Editorials & Other Articles

babylonsister

(171,073 posts) Tue Mar 13, 2012, 08:27 AM Mar 2012

Sarah Palin's Ignorance as a Platform

Sarah Palin's Ignorance as a Platform
By Richard Cohen

At some point while watching HBO's absolutely smashing (and terrifying) movie "Game Change," it occurred to me that Sarah Palin has ruined America. The movie has been scalloped out of the book by the same name and focuses on Palin rather than the entire 2008 presidential campaign. The decision to do so was absolutely correct. With her selection as John McCain's running mate, American politics lost its way -- and maybe its mind as well.

The movie portrays Palin as an ignoramus. She did not know that Queen Elizabeth II does not run the British government, and she did not know that North and South Korea are different countries. She seemed not to have heard of the Federal Reserve. She called Joe Biden "O'Biden," and she thought America went to war in Iraq because Saddam Hussein, not al-Qaeda, had attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. Not only did she know little, but she was determinately incurious and supremely smug in her ignorance.

At the same time, she was a liar. In the movie, she was called exactly that by McCain's campaign chief, Steve Schmidt, who came to realize -- a bit late in the game -- that one of Palin's great talents was to deny the truth. When confronted, she simply shuts down -- petulant, child-like -- and then sulks off.

Palin objects to this characterization -- as does McCain -- but the movie has been endorsed by too many of Palin's top campaign aides to put its veracity in doubt. Some of them had come to revile the Alaska governor -- enough to leak some awful facts but not quite enough to go public. Had the election been really close, I wonder if they would have run out into the street yelling that Palin -- a heartbeat away from the possible presidency -- was a monster. Everybody loves their country. Some people love their careers even more.

All this is now history, I want to say. But then I must instantly correct myself. Apres Palin has come a deluge of dysfunctional presidential candidates. They do not lie with quite the conviction of Palin, but they are sometimes her match in ignorance. As with Palin, it seemed hardly to matter. Herman Cain for a while was a front-runner. He had a nonsensical tax plan, zero knowledge of foreign affairs and had never held elective office. Yet, for a brief but terrifying moment, many Republicans were saying he should be the next president of the United States.

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http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/03/13/change_you_shouldnt_believe_in_113458.html