you back
On that you can rely

There is something amiss
I am being insincere
In fact I don't mean any of this
Still my confession draws you near
To confuse the issue I refer
To familiar heroes from long ago
No matter how much Peter loved her
What made the Pan refuse to grow

Was that the hook brings you back
I ain't tellin' you no lie
The hook brings you back
On that you can rely

[Wigelah]

Now I'll be hearing Blues Traveler in my head for the rest of the night. And, that's not a bad thing.

[hartkid]

its pretty prescieNT, NO?

[canow]

It seems pretty clear that the public is not buying it. I think the American public is a lot smarter than we sometimes credit. Mia Nutick did a great post on the real "Joe Six-pack" and why s/he isn't what the Republicans think: http://www.canow.org/canoworg/2008/10/hey-there-joe-s.html

[hopeless277]

We're all just suckers for a pretty face. Is this a great country, or what?

[anon004]

When this post started to quote Dr. Oliver Sachs, I thought it was going to be about how Palin's winking was the sign of a neurological disorder. If not, then it was just weird. Which is even scarier. (There may are medications or therapies for many neurological disorders. You can't fix weird.)

[fairwitness]

I think there was one guy who changed his mind--but he hadn't been winked at in quite a while and thought she meant it just for him.

[fuzzywuzzy6]

This was the commentator for the National Review Online. Keith Olbermann suggested that he was doing nasty things in front of the tv set.

Some of the reactions from right-wing males remind me of those infomercials on tv which feature young white women with impossibly .large breasts and 8 inch cleavages which defy gravity. I imagine the purpose of these young women is to mesmerize men into buying the get rich quickly products or male sexual enhancement products without giving their higher brain a chance to think about it.

Much has been made of Ms. Palin's so-called folksiness. Successfully folksy characters always have pithy comments, much wisdom and colorful metaphor and similes. I suggest the Democrats bring out Jim Hightower from Texas if he is available. I understand he is supporting Obama and he is the real thing: genuinely folksy and a true progressive. He also has a true energy policy since he was elected Public energy commissioner in Texas in the late 70's or early 80's. He was an honest public servant and writes honest commentary today.

Ms. Palin's smiles and winks were forced. she managed to be charming for about 1/3 of the debate. But her enthusiasm could not cover up the emptiness and confusion of her utterances.