By now it should be clear that I just don't understand how Sarah Palin could even have one admirer, let alone 40% of the country. I don't understand her appeal. Sometimes, she strikes me as a vindictive fifth grader who tells you she is "never speaking to you again." Other times she seem like the beauty contestant who would never make the final five but can win the "Miss Congeniality" title, because she has such a phony persona. I don't understand why people don't see through this phoniness, but then Ted Bundy was able to fool a considerable number of women, just before he killed them. So humans have two huge flaws when it comes to judging politicians: they are easily fooled, and they see what they want to see. A lot of Republicans want to see Sarah Palin as qualified in some way (even if it is just that she is "just like me," which always struck me as the worst possible reason to vote for someone.)
But the one further point I want to make about last night's debate is that while Palin was "animated" and "perky," that was the entire range of her emotions. Biden showed a variety of very real, very genuine, emotions. At times he was amused and chuckled, at other times he was clearly disgusted with her lies. He was often passionate in speaking about the middle class, and in one poignant moment, he became choked up when talking about the tragic accident that killed his wife and daughter. In short, he was real and showed a range of emotions.
Palin, by contrast, was a robot. There was no variation in her emotions. She was giving a performance, or as Chris Matthews said, simply reciting words at a spelling bee.
I think a lot of her supporters were fooled by the constant smile and occasional winks she displayed, but if they were to go back and look again at the debate, what they would see is a total lack of real human emotion of any kind: no anger, no sadness, no compassion, no softness, no real sense of humor. What might have passed for humor was her sarcasm and snarkiness, but that is not honest human emotion. That is theater, and perhaps a window into her black soul. She is -and was last night - a fraud.
God, I feel sorry for her children.
