Political Science

When Sarah Palin was anointed of God to become president when John McCain's anger worm or whatever it may be finishes eating his brain, I read a little bit about her and I found that she is a far right religious extremist who is associated with a movement that is literally trying to raise an army to conquer the earth on behalf of Jesus and install Christian dominion over every land. Personally, I can't support that, I don't know about you. However, I was surprised to learn that she is also a blithering idiot.

It turns out that's not necessarily a bad thing. According to all the analyses of the upcoming debate that I've been reading, all she has to do to "win" the debate is ignore the actual questions and spout memorized attack lines against Barack Obama. It turns out that Gwen Ifill isn't allowed to follow up and point out that she didn't answer the question, because she's a member of the negro conspiracy to seize state power. Other than that, Palin just has to refrain from rolling her eyes and sighing, and she has to pretend to take notes while Biden is talking.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden will display astonishing erudition and a profound grasp of history, economics, international affairs and social policy. He will spew facts, figures, historical analogies, acronyms and the names of foreign leaders great and small like an intellectual power washer. His arguments will be concise, well-crafted, logically impeccable, and built on a solid foundation of fact. This means he will be an arrogant, out of touch elitist who cannot possibly understand the struggles of ordinary people and who is a mean bully who is trying to make poor little Sarah look stupid. Even though she is stupid, and that's why we like her.

Only in America is ignorance and indifference to truth and logic a qualification for high office. I would assume that people who don't know a whole lot about medicine don't seek out an incompetent doctor because somebody who actually knows medicine can't possibly understand their problems. I presume that people who don't know anything about plumbing or electrical wiring do not look for the most inept, alcoholic layabout they can possibly find to work on their house because they can relate to that person so much better than an arrogant elitist who went to trade school. But that's been the Republican presidential brand for as long as I can remember. Vote for Ronald Reagan, Vote for George W. Bush, they're just as dumb as you are. And it works.