1
1
"And so what if Joe Biden has been in the Senate approximately forever and knows a lot more about a lot more stuff than she does? She doesn't care," Simon wrote.
That's it. She doesn't care. And that's one of the scariest things about McCain's Russia-watcher.
In a moment of rare candor, Simon acknowledged, "a lot of her statements were of the fortune cookie variety. "At end of day," she said, "if we are all working together for the greater good, it is going to be OK."
"But a lot of people like fortune cookies," he continued.
"Do people care about such stuff?" he asked. "Should all that down-home talk and body language really count?"
Simon wrote that Joe Biden doesn't think so. ("Facts matter," Biden said.)
Simon disagreed: "Yeah? In politics? Since when?" Well, maybe since Sarah Palin is asking us to ensconce her in Observatory Circle at a time when our country is facing its most existential challenges in a generation.
Is this really what we really want? A poorly informed opportunist who can't tell us what she reads? Who plays fast and loose with the truth? Who can't think of a single Supreme Court decision she disagrees with (save Roe v. Wade)? Whose international experience consists of trying to see Russia from her front lawn? Whose foreign policy savvy comes from a few minutes with Henry Kissinger or Hamid Karzai? Who labors under the misapprehension that the Constitution allows for vice presidential flexibility?
I don't think so. And, judging from her plummeting poll numbers, neither do most of my fellow citizens.
It's not that Sarah Palin is a Republican. We've had good Republican presidents before. It's not that's she's folksy. As FDR and JFK and Harry Truman so ably demonstrated when they had to, folksiness can be necessary and positive.
No, Palin's problem has already been underlined by some of the more thoughtful of her GOP brethren and sistren like George Will, David Brooks, and Kathleen Parker. Her problem is that she is clueless. It's not that people may disagree with her ideas; it's that she doesn't have any ideas. It's that she is quite content to live her life in a thought-free zone. It's that she's like Lou Dobbs in drag.
In short, Sarah Palin has zero knowledge of the things a Vice President really does need to know. Our Constitution. Our history. Our challenges. And a zillion other issues (including energy) likely to cross a Veep's desk.
Can anyone think of a more absurd idea than a Palin portfolio that includes (a) energy (b) government reform and (c) improving the care of special needs children and their mothers?
And all that a beat away from a 71-year-old heart, et cetera.
For me, Newsweek's editor, Jon Meacham, best summed up our dilemma. He wrote: "Perhaps Sarah Palin will somehow emerge from the hurly-burly of history as a transformative figure who was underestimated in her time by journalists who could not see, or refused to acknowledge, her virtues. But do I think I am right in saying that Palin's populist view of high office -- hey, Vice President Six-Pack, what should we do about Pakistan? --is dangerous?
"You betcha."
1 | 2
