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[bob ford <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>]

yesterday, I spent a bit of my session discussing politics with my 
psychiatrist.  We have known each other for years, so small talk on cultural 
happenings is not uncommon. 

 Unlike me, my psychiatrist is absolutely brilliant.  She received a degree 
in engineering before graduating from (Harvard) medical school.  She was an 
obstetrician before becoming a psychiatrist (and she is considered one of the 
best in the country).

  Doc, like I, finds the seemingly obsessive hatred of Palin fascinating.  
She said that among her peers, Palin is much better viewed than among the 
reported general population.  While she doesn't view Palin as necessarily a 
great thinker, she suggested that it is hardly possible for her to be as bad, 
let alone worse, than those already running the political show.

  Doc and I agreed that media can (and does) make 'bumpkins' like like 
'statesmen', and 'statesmen' look like 'bumpkins'. It would not be possible 
for Palin to be as destructive as Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Chuck Schumer, 
Charlie Rangel, etc. 

To her (Doc), it is not about ideals or political philosophy, it is about the 
obsession with personality.  Anyway, the article below is from today's WSJ, 
and is somewhat similar in thought ..........bobford

----------------------------------------------------------------------
 OCTOBER 23, 2008 Hatin' Palin 


She's not the reason Americans can't stand their politicians.


The abuse being heaped on Sarah Palin is such a cheap shot.

The complaint against the Alaska governor, at its most basic, is that she 
doesn't qualify for admission to the national political fraternity.

Boy, that's rich.

Behold the American political system, circa 2008.

Sarah Palin didn't create the conditions that have led to a U.S. Congress 
with the lowest approval rating ever registered in the history of polling. 
She isn't the reason opinion polls are showing people want the entire 
Congress fired, with many telling pollsters they themselves could do a better 
job.

Sarah Palin didn't design a system of presidential primaries whose length and 
cost ensures that only the most obsessional personalities will run the 
gauntlet, while a long list of effective governors don't run.

These rules have wasted the electorate's time the past three presidential 
elections by filling the debates with such zero-support candidates as Dennis 
Kucinich, Mike Gravel, Al Sharpton, Duncan Hunter, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden 
(8,000 total votes), Wesley Clark and Alan Keyes.

Out of this process has fallen a Democratic nominee who entered the U.S. 
Senate in 2005 fresh off a stint in the Illinois state legislature, with next 
to no record of political accomplishment. He may be elected mainly because, 
in Colin Powell's word, he is "transformational." One may hope so.

By not bothering to look very deeply at the details beneath either 
candidate's governing proposals, the media has created a lot of free time to 
take free kicks at Gov. Palin.

 My former colleague, Tunku Varadarajan, has helpfully compiled a glossary of 
Palin invective, and I have added a few: "Republican blow-up doll," "idiot," 
"Jesus freak," "Caribou Barbie," "a dope," "a fatal cancer to the Republican 
Party," "liar," "disabled," and "her pretense that she is a woman."

If American politics is at low ebb, it may in large part be because so many 
of its observers are at their personal best working in its backwash.

The primary discomfort with Gov. Palin is the notion that she doesn't have 
enough experience to be president, that Sen. McCain should have picked a more 
seasoned figure. Really? Let's try an opinion poll question:

If as Joe Biden suggests the U.S. is likely to be tested by a foreign enemy 
next year, who of the following would you rather have making decisions in the 
Oval Office: Nancy (of Damascus) Pelosi, John Edwards, Harry Reid, Joe (the 
U.S. drove Hezbollah out of Lebanon) Biden, Mike Huckabee, Geraldine Ferraro, 
Tom DeLay, Jimmy Carter or Sarah Palin?

My pick? It would be Palin, surely the most grounded, common-sense person on 
that list of credentialed U.S. politicians.

In our time presidential candidates such as John McCain and Barack Obama have 
become untethered from the traditional discipline of party institutions, 
largely because the parties have lost coherence. They are celebrity 
candidates made famous, fundable and electable mainly by dint of their access 
to the modern media. Every election has become a prayer.

For nearly two years, all the major candidates rotated through our lives as 
solitary personalities attended by careerist campaign professionals. Barack, 
Hillary, Rudy, Mitt, Mike, McCain.

When the moment arrived to pick a running mate, input from the parties was 
minimal. That famous party boss, Caroline Kennedy, helped Barack Obama. John 
McCain's obligation in filling his ticket was not to country, party or honor 
but to himself and his endless slog to this big chance.

If nothing else, the quick surge of party-wide excitement and campaign 
contributions after his selection of Sarah Palin made clear that at that 
moment the McCain candidacy was moribund and headed for a low-turnout 
debacle. If he had picked any of the men on his veep shortlist -- Pawlenty, 
Sanford, Romney or Lieberman -- they'd have won approval from the media's 
college of cardinals, and killed his campaign.

I hope Sarah Palin stays in the game. She has exposed enough cultural 
fissures in American politics to occupy strategists full-time until 2012.

We know from what happened to her that there is now a left-to-right elite 
centered in New York, Washington, Hollywood and Silicon Valley whose 
worldview is defined by their shared point on the Bell Curve. It seems only 
yesterday that the most critical skill in presidential politics was being 
able to connect to and talk to people in places like Bronko's Bar or 
Saddleback Church. That's a skill I suspect Barack Obama will never learn. As 
to representing America's vital interests in London, Paris, Tehran or Moscow, 
Sen. Obama and Gov. Palin appear to be at more or less the same starting 
point.

Lorne Michaels, the executive producer of "Saturday Night Live" who lives on 
the forward wave of American life, gave his view of Sarah Palin this week to 
EW.com: "I think Palin will continue to be underestimated for a while. I 
watched the way she connected with people, and she's powerful. Her politics 
aren't my politics. But you can see that she's a very powerful, very 
disciplined, incredibly gracious woman. This was her first time out and she's 
had a huge impact. People connect to her."

Sounds like the cancer could be in remission.




http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122471105167259945.html