Look up the definition of narcissistic personality

Seven out of ten Republicans have answered a national poll by saying they would vote for this chowder head in 2012. Only in America is ignorance raised to the level of virtue. She resigned her governorship of Alaska to start her presidential campaign. Here is a well-researched Vanity Fair article on Ms. Palin, appropriately entitled, It Came from Wasilla.

The Sarah Palin factor

Many conservative pundits are blaming the MSM for John McCain's loss of the presidential race to Barack Obama. There is no doubt that the MSM picked Obama very early on when he became a real contender against Hillary Clinton and paved his way to the White House with largely uncritical and unexamined coverage. I have seen the same sort of thing happen in Canada, notably with the media cornation of the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

It is a tribute to the discernment of the American voters that Obama only won by 5% of the popular vote, although he swept the electoral college vote. Obama outspent McCain by a much larger margin than the results would warrant, about $10 per vote versus $6 per vote. Additionally, McCain's campaign was a bit of a shambles, seeming to lurch all over the place with no clear message about what he would do to fix the U.S. On the other side, Obama's campaign came off as flawlessly as a space shuttle launch. His only flub was when he let his guard down and referred to people in the northern midwest as losers "clinging to their guns and their religion." But even in those states he did well.

I always thought that Obama was a good-looking guy, in a $1,500 suit, with a great speaking voice and a good command of English, who was overly ambitious, given his thin credentials. If he had a counterpart in Canada, who publicly reeks personal ambition, it would be Jack Layton, leader of the NDP.

His record of public service in government was very slight and not without question marks. Some of the people he was associated with were dubious characters and I thought his remark about his grandmother's racism when she was still alive to hear it was disgraceful.

It remains to be seen whether his presidency can match his rhetoric. For the sake of the United States and the world, I sincerely hope so.

For my part, I thought the turning point in the election was McCain bringing in Sarah Palin as the VP candidate. After initially giving a shot of adrenaline to the GOP campaign, she quickly became an albatross. It was the Katie Couric interview that caused many people to say, "She said what?"

Up to that point McCain had a clear edge in putting himself forward as a much more experienced guy than Obama, and his age was not then telling against him. Once Palin entered the picture, people began to think about his age and the chance that he might not finish his term in office and (shudder)Palin might be the decision maker. She effectively removed Obama's Achilles' heel, the inexperience factor, and replaced it with the ageism concern.

It was not the MSM that created Sarah Palin, she sank the GOP campaign all on her own, with her lack of general knowlege, her inarticulate syntax, and her country bumpkin colloquialisms and saucy little winks. Simply by pronouncing the "g" on the words ending in "ing" would have gone a long way to boost her apparent intelligence factor.

If she was supposed to appeal to the Christian right wing with her "end of days" beliefs, why didn't McCain pick Mike Huckabee, a very credible candidate from that end of the political spectrum, and equally as folksy and likeable, but without the "how dumb can she be" question hanging over his head?

Speechless politicians

I am glad to see that Maureen Dowd in the New York Times feels very much the way I do about having a political leader that consistently cannot voice thoughts in coherent English sentences.

Is it too much to ask that heart surgeons not be suffering from Parkinson’s disease when they perform operations, or airline pilots fly with serious astigmatism, or musicians not be tone deaf and painters not be colour blind? Why oh why would we think it is charming and a positive quality for the highest political office in the land when a person cannot, with any consistency, express clear and concise thoughts.

American and Canadian political debates

This past Thursday night was political night on television. In the U.S., the Democrat nominee for vice-president, Joe Biden, squared off against the Republican Sarah Palin. And in Canada the leaders of the 4 national parties and the leader of the Bloc Quebecoise did a round table debate with the admirable Steve Paikin as the host.

I watched all of the American debate and the last 30 minutes of the Canadian.

First the Canadians

I have already made my mind up about how I am going to vote and this debate wasn’t going to change it. You would have to be a non-committed voter watching a televised debate to allow that spectacle to sway your thinking. Most non-committed voters are people who don’t really follow politics.

I was glad to see that the Green Party finally got media recognition and invited its leader, Elizabeth May, to the table. This has been overdue for a couple of election cycles and puts an end to the hypocrisy of inviting Gilles Duceppe of the BQ to the English language debate.

The BQ is not a national party; it is a regional one, running candidates only in the Province of Quebec. Its purpose in its creation was to try to pry Quebec loose from Canada and create a sovereign state out of that province. The sympathy for that has mostly died away in Quebec and now the party simply acts as a spoiler for the national parties trying to make inroads into the Quebec constituency. Duceppe has said that if he can’t free Quebec he will take Canada for all he can get for his province. He has been a federal politician long enough (18 years) to collect a handsome pension from Canada when he retires from politics. So I guess he will have achieved part of the second goal.

While I completely understand having Duceppe at the French language debate, he has nothing useful to say to the rest of Canada in the English debate and only wastes air time that could more usefully be employed for the leaders who matter. He is invited because Quebec would scream discrimination if he were left off the roster.

Another case of the French poodle’s tail wagging the English setter.

There were many glowing media reports about Elizabeth May and what a performer she turned out to be. I cannot judge because of the limited time I devoted to watching, but I found her irritating, as every time the Prime Minister tried to make a point she butted in from the sideline trying to talk over him. I was dismayed to find that electoral reform is part of the Green Party’s platform – they want to give us Italy’s government. Thankfully, they appear to be many years away from ever being a possible governing party. I should mention, while I am analyzing them, that they want to make water a “human right”. This is a really stupid idea.

Finally, I did not like the round table format. I have done this on television and it gives you too many opportunities to fiddle with your hands, twitch, look down at your hands, etc. You are never 100% sure which camera is on you and whether you should be looking into the cameras, at the moderator or at any of you fellow panelists. You don’t know whether you are leaning forward too much and looking too aggressive or sitting back and looking too laid back. It is very awkward. I much prefer the format that requires you to stand at a podium. It focuses your attention and helps you to control your body language.

The next day I listened to a radio call-in show and so many callers commented on this or that candidate’s posture or eye-contact (or lack of. None of that should be relevant to the issues– these are not movie or television stars vying for industry performance awards.

Now to the Americans

I had been following the Palin story with much interest and had viewed her dismal television interviews. I knew very little about Joe Biden.

Palin got quite a lot of complimentary coverage the day after her debate. Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal compared her performance in reviving McCain’s campaign as a pair of electric shock paddles used to restart hearts. Cute.

Frankly, I was somewhat appalled by her. She talks in clichés and slogans. She simply refused to answer some straight-forward questions and went back to topics that she felt she was comfortable discussing. This is a tactic I am sure that her handlers taught her and it works well in media interviews, but not in a formal public debate. There were just too many things that were asked that we do know what she thinks about them or whether she even has any thoughts about them.

There was a clumsy attempt to inject a Reaganism into the debate. At one point Palin accused Biden of always looking to the past. Later, when Biden again made a reference to the Bush record, she jumped in with a “there you go again, Joe, lookin’ at the past”, aping Reagan’s famous line that skewered his opponent. I cringed when she threw that one out.

There is a streak of admiration in America for small town or rural folks. We have seen this time and again portrayed in movies and on television: The Beverley Hillbillies, Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, The Dukes of Hazard, and the Newhart show: you will recall the sophisticated Bob Newhart running a Vermont country inn and meeting two local characters, “Hi, I’m Daryl and this is 'mah' other brother Daryl”. Americans believe that such folk are genuine, honest and lack guile or evil motives. This is why such movie and television fare always commands a fairly respectable audience.

And, who can say whether that is myth or reality?

However, appealing as such innocent folk might be, do you really want the Duke brothers to be the President and Vice-President of the United States? Or Minnie Pearl, bless her heart and trademark price-stickered straw hat?

Many commentators, including Daily Show comedian, Jon Stewart, have lamented the “dumbing down” of the American voters.

The first time we saw this was when Dan Quayle was the Vice-President. After listening to a few of his Quaylisms everybody prayed for the health of Reagan. My favourite was when he opined that he regretted that he had dropped Latin in high school because he wanted to go to Latin America and be able to talk to the people there.

Then along came George W. Bush. He gave us such classic lines as, “There is a low voter turnout for elections because not as many people are going to out to vote.” We have had 8 years of his folksy bumbling and inarticulate mangling of the English language. And maybe those who like Bush see him as somebody they would sit down with in the local tavern and hoist a few, but, really would you see the guy you do go bowling with and stop off for a couple of quick drafts as the President of the United States?

A problem Americans need to understand is that one of the reasons the U.S. is considered in such a bad light by the rest of the world, aside from considerations of its policies and actions, is the perception that the person holding the highest office and representing the face of America talks like he is a dummy, and, therefore, perhaps he is one. There is hardly a top job in corporate America that would be filled by a person who spoke English as badly as George Bush if merit were the only criteria for the job. Most world leaders in the democracies have a good command of the language, even when their native language is not English.

[Full disclosure: we had our own folksy politico, Jean Chretien, who was not very adept in English, but he wasn’t elected for the same reasons I have attributed to Americans electing such people]

That brings us to Sarah Palin. She talks like a country hick: dropping the “g” off words ending in “ing” and constantly saying “gonna” instead of “going to”. She is full of “goshes” and “darns” and just shy of "gosh darns". This may appeal to America’s common folk and maybe the standards in such remote places as under-populated Alaska don’t require much in the way of sophistication to become Governor, but on the world stage – please.

Americans who think Palin is suitable to be the President are probably scratching their heads over the wildly enthusiastic reception that Barack Obama got on his short European tour. Part of it, of course, was the fact that he represented the possibility of a real change in America’s policies of a kind to which Europeans would be receptive, but part of it also is that he is a beautiful public speaker with a rich command of the language. To Europeans, the proper use of language is a very important cultural identity (French) and a sign of class (England). The gold standard of political language still remains with Winston Churchill. Bush and Palin wouldn’t even have been allowed into the same room with him if it were a public speaking contest.

On the other side of the stage was Joe Biden. He struck me as being not only intelligent, knowledgeable and thoughtful, but also articulate and polished. I could easily picture him representing the United States with dignity and respect. And he would be treated with respect by the rest of the world.

I don’t vote in the United States (although I pay taxes there) but the choice if I had to make it would be clear: an Obama/Biden ticket. And in saying that, I guess I have to take it back that I would not be swayed by a debate. I certainly was in this case.

America's ridiculous obsession with qualifications

I am quite amused by the commentary in the media about Sarah Palin being unsuited for the job of Vice-President because she has no international experience (in the context that she might become President if McCain kicked the bucket mid-term).

Not to sound like a smug, know-it-all, knee-jerk anti-American bashing Canadian, but frankly, other than Ike Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and George Bush Senior, I would be hard put to name any President since Theodore Roosevelt who brought any international experience into the White House. By and large, they all learned on the job, notwithstanding Palin’s attempt to poke a hole in Obama’s campaign by suggesting that the Presidency is not a learning experience.

She would become the President of a country where 20% of the young people aged 18 to 24 cannot pick out the United States on a map of the world where the names of the countries are disguised; where only 13% of Americans know where Iran and Iraq are located, but 34% knew that on the first season of the TV reality show Survivor the contestants were on an island somewhere in the South Pacific (whether they knew where the South Pacific is located is not known.); where two-thirds of the people who were sent to administer the government of Iraq after the invasion applied for the first time for a passport.

One of the more effective U.S. Presidents was a guy that everybody thought was a big nobody, Harry S. Truman. He had approval ratings that rivaled those of the current President, George W. Bush. And he inherited the same world that George W. Bush has occupied – the United States really was unchallenged as a superpower in post-war period of 1945-48. But what he did with that is a very different story.

He had been a failed farmer (not his fault, the Depression) and a failed small retail businessman (not his fault, the Depression, plus changing fashion). He got elected to the U.S. Senate and basically laboured away for 10 years in obscurity. His only claim to fame was that he chaired a panel that looked at corruption in government war contracts and saved some money.

He was picked to be FDR’s VP running mate in FDR’s last hurrah specifically because he had not made a name for himself and had created fewer enemies than other more high profile picks. But strangely, when he was selected, everybody knew that it would be only a matter of months before he became the President (it turned out to be about 4 months).

He had virtually no international experience (other than as an artillery captain in the U.S. army in France in the closing months of WWI).

Yet Truman presided over some of the most crucial decisions of any President since Abraham Lincoln: ending the war in Europe and the Pacific, including dropping the first A-bomb; settling up the post-war world with the allied democracies and the Soviet Union; creating the United Nations; creating the new nation of Israel; committing America to the Korean War; firing the most popular general in American history; refusing to use the A-bomb on China; drafting the communist containment strategy that eventually led to the downfall of the Soviet Union.

Domestically, he was the first President to call for civil rights for blacks, which led to the disruption of the Democratic Party by alienating the southern Democrats.

He was re-elected against all predictions to the contrary by the MSM.

If Truman could do it with flying colours, I see no reason why Palin couldn’t step up to the mark.