A near miss

OK, so we sat up and watched the vice-presidential debate last night. And I have to say I was mildly disappointed.

Sarah Palin had the world's expectations so low that the fact that she did not vomit onto her own podium (or anyone else's) OR dissolve into tears OR go completely off the deep end and attack Biden and the liberal media and, and, and for her woes, counts as a victory.

She made a few gaffes, but nobody seems upset by that. She thinks that the general who led troops in the Civil War is currently running operations in Afghanistan, but nobody blinked. Our expectations were really, really low for her.

That speaks volumes about America and what we are willing to accept from our leaders. We are willing to accept a leader who does not know more than one Supreme Court Decision EVER, we are willing to accept a leader who cannot name a single new source that she reads. We are willing to accept a leader who cannot pronounce nuclear but would be willing to drop one on someone.

That is terrifying enough.

But you know what?

I wanted a train wreck last night. I wanted to see her crash and burn in a spectacular fashion. And in a way I did. We just don't get to hear it through that filter.

Sarah Palin showed herself to be a blithering idiot capable only of parroting the talking points she had been fed. If she had been another candidate for vice president and came out onto the stage and offered that performance, the pundits would be wringing their hands and calling it a disaster. But the fact that she is perceived as just a small step above a protozoa in intelligence, her folksy non-answers are being held up as sparkling examples of wit and debate skills.

Dear god, she's still dumber than a hake. We've just been told to expect so little that when she gives up five cents instead of four, we call it a 25 percent over-achievement. Never mind that we deserve leaders with a full dollar's worth of brains and are getting someone who can barely spell her name and who, I would hazard a guess, could not name all the states on a map of the US, never mind the nations of the globe. She spelled U.S.A. right last night and is being heralded as the rebirth of the party of Lincoln.

How utterly pathetic.