Friday, October 03, 2008

The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations

David Brooks on Sarah Palin's debate performance:

Was this woman capable of completing an extemporaneous paragraph — a collection of sentences with subjects, verbs, objects and, if possible, an actual meaning?

By the end of her opening answers, it was clear she would meet the test.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sarah read her note cards very well last night. And she improved her image after the train-wreck interviews she gave over the past week.

However, at this point in the campaign, she needed to swing voters back to McCain. His campaign is a mess and she did nothing to reverse the trend lines.

So, while she looked pretty and acted folksy, she failed. At best you can consider the debate a draw (Biden wins on facts and expertise, Sarah wins on cutesy winks).

But right now, a draw = win for Obama.

Anonymous said...

She's as unqualified as Barack Obama. But he fits all the culturally acceptable conventions in the blue states, so let's give him a pass and elect him to lead our armed forces for the next four years. Great idea.

Rene Benthien said...

How is she as 'unqualified as Barack Obama'?

By any standard of measure, Palin is disengaged with the issues and not interested in the troubles that face society.

Readiness is more than just amount of time spent being a politician. It's having a sound understanding of the problems and solutions that face the country. Obama has this. McCain, to a lesser extent has this also.

I knew more about economics than Palin when I left high school. That's scary.

King Politics said...

I'm not sure what "culturally acceptable conventions in blue states," means. I suppose then President Bush was "qualified" on foreign policy because he had been governor for six years. Hardly. You can't quantify good judgment by looking merely at how long someone has been in office.

Statements like that speak to a misunderstanding of America's current state of political competition. Most states are far more purple than people care to admit. Take MS for example. A conservative state, for sure, yet 3 of its 4 House members are Democratic.