The Real Palin Problem

It would have seemed unthinkable just a few weeks ago, but in her brief time in the national political spotlight Sarah Palin has managed to make Barack Obama look downright dull. Everyone, from local talk radio to national print and television pundits, is talking about her, about her influence on the Presidential race, on what she means for and about American politics, about whether she's a role model or a step backward for women, and a hundred other things.

What they aren't talking about - at least, not nearly enough - is the fact that she is so remarkably, perhaps historically, unqualified for office. So far, she has expressed an ignorance of the role of the vice-president, the contents of the Bush Doctrine, the origins of the Pledge of Allegiance, to name but a few of her intellectual shortcomings. Yet the media responded to these mistakes not with outrage or even criticism but condescending praise, the kind normally reserved for special athletes or slow-witted relatives. Sure, she got a few of the details wrong, they said, but she should be praised for doing the interview in the first place. She's trying, after all.

This is what American politics has come to. Somebody running for the second most important office in the land is being congratulated for doing an interview. Merit, it seems, is no longer an important criteria for higher office in the United States. Folksy authenticity, earnestness, and the ability to invoke September 11th as often as possible are, apparently, far more desirable. Sarah Palin is a vivid example of the worst kind of populism, the belief that mediocrity is somehow a virtue. She is the result of the growing anti-intellectualism that has infected the United States over the last twenty years, and if she and John McCain win the White House, there may be no going back.