She's a Brainiac!
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| Mon, 10-27-2008 - 11:20pm |
Sarah Palin's a Brainiac
by Elaine Lafferty
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-10-27/sarah-palins-a-brainiac/1/
The former editor in chief of Ms. magazine (and a Democrat) on what she learned on a campaign plane with the would-be VP.
It's difficult not to froth when one reads, as I did again and again this week, doubts about Sarah Palin's “intelligence,” coming especially from women such as PBS's Bonnie Erbe, who, as near as I recall, has not herself heretofore been burdened with the Susan Sontag of Journalism moniker. As Fred Barnes—God help me, I'm agreeing with Fred Barnes—suggests in the Weekly Standard, these high toned and authoritative dismissals come from people who have never met or spoken with Sarah Palin. Those who know her, love her or hate her, offer no such criticism. They know what I know, and I learned it from spending just a little time traveling on the cramped campaign plane this week: Sarah Palin is very smart.
I'm a Democrat, but I've worked as a consultant with the McCain campaign since shortly after Palin's nomination. Last week, there was the thought that as a former editor-in-chief of Ms. magazine as well as a feminist activist in my pre-journalism days, I might be helpful in contributing to a speech that Palin had long wanted to give on women's rights.
What is often called her “confidence” is actually a rarity in national politics: I saw a woman who knows exactly who she is.
Now by “smart,” I don't refer to a person who is wily or calculating or nimble in the way of certain talented athletes who we admire but suspect don't really have serious brains in their skulls. I mean, instead, a mind that is thoughtful, curious, with a discernable pattern of associative thinking and insight. Palin asks questions, and probes linkages and logic that bring to mind a quirky law professor I once had. Palin is more than a “quick study”; I'd heard rumors around the campaign of her photographic memory and, frankly, I watched it in action. She sees. She processes. She questions, and only then, she acts. What is often called her “confidence” is actually a rarity in national politics: I saw a woman who knows exactly who she is.
For all those old enough to remember Senator Sam Ervin, the brilliant strict constitutional constructionist and chairman of the Senate Watergate Committee whose patois included “I'm just a country lawyer”… Yup, Palin is that smart.
So no simple task then, this speech on women's rights. For the sin of being a Christian personally opposed to abortion, Palin is being pilloried by the inside-the-Beltway Democrat feminist establishment. (Yes, she is anti-abortion. And yes, instead of buying organic New Zealand lamb at Whole Foods, she joins other Alaskans in hunting for food. That's it. She is not a right-wing nut, and all the rest of the Internet drivel—the book banning at the Library, the rape kits decision – is nonsense. I digress.) Palin's role in this campaign was to energize “the Republican base,” which she has inarguably done. She also was expected to reach out to Hillary Clinton “moderates.” (Right. Only a woman would get both those jobs in either party.) Look, I am obviously personally pro-choice, and I disagree with McCain and Palin on that and a few other issues. But like many other Democrats, including Lynn Rothschild, I'm tired of the Democratic Party taking women for granted. I also happen to believe Sarah Palin supports women's rights, deeply and passionately.
Many of those—not all—who decried the sexist media treatment of Hillary Clinton have been silent as Palin has been skewered in the old ways that female public figures are skewered, as well as a host of sexualized new ways as well. Some feminists have weighed in; “Even the reportedly clear glasses she wears to play down her beauty queen credential and enhance her gravitas can't make up for experience,” writes my heroine Suzanne Braun Levine, former editor of Ms. Oppose her on policy? Fine. But how sad for feminist leaders to sink this low, especially when Palin has worn glasses since she was 10 years old.
Last month a prominent feminist blogger, echoing that sensibility, declared that the media was wrongly buying into the false idea that Palin was a feminist. Why? Well, just because she said she was a feminist, because she supported women's rights and opportunities, equal pay, Title IV—that was just “empty rhetoric,” they said. At least the blogger didn't go as far as NOW's Kim Gandy and declare that Palin was not a woman. Bottom line: you are not a feminist until we say you are. And there you have the formula for diminishing what was once a great and important mass social change movement to an exclusionary club that rejects women who sincerely want to join and, God forbid, grow to lead.
But here is the good news: women, citizens of America's high and low culture, the Economist and People magazine readers, will get it. They got it with Hillary even when feminist leaders were not supporting her or doing so half-heartedly. Yes, Palin is a harder sell, she looks and sounds different, and one can rightfully oppose her based on abortion policies. If you only vote on how a person personally feels about abortion, you will never want her to darken your door. If you care about anything else, she will continue to intrigue you. As Time's Nancy Gibbs noted a few weeks ago, quoting bioethicist Tom Murray, “Sympathy and subtlety are seasonings rarely applied to political red meat.” Will Palin's time come next week? I don't know. But her time will come.

One person's perception does not equate with a statement of fact/truth.
Palin didn't know what papers she reads, hadn't "given much thought" to a war which has been the major foreign policy issue of the past half dozen years, and says, in nationally broadcast media, that her position as governor of Alaska, endows her with the requisite foreign policy experience because of geographical proximity. What part of any of those statements reflect "brainiac"?
Brainiac*****gasp, cough, choke, wheeze****? I don't think so. She may occasionally be glib (perhaps neither you nor the author of your link viewed the Couric interview where she looked more like a caribou in the headlights!) but that does NOT equate with the sort of intellectual curiosity which has been signally absent in Palin's past and present statements.
Gettingahandle
Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.
Facts stifle the will, hobble conviction.
Gettingahandle
Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.
Just offering up an opinion I happen to agree with.
I do think she is smart, accomplished and grounded - despite the MSM's varied attempts to discredit her, AND despite a few off moments. Win or lose next week, I believe she leads the future of the Republican party.
"As Fred Barnes—God help me, I'm agreeing with Fred Barnes—suggests in the Weekly Standard..."
Look no further for the money quote in that piece.
I didn't.
McCain LOST???
I suspect that your dyspeptic condition may be a result of improper interpretation. So, as a public service (plus, on a personal level, not wanting to see your cyber-head explode all over the board....brains are SO gross), I thought I'd help out by correcting what seems to have been your misperception or misinterpretation of the language used in the OP.
Clearly, what you heard (quite reasonably, because that's also the way the OP heard/interpreted it, as well) was the slang term "brainiac," meaning: someone who is SO intelligent, it's actually a bit scary.
Were that the actual rendering of the quote, I suspect I would be standing (kneeling?) beside you, sharing in your sputtering rage and nausea. However, not wanting to wish such discomfort on ANYONE (least of all someone of your unparalleled caliber), I think it only my duty to point out that this is simply incorrect. It's not really your fault, since the OP wrote it that way, as well, even in the title of her post. Nevertheless, I believe this to be an inaccurate translation of the original.
Had you merely been able to see that the ORIGINAL word which has been heretofore causing you such consternation - "brainiac" - was actually, in the original, not ONE word (slang though it may have been), but actually a mash-up of a real word with an exclamation of disbelief and disgust (in this case, disgust that the first part of the mash-up had ever even been used at all to describe the subject of the sentence), to wit: "Brainy? AAAAAAACK!!!!!"
Now - as I'm sure everyone here will recognize intuitively - THAT is indeed quite a normal, healthy response of a well-functioning human being (voter) to the notion that Sarah Palin is "brainy" -- AAAAAACCCK!!! - see? There, I just did it, myself!
So take heart. You are not alone. And I'm sure countless others have made this same error before you, when confronted with the up-is-down, day-is-night notion that Sarah Palin might ever be reasonably considered "brainy."
This has been a public service of the Sanity Lovers Of Politics (S.L.O.P.) committee, provided at no charge in the interest of greater harmony.
McCain LOST???