Michael Ventura: "Letters at 3AM: The Palin-Obama Convergence"

[villager]

Letters at 3AM: The Palin-Obama Convergence

BY MICHAEL VENTURA


Barack Obama and Sarah Palin are actually the same person.

No, really, they are. Apparent opposites, they parallel each other uncannily.

Palin and Obama each came out of nowhere. Almost instantly, each commanded the brightest of national spotlights.

Each – again, instantly! – forged a direct, forceful connection with a select but loud audience. Palin's core crowds were passionately idealistic middle-aged rednecks, and Obama's were passionately idealistic young liberals. Palin and Obama knew exactly what their respective audiences wanted to hear and knew exactly how to say it.

Then their appeal expanded quickly to the mainstream of their parties.

Palin and Obama lacked realistic experience for high national office but possessed star quality that – abracadabra! – made their inexperience a virtue to enthusiasts who believed that Palin and Obama were originals who'd forge stunning new solutions to our seemingly intractable dilemmas. Each had a unique way of making unrealistic generalities sound like plausible proposals – if one didn't look too closely, and continue to look.

Palin and Obama inspired precisely what their enthusiasts wanted to feel. For both, analysis was anathema and emotion was everything. Remember Obama exhorting crowds with shouts of "This is what is possible if you believe!" The crowds shouted back, "We believe!" Obama continued: "There are a lot of people who tell you not to believe! There are a lot of naysayers. A lot of doubting Thomases." "We believe!" roared the crowds, "we believe!" (as described in The New York Times, Feb. 5, 2008, p.A16).

Palin and Obama each claimed divine guidance. Footage of Palin's church services were all over the Internet, and Obama testified: "I felt I heard God's spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth and carrying out His works" (The Atlantic, Dec. 2007, p.49).

Palin is an attractive woman in her 40s, and Obama is an attractive man in his 40s, "attractive" being a polite media word for "sexy," though during the campaign it was politically incorrect to observe that these were the sexiest national candidates in history, and it was more than incorrect to notice that the electorate was, in the funky sense, turned on...."

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More at the link:

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/column?oid=oid:1115340

[DavidDvorkin]

1. One is brilliant but frequently passive. The other is stupid but brassily aggressive.

Yep. Exactly the same.

[marmar]

2. Good writing can't overcome a dumb premise.

nt