Sarah Palin's Not Done Yet - The World's New "Ugly American"

We might all think that, come Tuesday, if indeed all goes as expected (nail-gnawing encouraged), Sarah Palin will mercifully retreat from public view and we won't have to wince any more at every one of her awful, ain't-I-cute? winks, or at least not until her love-America-by-preaching-hate supporters try to build her up into a 2012 presidential candidate.

But I've got bad news for anyone who - unlike Palin and her core supporters - actually travels to other countries with some regularity: We Americans are going to be answering for this one for a long time.

A couple of nights ago, I was at an East Berlin night spot called Kaffee Burger talking to a German guy demanding answers of me. Yes, sure, it looks good for Obama, and yes, sure, that will be a big step forward for the U.S. and probably the world, too, but the disturbing question about Palin remains: How is it even POSSIBLE that such a person could get so close to so much power?

To be clear, it's not the stuff about the wardrobe and the makeup. Those stories hop the Atlantic, as surely as the latest financial temblors, but what makes the real impact is Palin's dizzying combination of ignorance and arrogance, no matter what the subject, no matter how little she might know about it.

Put it this way: To get a feel for what it's like listening as a European to Palin's flourishes of happy, overconfident nonsense, whether on Putin's head traveling into U.S. air space or whatever else, just pretend you were one of those good people in Erie, Pennsylvania, this week when Palin mentioned the Phillies and expected easy cheers! Talk about tone deaf. That's a little like asking Mets fans to cheer the Yankees for winning another World Series.

The point is: It's all about understanding geography. If you're sitting in Encino, California, and you hear Palin failing to make much sense in talking about the Georgia crisis, in fact outlining a scenario where we would "perhaps" have to go to war with Russia, you might not care that much about what she says. Here in Europe, where Cold War doctrine envisioned Europe as the playing field where Russians and Americans would battle it out, you have a right to recoil - in anger and disgust - at even having to imagine having a person with so little world knowledge in a top U.S. leadership role.

We've heard an awful lot of talk this political cycle about how people in other countries don't like us much any more, thanks to Bush, but usually this talk is vague and shallow, which, come to think of it, is how we Americans are widely seen in Europe: vague and shallow. Add cocky to the list and the "Hockey Mom" self-caricature has a risible ludicrousness that is likely to keep them howling in other countries all over the world for years, from Canada and Mexico to Palau and Japan, no matter what comes of Team Palin's over-the-top-ambitious designs on rewiring the McCain campaign as the first stage of the Palin-in-'12, with-god-on-our-side-who-can-stop-us? bandwagon.

Comments

[Bivab]

Well, she is perhaps the best looking "Ugly American" to represent that particular classification. I'm wondering if her well dressed 150 thousand dollar, former pageant queen image has created both her American fascination and her less then complimentary European moniker. Americans almost always go for the "Pretty One" which is precisely what Europeans find "Ugly."

[Steve Kettmann - Huffpost Blogger]

True, true. But also fascinating to see exit polls showing only 38 percent believing Palin is prepared to be president, versus 67 percent who said Joe Biden was prepared. So maybe Americans and Europeans aren't so far apart on this?

[jillsie529]

As an educated, traveled, somewhat politically aware, NPR junkie, and self-confessed "soccer mom" I can understand why some women are/were so thrilled with the idea of Sarah Palin. To many women Ms. Palin represents the woman who broke the glass ceiling in our housebound world. I have read articles touting my peers as the hope for the future, as if to say, "Super Soccer Mom will save the day." Funny thing is, for all the talk no one is anxious to take any of us seriously. Now I am not saying that Ms. Palin is the woman I want to represent me as Vice President, no far from it. She is a woman clearly out of her depth. And, God forbid Palin in 2012 -- shutter to think. But let us not forget that somewhere out there finishing up their fall soccer seasons are a group of talented, educated, savy, politically aware women who if given the chance, funding and party backing could effect change. The talents of these women need to be cultivated. Perhaps then we shall see what the kind of a soccer mom I am talking about is really capable of achieving.

[ReaganDem]

It was amazing watching McCain on SNL with Fey doing Palin - McCain looked far more comfortable with Tina than he ever has with selfish, preening Sarah Palin. And he took part in a skit designed in part to mock Palin's naked ambition to run for president. Once this thing is over, we're going to hear some amazing tidbits from behind the scenes about just how much McCain himself came to regret the Palin pick.

[Steve Kettmann - Huffpost Blogger]

The trouble with writing anything about Palin is she's always coming up with new head-scratchers, like this recent one about how HER First Amendment rights are being threatened when newspapers criticize her for making negative attacks against Obama. Glenn Greenwald pounced on this one over at Salon, calling her formulation "so dumb that it hurts."

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/10/31/palin/

[jno510]

While I too wonder how is it possible for such a person to get so close to power, I would throw the same ball back in the the europeans court. How is it possible for a couple of bumbling identical twins to become president and prime minister of Poland? How is it possible for a right wing racist like Haider to obtain power in Austria? How is it possible for someone with so much control over the media to become the leader of Italy not just once but twice?
I only hope that the rest of American voters will share my viewpoint that this only shows McCain's lack of intelligence and punish him for it in the election.

[lord bunsky]

Fair point. And neither Berlusconi nor the evil Kaczinsky Twins nor the late Haider have a more realistic view on the world than poaching Palin. Well, at least they are rhetorically more inclined than her to disguise their absurd ambitions.

Here is my proposal for all these caricatures of real-life politicians trying to seek a spot in the limelight: MTV ought to stage a show called "The Real World of Politics", where all these hatemongers get to share a house (it could be white for all I care) and we, the voting public, can witness their ludicrous acts of reigning the kitchen, reforming the basement or restructuring the bookshelf. That way they would be save from causing harm to most of us and still enjoy some share of the limelight...

[Steve Kettmann - Huffpost Blogger]

Great idea, Herr Bunsky, and the loser has to do a second reality-living experience with Jose Canseco (a veteran of junk-TV living together).

[kippinsk]

Europeans have it right, we, as a nation, ARE "vague and shallow." It's the only way to explain how a woman like Sarah Palin can be in the position she is in now and Hillary Clinton is back in the Senate diligently representing the people of New York State. Because they have distance (some thousands of miles and decent journalists who do ACTUAL reporting) I believe they can see a little more clearly than we can.

Sarah Palin could be a heartbeat away from the Presidency, or 4 years away from her own run for the job, because the GOP, or more pointedly, the McCain campaign agrees with Europe! They realized that plenty of Americans don't care about a person's resume, they vote emotionally. Who pulls at their heartstrings? Who incites enough fear into them to get them out of their recliner to go vote for them? Who (God help us) would they like to have a beer with?

Hopefully, after 8 years and seeing what such tests yield, a good portion of the American voting public will get it through their heads that a resume DOES matter, that we can't be cavalier with our vote and treat an election like American Idol. Tell your European friends to have faith. We might surprise them.

[VillagesNancy]

Very interesting posting. Every time I see Governor Palin I am amazed that she has a big following. Can you imagine if she were called upon to make a decision to, for example, attack Iran? She knows absolutely NOTHING about this.

I find her grating and VERY ambitious for Sarah and John McCain support is back there somewhere. The scary part is that with her popularily she really may try to run in 2012. Let's hope that NEVER happens.

[berliner13]

We don't have that many women who hunt over here in Germany...a religious fundamentalist chick with an assault rifle is a little disconcerting!

[miamimando]

Hey Steve...why won't the LA TIMES release the tape they have of Obama at the going away party for the terrorist?....What are democrats afraid of?....Something stinks here!!!!

[Steve Kettmann - Huffpost Blogger]

I hadn't heard about this one. Dime. What tape?

[Steve Kettmann - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks to Suzanne Wilson in L.A. who forwarded this link:
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-video30-2008oct30,0,1408449.story

Interesting that Palin and McCain would keep talking about this - how sad a predicament they are in when they are putting their emphasis on a thin, forlorn hope that something like this can get them votes, rather than articulating a clear and not-consta­ntly-chang­ing rationale for why they are the best choices to lead the American people through the mine field of the coming weeks and months and years.

[napapjd]

The only consolation I can see is that she will in some sense be the GOPs problem. After this cycle, I think it's possible the portion of the Republican Party that wants to be serious about politics and the future might pull itself together and reject Palinism (nicely summed up as "ignorance and arrogance" in your piece). Who will this leader of the Sane Republicans, taking on the Palin Wing, be? Don't know. But as this election seems to be verifying, while there are a disturbing number of Americans who embrace her and her politics, most do not. And that's a fact that could hurt the GOP for years.

[feo]

Her public cockiness is merely a covering for her underlying insecurity. She knows she's in way over her head. In fact, her cockiness reminds me of speeches given by Hugo Chavez, George Bush and Fidel Castro.

[aleco]

For Paylin to go from obscurity to national prominence so quickly she must have a powerful rabbi. I suspect it's Big Oil.

[fairwitness]

Her "risible ludicrousness"...

Yes, and also her "mendacious ignorance", "abysmal hubris" and "horrorific portent".

Euros rightly doubt the sanity of America--to have been so badly burned by a neocon Republican criminal administration led by a megalomaniac imperial cretin and yet to even consider its reprise (and, argueably, worse) IS insane.

[cgr]

Europeans aren't the only ones wondering, as you say:

"the disturbing question about Palin remains: How is it even POSSIBLE that such a person could get so close to so much power?"

Approximately 59% of Americans (at last count) are wondering the same thing. It truly is horrifying that McCain would put the country at such risk.

[sringler]

If you're right, no one should doubt by now that Obama will win. But many Americans seem to have a crush on Palin..

[NotInspiredbyFamousChefs]

"How is it even POSSIBLE that such a person could get so close to so much power?" The answer is that she is the unwitting (pun intended) beneficiary of a desperate gamble by conservative party leaders to appeal to their base in this election. Her political successes can be credited entirely to being from an isolated state with a small and isolated population: what other state would have such a small pool of candidates for any elected office, so that someone like Sarah Palin could leapfrog from mayor of 7,000 residents to governor in such a brief amount of time? It was timing and opportunity. I refuse to believe she has gotten this far on any combination of political savvy and intelligence. All she needed was a pretty face and the extreme views that appealed to both her Alaskan constituents and the conservative party leaders in the lower 48. The saying "only in America" has never been more true. The Land of Opportunity indeed.

[sringler]

I am German and I agree with a lot of NotInspire­dbyFamousC­hefs' comments about how an election race might be different from that of other countries. But isn't it also true that you Americans are really fond of people that pretend to be regular folks and are not too overly intelligent, because it makes everyone think that she/he could just as well run for office in the usa?