Palin’s recent gaffes are actually calculated moves to disarm Biden.
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Sarah Palin’s recent abysmal interviews are a canard. She is not the vapid, seemingly naïve and inexperienced candidate we have been led to believe. The bar of expectation has been deliberately lowered so low that once in front of the debate lectern, she will stun Biden with her slick, pat answers, leaving him flustered and trampled by the hockey mom turned-governor from Alaska.
Sound far-fetched or ridiculous? It’s not. Allow me to explain why.
Sarah Palin is sandbagging. She is intentionally appearing inept, and at times, outright vacuous and bungling. But she is downplaying and misrepresenting her political skill, guile and debating ability in order to deceive the Obama camp. This was an outright calculated, premeditated ploy in order to lull Sen. Joe Biden into a false sense of security. All of Palin’s botched interviews were done with wily aforethought – they were red herrings and glib stagecraft to hustle Biden.
Forget the static currently being transmitted by conservative lackeys feigning consternation over the Palin pick. I have recently watched several video clips from her debates, when she ran for Governor of Alaska in 2006, and she is far more adroit, astute, and shrewd during these debates than recent interviews suggest. In fact, she is a cunning, clever, and crafty woman who knows how to disarm people with her charm and then coldly go in for the kill shot.
Vice-presidential debates rarely change the trajectory or final outcome of presidential elections. If that were the case, Lloyd Bentsen’s legendary 1988 slap down admonishment of Dan Quayle’s ill-advised confessed comparison to John Kennedy would have catapulted Michael Dukakis directly into the Oval Office.
However, everyone loves an underdog and this one just happens to be a scheming Pit Bull wearing lipstick from Wasilla. A Palin blistering perform this Thursday night may not be a game-changer in the end for the McCain-Palin camp, but it will stem, at least temporarily, the rising tide and polls currently tacking quite nicely for Obama and Biden. She may or may not know any other Supreme Court cases beyond Roe v. Wade, or a definitive understanding of the Bush Doctrine, but in the end, it may simply not matter.
My Prediction:
The real Sarah Palin shows up and upstages the elder statesmen Joe Biden, facts, figures, and policy positions be damned.
Frank J. Ranelli is an opinion editorial writer, a research author and critic. His erudite and chic style of writing has been lauded and extensively published in a variety of news outlets and across the Internet. These include the Naples Daily News, The Online Journal, Information Clearing House, Alternet, The Smirking Chimp, Diatribune, and the former progressive journal of thought, Wicked Philosophy. Frank is currently working on his upcoming book, Rise of the Authoritarians, and is participating as a co-author in prominent philosopher Russell Blackford's anthology, Voices of Disbelief.
I don't think Joe Biden is that naive to fall for that kind of a gambit. I don't think he'll go into the debate taking anything for granted; he'll be prepared for any tack she might take.
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Sandy Sand (165 articles, 0 quicklinks, 220 diaries, 1490 comments)
on Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 11:47:16 AM
Frank, I am really glad that you believe in born-again possibilities and miracles. Perhaps you also believe that dinosaurs and people walked the earth together. This was fun to read, but you have been suckered. Palin is smart, adept and adroit only insofar as any right wingnut can be, being snipey and short and clever only in the moment. Moments later, her mind is blank. She is not smart, she is a smart-alec. She is not witty. she is dimly illuminated from the newspapers she reads, "All of um." She is not sincere or genuine, she is opportunistic. And her linguistics are deplorable.
You can fall for all of that lipstick if you want to, but she is still an Orwellian pig in drag. America's conservatives have acquired a peculiar arrogance that helps them believe that they can stand on an equal footing with people like Joe Biden, who have the courage to actually think. Anyone who thinks she will best him is whistling in the dark, on their way through the cemetary. Palin carries the required facade of red-necked adorability well and does a masterful job of telling the true believers exactly what they want to hear.
You must have been listening to too much Fox News, lately.
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Ivan Hentschel (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 8 diaries, 263 comments)
on Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 11:49:54 AM
Ivan, easy, my friend! I would have a real hard time believing anything, such as divinity or creationist theories, as I am an atheist, which is well documented within the OEN community and through out the Internet.
Actually, we are in agreement, about who Sarah Palin is as a person; she is stunningly ignorant and breathtakingly arrogant. Orwellian with an outward, Machiavellian patina is an apt description of Palin. However, her unconcealed, overt certitude is potentially the problem. She has mastered the art of flowery platitudes, which, to the low-information, Neanderthal voter, combined with her tacky charm, actually makes her very attractive, in a creepy kind of way.
It is this set of ideas that concerns me. She is a glib, authoritarian person who has a Manichean mindset – she is a dualist – one who only sees the world as good or evil; no nuance, nothing abstract or vague. Moreover, after studying authoritarian personalities for two years now for my book, I can tell you they are loose with facts but stridently persuasive. They are charming, disarming, almost irresistible, yet completely morally bankrupt and amoral.
The problem here is they are masters at using base intellect, not intelligence, to appeal to people’s pathos – Hitler was an expert at this tactic. In essence, they are scheming, devious and capable of anything in order to subvert the will of other people in order to achieve their objectives.
Simply put, it is not my belief she has any mastery or hidden erudition about politics; it is her sophistry skills and nefarious guile that disturbs me.
As far as Fox News, that channel is banned in my house – If I want entertainment, I rent a movie. J
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Frank J. Ranelli (66 articles, 143 quicklinks, 29 diaries, 383 comments)
on Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 12:25:20 PM
Just exciteable. Palintology does that to me. You certainly struck a few nerves here.
Thank you for a rebuttal that far surpassed your original article in terms of eloquence.
I am relieved to know that there are no dinosaurs living in your backyard and that you regard Fox News an alien being from the netherworlds.
I gave up being an atheist some time ago. Saying you do not believe in something implies you believe in something "else" and it gets complicated. Last night I heard Bill Maher say, "My point is, that I just don't know". I'm sticking with that for now. Thanks.
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Ivan Hentschel (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 8 diaries, 263 comments)
on Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 1:35:45 PM
So, you are comparing Governor Palin to Der Führer when it comes to... glibness - http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/angrif09.htm ? Well, sure - why not? The comparison has those "quippy" Fascist overtones to it.
Mr. Ranelli, do be serious. I agree that Palin will do well during the debate and Senator Biden will have "gone tharn" by question number three, but not because of her deceitfulness or superficiality. Palin is a person with whome the Joe-sixpack can identify. And Joe's perception is that Palin tells "it" like "it" is without the guileful, politically correct bullpuck that Biden has been laying down for years like a gaggle of Canada Geese on a golf course.
If that approach is too black and white for you, then that's yours to manage - not ours. So, with that I'll let you fret, while I watch Palin slap Biden upside the head with a Wild Alaskan salmon.
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Tom Murphy (3 articles, 4 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 1766 comments)
on Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 8:32:40 PM
Joe Biden is inexperienced and dosen't understand foriegn policy...I am sure Palin is well versed and Joe will be caught off guard and dazzled by her overwhelming intelligence and beauty....our Joe will be struck dumb and never recover....in your dreams...!
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Susan Nelsen (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 275 comments)
on Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 12:03:05 PM
I am very skeptical that Sarah Palin is intelligent enough to fake her ignorance, but Senator Biden is an inarticulate windbag who long ago sold out to his corporate paymasters.
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Blaine Kinsey (10 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 43 comments)
on Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 12:15:20 PM
This is a woman who thinks humans co-existed with dinosaurs. She may win because our citizenry is stupid and gullible, but she's not going to win because she outsmarts Biden.
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Michael Morris (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 5 comments)
on Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 12:47:59 PM
as a Pentecostalist, Sarah Palin's world view is shaped by her Bible study. That is what she reads.
Being a true believer, she is capable of uttering any misapprehension, any nonsequiter and any falsehood in a completely earnest and genuine fashion, because she really does believe it. What is observable in the world around her is of secondary importance relative to the belief system.
Although it is of a low order of probability, Biden might be able to get her to melt down. The problem is that it would require making her come off her reliance on the belief system, and pushing her into the real world. That would make Biden appear to be absolutely brutal.
His best tactic is to run his own race and trust Palin to mess herself up with something outrageous.
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John Sanchez Jr. (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 1266 comments)
on Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 1:46:44 PM
my friend John is right. Biden beware. Palin is plain. And simple. And real. More real than Joe. Underestimate, and you lose. Good night. Game over. Palin wins.
What a show !
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Tony Forest (7 articles, 18 quicklinks, 166 diaries, 1429 comments)
on Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 2:09:20 PM
It's actually very difficult to "fake ignorance" the way
Sarah Palin has so convincingly demonstrated her ignorance. Maybe Meryl Streep could do it, but I doubt Palin can do it.
She's probably able to discuss issues that loom large in Alaska -- that's why she seemed competent in the earlier debates. But once you get outside of those home-grown issues, I think she's functionally illiterate, & doesn't have a single developed idea in her empty little head.
I'll be astonished if you turn out to be right on this.
For his part, Biden is a windbag, & a pro-war corporatist. He will also have the difficult job of calculating how to treat Palin. If he's the slightest bit clumsy, or seems to condescend to her, or treat her roughly, he could easily come out of it looking very bad. It won't be easy to handle that.
As a historical note -- in 1984, George HW Bush was obnoxious & condescending in his debate with Geraldine Ferraro. It didn't turn out to hurt the Republican ticket, though.
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Richard Mynick (2 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1210 comments)
on Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 2:05:48 PM
not in my opinion. She actually represents a large portion of America....with her ignorance....of facts. No faking needed, Palin is plain. Palin better represent today's America than any other bozo in a suit I've seen on TV (!!!) in all my life.
But, does it really matter? Other than this debate being the show of the year, it's really just a matter of fast vs. slow. No real change in direction. The MIC will win. How could it lose? Perhaps via total collapse? Once more reason to hope Palin wins. Bring it on. Bring on the total collapse. Next please. Sens Delay a la Obama.
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Tony Forest (7 articles, 18 quicklinks, 166 diaries, 1429 comments)
on Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 2:17:41 PM
You might be right about the Palin Strategy, but if so, it is a really stupid strategy. First, she has sown so many doubts about her abilities in so many people, that a great debate performance cannot make it up.
Second, Biden and Obama are preparing for her to be excellent. It will not be a surprise and Biden is too experienced and capable to be fooled by something like that.
And, finally, for the trick to work, Palin wouldhave to suddenly become articulate everywhere she goes, turning on a dime from clueless to Einstein. Everyone would know it was a trick and if there is one thing Americans are sick of, it is politicians trying to trick them.
My guess is that Palin just does not know how to respond to an unexpected question when she is not well prepared. She will probably do just fine in the debate, but will be dogged throughout by those terrible moments in interviews and lingering doubts about her ability to step up to the plate and think on her feet outside a very controlled environment. Biden will also acquit himself well (he's a blabbermouth, but also tough and smart, and most importanly, also a consummate gentleman) and things will likely not change all that much.
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Bruce Allen Morris (36 articles, 0 quicklinks, 10 diaries, 52 comments)
on Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 3:17:15 PM
I don't see how the feigned ignorance angle serves any purpose for McPalin. To be considered a laughing stock and to cause a considerable drop in the polls seems like a high price to pay in order to catch Biden off guard. Is she opportunistic, wily and snarky? Yes. Will she shine as she did at the RNC? Hell, no. This "new energy" has the same amount of desirability as static cling. Just as public opinion re: Obama increased after Debate 1, Biden will be held in higher esteem as well after the veep debate. She is truly out of her league and it will show.
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jeffrey faulkner (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 18 comments)
on Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 3:33:12 PM
Insulting Sarah Palin won't work. Insulting Sarah Palin's supporters won't work, either. This lady is smart and very relatable.
I will concede this much to you: Her interview with Katie Couric had some misfires. Her answer about Supreme Court rulings was the worst. That being said, I think she will do just fine in the debates. But anything is possible. The debate will be fun to watch, that is for sure.
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Scott (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 576 comments)
on Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 9:54:59 PM
but Madame Mooseburger can't hide the fact that she is illiterate, stupid, poorly schooled, out of her league, ignorant of almost everything including knowing any Supreme Court Decision worth mentioning, and couldn't even name a newspaper she reads regularly, not even the Kodiak Island Fish Wrapper! (yes there was such a paper a while back; with such a name is it any surprise it no longer exists, at least not on the us newspaper list.com)
The fact is that the vast majority of the American people are to a T totally leary and suspicious about McCain's first major executve choice, which I believe was a joint production between Dick Cheney and a small cabal of evangelists headed by Rev. Dobson, which met in Minneapolis before the convention.
So why not Pawlenty? Romney? Kay Bailey Hutchison? Olympia Snowe? Beats the hell out of me.
Just ask the guy who graduated from the Naval Academy in 1958 5th from the bottom of the class. Maybe he can explain it: I can't.
Come to think: today, I watched his 2 and half minute explanation in defense of Palin to the Editorial Board of the Des Moines Register (which is posted on the website for the paper) on how good for the ticket was Palin, and he didn't convince them and he didn't convince me. I haven't liked her from the minute I watched one of those aerial hunting of wolves videos the day after her "selection." These editorial board members asked him some tough and blunt questions, and I encourage the reader to watch some or all of that interview.....
To hell with the Republicans this time around. They are finished. Even Susan Eisenhower, Ike's granddaughter, is supporting Obama. Why? She attributes it to McCain's Karl Rovian tactics, quote unquote.
That is the coup de grace. Au Revoir. Bon Soir. Fini!
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Stephen Fox (79 articles, 2 quicklinks, 10 diaries, 439 comments)
on Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 11:08:23 PM
I am quite serious and thank you for suggesting that I be so solemn. Now, it's time that we get serious about you and that glaring transference problem you project onto others. It really is sad when ostensibly bright individuals, such as you, employ tactics so easily identifiable with an authoritarian personality disorder. Dr. Robert Altermyer aptly named it Cognitive Dissonance Disorder – an internal clash that afflicts certain individuals (about 23-percent of the general population and almost always conservatives) causing them to have conflicting views, which results in a mental discord they are unable to reconcile.
Further, a 2003 collective study, by four leading universities, found that "political conservatism as motivated social cognition" integrates traits of personality authoritarianism, dogmatism, intolerance of ambiguity, fear and uncertainly among a very high percentage of self-professed conservatives. The report is 341 pages and summarized in a digest of 37 pages – all quite illuminating and rather disturbing, I might add. Don't worry, I have read them both and I can attest to their objectivity.
Let's be clear and candid hear, Tom. You hijack nearly every thread that makes rational, lucid, articulate points and inject your way into the debate, usually with incessant and fastidious references from the internet, and cobble them together with what you perceive as a cogent argument. All the while instilling your own brand of wisecracks, condescending banter and bluster, and then pull back only to claim you are in harmony with "Joe Six Pack." I can only say, "How strange a comparison to make: A man of seemingly learned intellect that identifies with a crowd who prides themselves in mediocrity."
I also notice that you like being a roving provocateur, or as Dr. Altermyer would state, "you enjoy creating contention and inflaming intergroup conflicts," and especially targeting people you perceive as threats (intellectuals, critical thinkers, dissenters, etc.) to your own alleged superiority in order to flex your own self-aggrandizing need to feed an unconscious inferiority complex.
See, Mr. Murphy, you know very little about me, but I know a lot about you. I have spent the better part of two years research and preparing for my book that explores the authoritarian mindset. And based off of your plentiful comments here at OEN, as a skilled practitioner of identifying these autocratic traits, I can say with near certitude you fit very neatly into an authoritarian mold.
Why do I make this assertion? It is because you want me to make it. You need me to make it. And others that challenge you, so you can demonstrate a false pre-eminence to yourself by being smug, glib, and proving your mettle – your pluckiness in all matters of varying degrees of insipidness.
Now, you can flag this as a person attack, but I think that it's time we had a little discussion about your patronizing, haughty remarks. Can you stand the heat and scrutiny? I doubt it, but you will come back with a vengeance, a rejoinder replete with an exorbitant number of links, references, quotations, obscure allusions, deceptive analyses and non-sequiturs in order to vanquish that anti-American, godless liberal, Mr. Ranelli. You simply won't be able to help yourself. Ohhh...I can't wait!
In the end, when you do so, and you will, you will only prove my point.
Honesty, Tom, wouldn't your time be better served at blogs like Red State or Little Green Footballs, or Powerline? Kindred folk to your own brand of skewed thinking and failed conservative values viewpoints? Do I really need to launch into the unmitigated debacles that have occurred under the eight-year reign of the Bush Reich? (I know it's all the liberals fault; I will spare you the keystrokes of this threadbare nonsense.)
As to the Hitler comparison, you took it to its illogical extreme and made a typical leap of faith into inanity. The difference is obvious; Governor Palin hasn't exterminated millions of people. However, no matter how much you mock my analysis or protest, the basic paradigm resemblance, as it goes to character, it is an apt one I firmly stand by and defend.
This ends my discourse; feel free to thunder away in anonymity as I am done responding to your provocative charm that wastes my valuable time. It was fun at first, but now, to be very sincere, I find it quite frivolous. I believe I gave you a number of reading assignments last time; shouldn't you be enlightening yourself right now? I suggest you start with John W. Dean's, Conservatives without Conscience.
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Frank J. Ranelli (66 articles, 143 quicklinks, 29 diaries, 383 comments)
on Thursday, October 2, 2008 at 2:07:57 AM
I take none of what you said as a personal attack, Mr. Ranelli. And even if it were an attack, so what? I can't control you or your thoughts and vice versa. But I can read your words. And let's get over the "godless" descriptor; you are entitled to your beliefs. I'm have not disparaged them, though, I do enjoy debating issues of religion. And I know you wear your atheism "badge" with pride – whipping it out quite frequently in your coments – but... honestly... so what?
I have claimed cognitive dissonance and compartmentalization for the members of the 9/11 Truth Movement. Therefore, I'm quite familiar with it. I think your referencing its presence in certain political spheres interesting yet irrelevant; both sides of the political aisle are prone to such silliness - click here .
"Let's be clear and candid hear, Tom."
Okay, I know I try to apply these qualities to my writing – usually.
"You hijack nearly every thread that makes rational, lucid, articulate points and inject your way into the debate, usually with incessant and fastidious references from the internet, and cobble them together with what you perceive as a cogent argument."
Flowery language aside, I'd say you're correct except I think hijack a bit strong. I prefer, "you participate in threads that make a point" – the rational, lucid, and articulate adjectives are clearly open to debate. Thus, the reason for my commenting.
"All the while instilling your own brand of wisecracks, condescending banter and bluster, and then pull back only to claim you are in harmony with 'Joe Six Pack.'"
I agree on the banter and bluster and would throw humor in there also. Condescending...? Hmmm. I think that's more of a perception issue from the perceiver. Confidence is sometimes confused with condescension, as you seem to have done here. As to my pal, Joe, I don't recall claiming to be in harmony with him. Do you? I think I understand him, somewhat, but I don't believe I'm in sync with his thought and belief structures.
"I can only say, 'How strange a comparison to make: A man of seemingly learned intellect that identifies with a crowd who prides themselves in mediocrity.'"
There's nothing wrong with mediocrity because it IS the majority. You seem to think it rather unnecessarily bland and that's nothing more than an elitist's attitude. I am sympathetic (usua
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