@ bigmacha

America has a history of appealing to the lowest common denominator and as a people we are singularly proud of our anti-intellectualism; in fact we revel in it. Palin is simply a continuation of this long-standing political tradition and Mccain has become the classic example of one who exploits this common thread for political gain.

Nicely put.

And there have always been filaments of these phenomena, in every society. But I suspect their hypertrophy in so many aspects of American life has been informed by, or infected by, the evolution of marketing communications over the past 60-70 years. Borrowing heavily from the techniques of show business, sellers of every stripe have found more and more sophisticated ways to deploy fear, excitement, suspense and drama in pushing every product and service known to humanity.

Simple experiment: get a pencil and paper, watch every commercial screened on a major network for a few hours and judge how many of them use the excitement of fear as their fundamental tactic. I did it the other night and the count came to over 50%. What this threnody of anxiety is doing to the American subconscious, is anyone's fearful guess.

The success of these methods has long been recognized by the political classes: in an age of mass media, and throughout the wired and wireless society, they are being relentlessly pressed into the service of the candidates and their handlers.

Thus politics, like the media, is increasingly subsumed into nothing more than a subset of the entertainment industry. Anyone who cares about the future is duty bound to find ways of fighting that.

Surely Joe Sixpack and Hockey Mom deserve their minds to be returned to them.

It was only a few hours ago that I was so interested in the teachers who were writing in about the "dumbing down" of America in general (not limited to GOP), and the women of all sorts writing about their reactions to Palin on the ticket, and the conservatives writing about what being conservative really means and where they stand in the current quagmire, and people reexamining their political stance on this election...ETC.

But the last several pages? For the most part...divisive; often hateful; often racist and/or sexist; mean-spirited; myopic; close-minded. Ok, enough. I don't even like to type such words--especially when it is our country at stake (and our country matters to other countries, ahem).

Open discussions are good, IMHO. Closed minds and bigoted or prejudicial opinions not so good, IMHO. An entrenched motto of mine is: Never argue with someone else's version of reality. But, from the last I've heard, it's still a free country and free speech is allowed. Excuse me if I go "all Pollyanna" to say I would welcome open discussions versus all venom and vile. Doesn't everyone WANT the country to move forward in a better direction? Can't we opine toward that direction?

"Black trash in the White House" ?? You'll make a good Republican.

Thank you for your excellent article. Why is the MSM not asking the same sorts of questions raised in The Dumbing Down of the GOP? Why was Gov. Palin's performance at the debate graded on a curve? Why is the MSM over-looking the fact that she evaded questions, did not use proper English, relied on her notes, spoke in generalities and slogans, and condescendingly referred to citizens as "Joe Six-Pack", etc.? Did anyone of the MSM catch this gaffe made by Gov. Palin :"It is a crisis. It's a toxic mess, really, on Main Street that's affecting Wall Street. And now we have to be ever vigilant and also making sure that credit markets don't seize up. That's where the Main Streeters like me, that's where we would really feel the effects." If anyone in the MSM did, he or she then simply looked the other way.

I suspect that the most reporters in the MSM are more intelligent than Gov. Palin - but they do seem rather cowed! The neo-cons seem to have effectively kept the citzenry and the MSM cowed through fear of one thing or another (e.g, through the threat of nuclear weapons and/or the threat of terrorists) while simultaneously offering us some down home gollygeewillikers feel good kind of candidate starting with ray-gun, I mean, Reagan. It is a power trip. The neo-cons want to decide what is threatening and how deal with those threats which is not through tough and candid diplomancy, sanctions, etc., but, rather, through sheer military might. The military gets all the money. The middle class and education suffers and the dumbing down continues...

Sarah Palin is no energy expert and certainly not the world's foremost expert. Energy is a complex subject involving geology, infrastrucutre and geopolitics - most especially geopolitics.

The United States will NEVER be energy independent. This is a canard and I really hate to hear Obama saying it. It is just not practical. No amount of wind, solar, bio, drilling offshore, tar sands production, shale etc. etc. can replace the rougly 4 billion barrels of oil we import to keep the country moving.

Most of the alternatives touted are about electricity not liquid fuel and this is a liquid fuels problem. The fossil fuel solutions - drilling, tar sands, shale, coal-to-liquid - all face significant problems and limitations.

So the only short term answers are conservation and getting along with the rest of the world especially the Arab world.

Sarah and her drill baby drill cohorts are not inclined toward either and while she may know what a drill bit is (which does not qualify one as the world's foremeost energy expert), she is clueless about the real issues and doesn't have the temperment or intelligence to deal with them.

Ooooh, Johnny.... guess my post got under your skin. But, then, Democrats are such thin-skinned creatures. Can you say 'Bradley effect'? I wouldn't count my chickens before they're hatched, if I were you. It'll be much more devastating when your false god goes down to defeat.

So true. It is completely embarrassing to listen to Palin speak - the reason so many people watched the VP debate is because we were all waiting (and hoping) for her to make more of an ass out of herself. It was pure entertainment - and she didn't disappoint.

It was like watching a deleted scene from Fargo. All the catch phrases and platitudes, zero substance, the contradictions, the half truths spun into outright lies.... it was a V.P. reality show.

Palin was the GOP's 2008 gimmick and the American people should be furious that they give us so little credit.