(thanks to David Flanders for this one....)
Remember those quizzes you had on the state capitals back in junior high? Oh, the pressure! The temptation to write "Pierre, Olympia, Dover, Albany" on the inside of your hand was overwhelming, wasn't it? But you resisted. Maybe Sarah Palin should have done the same. The former vice presidential candidate seems to have been caught using curious crib notes during an interview this past weekend at the high-profile Tea Party Convention in Nashville. While speaking about her top political priorities, Ms. Palin gazed at her hand in a rather suspicious manner. Later, Web researchers zoomed in on her left palm and found the following words scrawled in black ink: "Energy, Budget cuts (with "budget" crossed out), Tax, Lift American Spirits." In an ironic twist during the speech, Ms. Palin worked in a jab against President Obama's often-mocked use of TelePrompTers.
Beauty may be only be skin deep, but stupid? Yessirree, stupid goes straight to the bone, eh? I've been watching commentators and pundits of all flavors waxing rhapsodic and indignant over Caribou Barbie's use of a HandPrompter © during her appearance at the Tea Party Nation convention in Nashville over this past weekend. I'm of a somewhat different mind than so many folks whose blood pressure seems to be approaching unhealthy levels. To me, watching Palin using her HandPrompter ©...and not very skillfully, at that...only serves to demonstrate why Sarah Palin is such an empty suit. Behind the winks, the smiles, and the "Youbetcha!!" folksiness, lies a politician spectacularly unprepared- for the spotlight or for leadership. Sarah Palin is to politics what Potemkin villages were to Russian politics once upon a time. To use a Texas term, Palin is all hat and no cattle- a pretty, sweet thing in a dress who possesses the intellectual candlepower of a cheese pizza.
Expecting a politician to be able to speak extemporaneously on any and all issues is neither fair nor realistic. Politicians, like any normal human being, should be allowed to rely on notes. Barack Obama, despite Caribou Barbie's smug jibes, is not the first politician to use a TelePrompter. Indeed, TelePrompters and politicians go together like strippers and professional athletes. Why this is so scandalous to the Foxified Right defies rational explanation. Palin, in referring to her palm for hints, just proved how ridiculously unprepared she is. She looked like a high school sophomore who forgot to study for her Civics final.
Intellectually speaking, Palin is a blank slate, a tabula rasa upon which can be projected all manner of fear-mongering and folksy bromides, none of which advance the public dialogue. Caribou Barbie is the poster child for the America which has been scared stupid by Fox News Channel and the GOP and is too paralyzed to think for themselves. Sure, Palin may well run for President in 2012, and there are enough fools in this country to make her a viable candidate. If you're tired of all the "hopey, changey stuff"...well, here's your sign, America.
I'll leave it to others to vent their spleen about Caribou Barbie's intellectual, moral, and ethical shortcomings (which seem to be legion). I just don't want to get that worked up over a woman who couldn't spell leadership if you spotted her the first letter and the vowels.
"It's not illegal to talk out of both sides of your mouth, but it does seem to be a level of dishonesty troubling to the American public," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.... Pete Sepp, vice president of the National Taxpayers Union, called that philosophy troubling..... "It's hard to expect lawmakers to behave like angels when this much money is being airdropped all over the country," Mr. Sepp said.... "But the more strident the rhetoric, the worse it looks. For me, with these grants where they're saying a project is going to create a certain number of jobs, it makes you wonder: Do they really believe that? Or is it just part of a cynical cash grab?" According to records, at least eight other Republicans lawmakers who voted against the stimulus later sent letters to the USDA backing various projects' stimulus applications.
Honestly, I'm much more concerned about the overall trend of intellectual dishonesty and lack of integrity that seems to characterize so many Republicans these days. In this case, I'm referring to those on the Right who have publicly ridiculed the stimulus while privately begging for stimulus funds for projects in their states and districts. That these reprobates see no hypocrisy in their two-faced stance is something that should trouble any right-thinking American, regardless of where they have to sit on the ideological spectrum. Here we have a class of politicians willing to lie, cheat, and (almost literally) steal their way to re-election...and no one in the mainstream media seems to be calling them out for their lack of integrity and honesty.
Just imagine the (justifiable) weeping and gnashing of teeth that would be evident from coast to coast if Democrats were engaged in such dishonest behavior. Republicans do it...and the response from the media is the dull roar of silence. Not that there's a double standard at work here, but Republicans somehow get a free pass for behavior that would get a Democrat hoisted on his or her petard.
This is the sort of irresponsible, dishonest behavior that we should be raising Hell over. Sarah Palin is a distraction, a folksy Sean Hannity in a designer dress. Until and unless we hold Republicans to the same standards that Democrats (and everyone else) are held to, nothing will change. How can we expect anything to change when dishonesty and lack of integrity are the coin of the realm?
WE DESERVE BETTER.
