Okay, we've all had our fun making fun of Sarah Palin, from her Naughty Monkey shoes to her ability to confuse geography with foreign relations experience. It's time to stop rubbing our hands in glee at the train wreck we anticipate on Thursday night, and to hold her to the same standard we would use for any other vice-presidential candidate.
Here's why: The current double standard sets the bar, for her, at about ankle height, while Joe Biden is expected to perform like the seasoned statesman he is. If she pronounces her name correctly, the Republican spin doctors are going to say she exceeded everyone's expectations. If she manages to get from the beginning of a complex sentence to the end, those same spin doctors will swear she won the debate. If Biden hiccups once or pauses to catch his breath, they're going to say he faltered.
As long as we have no expectations of Sarah Palin beyond comic relief, she can't help but do better than we think she will. That's what the McCain campaign will spend the next month telling the undecideds -- that she did better than anyone thought she would, that she proved herself a worthy opponent. By their reasoning, I can claim to be a world-class volleyball player: Since nobody expects me to be able to get the ball over the net, my skill at standing inside the court boundaries while holding the ball in my hand looks pretty impressive.
Why would we cut her any slack? She is running for the heartbeat-away slot -- and if you want to sober up fast, think about that, seriously, for thirty seconds. Imagine her appointing a Supreme Court justice, or two, or three, or training her sights on free speech, or keeping us in Iraq, well, forever. We should set the bar higher than high for all four of the candidates. If she can't make a convincing leap, she shouldn't be competing.
So, to quote Aaron Sorkin's Josiah Bartlett, "break's over." We've made our jokes. Now it's time to get serious, to hold an accounting in the vice-presidential debate as though the contenders were evenly matched. We have to judge her on content, not style, on ability, not gender, on vision, not designer eyeglasses. We have to evaluate her with rigor and then dismiss her. Remember: Tina Fey plays it for laughs. Sarah Palin doesn't.