Sunday, November 21, 2010

Palin v. Obama

Frank Rich in the New York Times does his baffled best to analyze the phenomenon of Sarah Palin:

What might bring down other politicians only seems to make her stronger: the malapropisms and gaffes, the cut-and-run half-term governorship, family scandals, shameless lying and rapacious self-merchandising. In an angry time when America’s experts and elites all seem to have failed, her amateurism and liabilities are badges of honor. She has turned fallibility into a formula for success.
What particularly astonishes Mr. Rich is that the premiere of Sarah Palin's Alaska on the telly got twice the number of viewer's as the season finale of Mad Men! (Since we don't ordinarily watch the telly, hence don't have any of the specialty channels, Sally and I crouch in front of the computer monitor to watch Mad Men, which I buy off Amazon at $1.99 the episode, the day after it airs ... or creeps through the cable, or whatever it does to get to more sophisticated homes.)

But here's the thing: if you take away the snark, everything Mr. Rich says about Ms. Palin applies equally to Barack Obama. They are, in my judgment, two empty suits, each with his or her besotted demographic. If they are candidates in 2012, then as far as I'm concerned it will be a reprise of 1968. That was the year I voted for the Farmer-Labor candidate. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

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