The encroachment of this attitude of dumbing down has been occurring throughout our society for some time. As a public school music teacher, I was struck speechless by the attitudes of "peer" teachers who would insist that my expectations were "unrealistic, too difficult" for the children in our district. If you expect nothing, you get nothing. I expected a lot, taught them well, and got what I expected. Over the years, I have observed that this country, at best, gives nothing but lip service to setting realistic, yet challenging expectations, standards, and accountability. The dumbing down occurs at the youngest stages of development; and, at the apex, becomes most glaringly apparent when athletic departments of universities are of more importance financially than the functioning of the rest of the university.

The dumbing of this country begins in the home with parents who do not model reading, literacy and culture. It continues in the public school, beginning with underfunded or completely eliminated early-childhood intervention programs, with the ill-conceived No Child Left Behind (with no funding), with poorly funded public schools that cannot provide real teaching and learning because of no parental support and the unending, yearly barrage of state and federally mandated standardized assessments. By the time you get to secondary level, it's glaringly apparent that, in many areas of this country, the school athletic alumni association is more important than what's going on in the arts and sciences.

So, now as a product of our public school system and declining societal values and expectations, we have a Republican Vice-Presidential candidate who brags about being a lipstick wearing pit bull, hockey mom, "joe six pack", who cannot speak in coherent sentences and uses slang at an embarrassing rate while (attempting) to discuss the serious issues set before her. In the few instances when she CAN speak coherently, she lies and manipulates the facts. All the while, she is winking, tossing the head and jutting the jaw. She is all style (of some sort) and no substance. And, it is apparent that the dumbing down of this nation HAS certainly occurred, because a significant percentage of the electorate is falling for it. But, it really is of no surprise. A good percentage of this country fell for it before with the re-election of George W. Bush, the male version of Sarah Palin. We could actually look at this man who mangles the English language, who was mediocre in school and business, who is both a manipulator and corporately manipulated, who had and has no international credibility, and elect him as our president.

Sarah Palin is another George W. Bush. She is a product of a society and it's educational system that expects nothing. She is vacuous and entertaining. If the McCain/Palin ticket is elected, we got what we wanted and expected.

What are you talking about? Sure, McCain's proposed tax cuts will help corporations create new jobs....in China, India, Malaysia, and everywhere else American companies have outsourced our jobs.

McCain had NOTHING definitive to say. And, he left a very bad taste snubbing Obama, Michelle Obama, even Tom Brokaw by leaving early. It was VERY obvious, seeing Obama and his wife still visiting with the town home folks and the audience, well after the debate was over.

Bennett probably knows how much money the RNC good old boys spent on clothes and makeup for Palin, AND her children. Estimated $40,000 for makeup, alone. Jeez. Who NEEDS makeup that costs $40k? Doesn't sound very liberated to me. The RNC should have used that money to hire a good speech writer for her, though, when she gets up on the stump, it wouldn't make much difference. The guys want her to look balanced against Mrs. McCain, which is a losing battle. Those expenses pale against the estimated $300,000 green frock Mrs. McCain wore at the convention. (Mrs. McCain easily paid for that one herself.)

There is nothing liberated about Palin. And, she and McCain certainly haven't demonstrated that they are free from the greed and corruption of the political system. Whether McCain was being flippant or joking, it was appalling (especially during the current economic climate) for a presidential candidate to say that he wasn't sure how many homes he owns. His wife is unimaginably wealthy. His gaff about his houses and his rich wife are old news. But, with so many Americans on the edge of economic disaster, having lost their homes, so many families having to crowd into the already overcrowded soup kitchens and homeless shelters, McCain's joke about his multiple homes certainly isn't very funny. As for our "feminist" Republican vice-presidential candidate, Palin may have considered herself a moose-killing maveric. But, how many moose-killing gals go out wearing $40k worth of makeup? Palin is nothing more than a pawn of the RNC/Rove machine.

"This woman has children and they can see and feel the hate being thrown at their mother. She is a wife and a daughter also, and you've treated her as the worst kind of reprobate."

Wives and daughters are NOT off-limits. Back in Bill Clinton's first run for office, I will always remember John McCain's crude joke about the teenaged Chelsey Clinton. How cruel for that young girl to be open territory for a chauvinist old man. And, it showed McCain to have a very disturbing mesoginist streak.