Incident Report
Sarah Palin's speech at the Republican National Convention -- along with an attendant speech by "America's Mayor" Rudy Giuliani -- had me up late thinking about cynicism, sarcasm, and cowardice.
In our media-saturated age, we tend to put idealism and earnestness in the same bag as naiveté and gullibility. It's risky to seem to believe too fervently, feel too deeply, to be genuine or unguarded, to show one's hand before the game is called. But it is no virtue to harden oneself against ideals and lofty goals.
The cynic has it easy, as he discounts sincerity and goodness in humans, and thereby saves himself from ever being let down. The cynic does not risk being wrong or embarrassed or fooled. A cynic does not play because she feels the game is rigged, and so she does not win or lose, and she also does not expose the rigging to which she is still exposed. (Everyone knows, watching the magician, that he is dependant on tricks and gimmics, but we still want to know how it all works -- we are still left with wonder.)
The vocubulary of the cynic is sarcasm and sneers. Sarcasm says to you, "Nice socks!" while meaning the opposite, except that there's no actual qualitative information about what isn't nice about your socks and there's a whole lot of room to back off from the original assertion. Just kidding. No, really, they are nice socks. Not for everyone, maybe, but they look good on you.
Rudy Giuliani can allege that Barack Obama's done nothing aside from write memoirs, and then -- having walked off the stage -- is insulated from having to deal with evidence to the contrary. Another example: on Wednesday night, Newt Gingrich asked an MSNBC reporter if he could name one thing that Barack Obama had done aside from talking and writing (as if government required action beyond argument -- say, shooting a moose.)
Like characters on 90's era-sitcoms, asking "Could you be any more (whatever)," the cynic appoints himself smarter, superior to the rest of us, privileging themselves with a smug sofa seat above the teeming and idiodic masses. (Sarcasm is often employed by people who mistake it for irony, which is ironic because actual irony requires wit and sophistication. Like rain on your wedding day.)
H.L. Menken famously said that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people, but this is clearly not the case. Marchel Duchamp (as "R. Mutt") installed a urinal in the Armory show, but I'd bet few people think of that urinal when they ponder art and beauty. P.T. Barnum was probably underestimating when he said there's a sucker born every minute, but this does not absolve the huckster, the manipulator, or the marketing major.
Everything about Sarah Palin smacks of cynicism -- her selection as veepal candidate not least of all -- but her speech on Wednesday night was so full of sarcasm that I kept having to check if it was being delivered by a late 90's Matthew Perry. The idea that a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago hasn't done anything of value is an out-of-hand discounting of the kind of help and assistance needed by real people with real problems. It is a suggestion -- by the party of supposed small government -- that only government counts. I find her suggestion that any interest in Barrack Obama is due only to pretty words and staging incredibly short-sighted and offensive, and I think it won't play well to people who honestly see in him the hope he champions.
I'm heartened, somewhat, by the comments relating to Palin attached to the New York Times article about her speech. While the Times is no GOP newsletter, it is the paper of record, and I'm having fun surfing the backlash. Or is that cynical?
There are two kinds of people -- there are those who think that everything fits into two categories, and then everybody else. We of that first set ike to sort information into simple binaries -- zero or one, on or off, good or bad, Democrat or Republican -- because it makes things so simple and easy to process. When something falls outside of one or the other, we say we are of two minds (or, as Al says, we feel very strongly both ways). That is, rather than locating ourselves outside of the binary system, we divide ourselves into both camps. So here are some things I feel two ways about: 
Really?
That's your counter-programing? A woman with just over a year in state(*) government and a severely northwestern decorating style?
I mean, how northwoods does your particular Bed, Bath, and Beyond need to be before it starts carrying the King Frickin' Crab paperweight?
(*) I know a lot of people forget that Alaska is a state, but it is. We bought it from Russia in 1867 for 2 cents an acre. In the late 1950's, when anything remotely Russian was hung (or at least prevented from writing screenplays), we made Alaska a state. Now they build useless bridges, fill the ocean with oil, and deplete the world of salmon and trees. While Alaska is the largest state in the union, it has only 12% of the population of Wisconsin, with the state's enitre population roughly equal to Milwaukee's.
We believe in success. We believe that everyone should have an opportunity to get ahead. And with that success comes a responsibility to make sure that others can follow.
I think we're blessed to be Americans. But with that blessing -- with that blessing comes an obligation to our neighbors and to our common good.
So you give every child the tools they need to succeed. That means quality schools, access to health care, safe neighborhoods, not just because it's the right thing to do -- of course it is -- but because, if those kids do better, we all do better.
And it doesn't really matter. You can be soft-hearted or hard- headed. Both are going to lead you to the same place: We're all in this together.
That's what this party believes. That's what this nation believes. That's what Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe.
Want a Cricket?
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I love how the media, long before the convention started, decided that Hillary's speech would need to unite the party under Obama and then, seconds after her speech ended, proclaimed that the party was now united. Nothing wrong with creating a narrative arc when you need one.
TV pundits last night called the speech a strong endorsement of Obama, but I didn't really feel that. It was a good speech, with lots of zingers and catchphrases (the one about the Twin Cities was a particular brand of Clintonian awsomeness), but it still seemed to me an endorsement of the current Democratic ticket generally than Obama in particular.
Still, she really ran the night, overshadowing the keynote (which was where Obama shone through four years ago) and the frequant reaction shots of Bill led to a certain amount of relishing the party as it was ten years ago. I think we need to move past that, and it's my hope that Bill keeps his speech short and subdued, allowing Biden his moment.
Bill Clinton is uniquely qualified, as Toni Morrison's "first black president," to put an Obama nomination in historical perspective, and there's some degree of torch-passing that needs to happen, too, but I think a larger theme to this convention needs to be -- for the sake of the media's narrative -- the old guard offereing benediction to the new. I would like to get a sense of the Clintons stepping aside tonight, even if -- as I hope -- they continue to be pit fighters for the campaign.
Michelle said:I know firsthand from their lives — and mine — that the American dream endures.
I stand here today at the crosscurrents of that history — knowing that my piece of the American dream is a blessing hard won by those who came before me.
That is the thread that connects our hearts. That is the thread that runs through my journey and Barack’s journey and so many other improbable journeys that have brought us here tonight, where the current of history meets this new tide of hope. That is why I love this country.
In honor of my father's memory and my daughters' future, out of gratitude for those whose triumphs we honor this week, and those whose everyday sacrifices have brought us to this moment, let us devote ourselves to finishing their work, let us work to fulfill their hopes...
I don’t think she did too well on saying I love America. That wasn’t adequate enough...
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