The typical American does not keep abreast of current events until it affects them directly, such as a natural disaster, or a gas shortage, or a tax increase. For whatever reason. Maybe they feel that after struggling all day to make ends meet they want to shut reality out and numb their minds with the cultural wasteland that is television. Maybe they feel their opinion doesn’t amount to much on the local, national or international stage, so why bother? Maybe they simply just don’t have the time or don’t want to make the time. How many people actually pick up a newspaper or news magazine to learn details of current events? How many people actually seek out political blogs or websites to learn about what their representatives are doing in Congress? Aside from the previously mentioned major events, more often than not it is the ‘sensational’ that captures the attention, such as, the school bus crash that killed all children onboard, or the bridge collapse that killed x number of people, or the maniac that decided to kill a bunch of people before killing himself.
We expect our elected officials to be well versed concerning their sphere of influence. We trust them to maintain a level of understanding in these matters in order to do their job effectively. Likewise, the American public should keep ourselves well enough informed in these same matters so that we can hold politicians to account for their occasional bonehead decision and to give proper recognition when they make the right choices. Since the media is the conduit through which the public learns details of events and individuals running for public office we expect the media to dig deep into these matters and to present their findings in an unbiased presentation so that the public can make informed decisions concerning how to proceed.
When it comes to learning about who is running for public office, we want to know everything about our candidates. When a candidate throws up a curtain to shroud his/her past, the American public becomes suspicious. This is what is happening with Sarah Palin. Her unwillingness to participate in investigations and her attempt to embellish her past accomplishments are smoke screens designed to hide the real Sarah Palin.
Sarah Palin is part of that group of individuals who do not keep up with current events, international or national. Katie Couric recently asked her what periodicals she reads in order to keep up to date on world and national events. Palin did not answer the question. She employed her usual smoke screen and took off on a tangent, several, in fact. Despite repeated attempts by Ms. Couric, Palin would not answer the question. She didn’t want to answer the question because she doesn’t keep herself informed. To not keep abreast of current events is unforgivable for a candidate for national public office. The fact that she tried to hide this fact proves she places herself above this nation’s needs.
It is the media’s job to bring this type of selfish and disingenuous character to light so the public can see that the candidate is a fraud. Once we see Sarah Palin is a fraud we then see that the republican party is a fraud by association and McCain’s refusal to drop his running mate proves that neither of these people put the nation first. To them, winning is the only thing that matters.
We have only to listen to Palin speak to see that she has no tangible recognition of what dangers this nation faces. In another recent interview with Katie Couric, Palin makes this fact very clear. When asked her thoughts on whether the economy would be better served by giving the bailout money directly to the people rather than to Wall Street, she fumbled. We cannot deny that this current economic situation is a complex topic, but it was clearly too ‘hardball’ for Palin. Her convoluted and rambling answer, full of republican talking points, clearly showed that Palin does not have the ability to formulate a coherent and educated response, and is more focused on towing the party line, and requires cue cards even to pull this off. Given the fact that she is vying for Vice President and “just a heartbeat away” from President of the United States, she is a pitiful choice for this position.
For someone who is being dressed-up and sold to the American public as being a maverick, Sarah Palin looks and sounds like every other run-of-the-mill American not suited to hold public office. She delivers one-liners and personal jabs that seems to appeal to the sarcastic and competitive side of many Americans, but there is no substance.
Being able to relate to the every day American has its merits, but when a person aspires to be the leader of the most powerful country in the world and faces the deepest and most profound problems we face today, I personally don’t want some run-of-the-mill, sarcastic person off the street who relies on populism instead of policy and parrots the party mantra as my leader.
The American people deserves a leader with ethics, someone with the leadership skills to bring people together instead of cleaning house of all who oppose, someone with an understanding of foreign affairs well beyond believing that living in close proximity of a foreign country is a qualification, someone who has a grasp of domestic issues outside of what books should be made available in the local library, someone who can answer straight forward questions with straight forward meaningful and insightful answers without trying to misdirect the issue.
During the vice presidential debate this coming Thursday, we will finally see the real Sarah Palin, raw and without cue cards. Rest assured, she will be highly coached, but we will have irrefutable proof that Sarah Palin is not the maverick she has been purported to be. We will see, once and for all, that Sarah Palin is way out of her league. Unfortunately, her ability to connect with the audience on a personal level will serve her and the Republican party in overshadowing substance in favor of leading her followers around like the sheep they have become.
