Theres The Rub
Realizations
By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 04:11:00 10/06/2008
Filed Under: US elections
MANILA, Philippines - The debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden last Friday (Manila time) made you realize two things.
One is how deeply conservative America remains.
Superpower logic continues to warp perception or prevent candidates from saying certain things lest they be shown to be "too far left to get to the aisle," as John McCain put it. Joe Biden had several opportunities to challenge several core elements of Palin's and McCain's world view, but did not.
One is Palin's-and McCain's-penchant for parading Henry Kissinger, a close ally, as a guru of foreign policy. Palin went on to say that he and McCain agreed with Kissinger's more confrontational, rather than détente-leaning, approach to foreign policy because there were just too many dictators out there who hated America's way of life and were resolved to destroy it. Palin may not be old enough to remember-though that's no excuse-but Kissinger was Nixon's co-architect in shaping an American policy that expressly propped up dictators across the Third World. Not least the Philippines. Though Chile was the more dramatic case. Those two plotted the murder of a duly elected democratic president, Salvador Allende, to shove in that bastard Augusto Pinochet. The logic being that, "he may be an SOB, but he is our SOB."
Two is Palin's (and McCain's) mantra that the United States is winning the war in Iraq. Specifically that the addition of 20,000 more troops has led to an irresistible "surge." Biden and Barack Obama have only been able to dance around it. Both have attacked the war as folly, both have pointed out how expensive it has become (it costs in three weeks what it costs in 6-7 years to fight the al-Qaida in Afghanistan), both have shown how wrong Cheney and McCain were to think the war would be short and sweet. Indeed both have shown how unpopular that war is abroad. But both have stopped short of questioning the value of the "surge." Both have stopped short of questioning the proposition that victory is within grasp.
If I recall right, in 1968 the American generals in Vietnam were also congratulating themselves on having made inroads in the war. Until the Tet offensive came, which not only pushed American troops to the wall but pushed American policy to the brink. It widened the credibility gap between the US government and the public that the war could be won. At least it raised anguished questions from parents about how many more body bags would be needed to do the trick.
And three is Palin's (and McCain's) allergy to any references about the past. Indeed, they've turned the past into some kind of quagmire one can only sink into if one stepped into it. "There you go again," Palin said at one point after Biden talked about the wrongheaded policies of the last eight years, which Palin and McCain were poised to continue, "looking backward again. Now, doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future.''
Biden did say, "The past is prologue," but he didn't elaborate. Before that he had criticized Palin's refusal to pin environmental degradation to human hands, saying that unless you know what the source of the problem is, how can you hope to solve it? The same principle clearly applied: If you don't know what the source of the financial mess at home and America's tattered image abroad is, how can you hope to solve them? The point strikes at the heart of McCain's and Palin's pretensions to being agents of change. Change isn't just change for, it is change from. There is always a point of reference from which you depart. Rather than being apologetic for "dwelling on the past," Biden and Obama would do better to hammer on the importance of the past. No past, no future.
The second thing you realize from the Palin-Biden debate is why people like Ronald Reagan become president of America. You remember H. L. Mencken's famous aphorism, "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public."
From where I sat last Friday, the debate was a rout. Biden made Palin look like fluff. There was a point there when I was actually sorry for her, she seemed out of her depth. She evaded the questions, she spouted motherhood, and she turned folksy when an intelligent, or just intelligible, answer would have sufficed. I could understand why the more articulate women's sector of America is up in arms over her-she sets back women's liberation by several decades. By contrast, Biden performed masterfully, showing uncharacteristic restraint and mixing just the right amount of high and low, reason and passion, knowledge and personal experience.
I was therefore completely bowled over when I read about the reactions to the debate. Most Americans still had Biden winning it, but not by much. Most of them as well thought Palin "held her own," the reason for it being that her performance exceeded expectations. They had expected her to fall flat on her face, and she did not. By those standards, she had done exceptionally well! One Republican put it this way: He thought the debate would send him to the Obama camp; given Palin's "excellent" performance, he'll probably stick with his party.
Is it a wonder Palin kept quoting Reagan as though he were the fountainhead of wisdom on matters economic? Is it a wonder she kept passing off Kissinger as the beacon of democracy on matters diplomatic?
I still figure that at the end of the day Obama and Biden will win in November, largely because of the American trauma after eight years of Bush and because of American fears their rivals are a worse bet for getting them out of tough times.
But you never know. Maybe Palin is getting through to the middle class after all. Maybe they're like-minded in ways only Paris Hilton can tell.
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