It isn't just that the GOP is dumbing down. All of America seems to be following in that same direction. Why else did the American people believe the rubbish about WMD's in Iraq, why else don't they care about issues such as torture and surveillance, and why are they so willing to elect literally anybody into office and trust them with their very lives, yet they don't think it's necessary that their candidate of choice be well informed and experienced? The intellectual and political laziness is eclipsed by true moral indifference - we have become a nation that condones torture, eviscerates habeas corpus, makes a mockery of the Bill of Rights, and yet we still sleep at night unless we're worried about our own little lives. I used to think that the term "Joe Six-Pack" was an insult, but it's actually quite apt, I'm afraid. So is "hockey mom." Because for these people, the only thing that matters is that there is a six in the fridge and a hockey game to go to. As for the candidates, you're only going to get what you settle for.

Thank you for a terrific article. Something is really amiss in the political and social scene. I have to admit, I was puzzled by the endless use of "real" and "authentic" when it came to describe Palin and her fans. I don't know what the definition of real is, but it sure is not associated to downright stupid, arrogant and above the law. Is Biden less real when he demonstrates a superb mastery of the international and domestic issues we are facing? How did real become the equivalent of mediocre, petty, nasty and therefore: comforting?

Republican have a tendency to skip over Obama's 8 years as the IL state senator, before he became a U.S. Senator. Obama in fact had more legislative experience than Hillary Clinton. Obama is NOT running against Palin either. However being a state Senator for 8 years in IL is certanly more significant ans challenging than being a mayor of Wasilla. Besides Obama and Biden are both more educated than either McCain or Palin. McCain at the bottom of his class, Plainaking 5 years at 6 different colleges to get a BA. Does she really have a degree? Palin has an education, but is NOT educated. Obama is brilliant, graduated with honors from Columbia University in NY, where he studied political sceince and foreign relations. Graduated as the top student in his class at Harvard Law school. Taught constitutional law. You don't get on the Harbard law review,one of the best laws schools in the nation unless your are a brilliant thinker. Biden also is bright.

Maybe Palin and McCain are like 'joe six pack'. Nothing wrong with being a 'joe six pack, but it's nt tehkind of person we need eading our country.

Why do some right wing republican dislike intelligence so much.

Why is being liberal and intelligent a bad thing? Our cutnry has done the most for lower and middle classes when lead by liberals.

P.O.w Military experience does not qualify anyone to be president,noit oses living in an oil state

Great piece! Palin is so remarkably chipper about being literally a know-nothing, it really leads one to fear for the safety of the Republic if she found her way to the White House.

We should not be surprised that popular democracy eventually results in candidates that reflect the electorate. There was good reason why our founding fathers did not give the vote to all. Discrimination? Yes. The truth is that the average voter knows little more about their society, economics, the Constitution, foreign affairs, etc, than what their government-controlled school taught them and what they learn by watching the main-stream mass media. As they start punching out chads, they get down to the local offices and really have no idea about the candidates. So, it really becomes a lottery. The average reading comprehension level is well below the language used to write propositions on the ballot.

We should, therefore, not be surprised that candidates are universally poorly qualified, either in knowledge and abilities, or in integrity. And when you get someone with both (e.g., Jimmy Carter) they can't accomplish a thing in the rancid D.C. environment.

I gave up voting 10 years ago and refuse to further validate this horrible system of selecting leaders by participating in it. One thing that is does prove is what my government teachers kept telling me when I was young--"In this nation, ANYONE can become president".

There has been serious dumbing down in the USA but it isn't recent. Anybody remember the book,"The Closing of the American Mind"?

Fact is, American culture is in the grips of the advertisers to whom the dumber and more malleable the populace, the better.

As a Canadian, I keep asking myself: how on earth could a nitwit like Bush get elected? The answer is deep, dark and conspiratorial and I won't explore it here...but the powers that be obviously don't want independed minded intelligence of a Kennedy, for instance.

I am also dumbfounded to read continually about the financial crisis and bailout and never a mention of the Savings and Loans scandal of 1996 (I think) which, lo and behold, cost the treasury a similar 6 or 7 hundred billion. Is there not something funny going on here?

Finally, everybody claims 'laziness' and 'inattention' in the lack of regulation but when ENRON failed, were the SEC regulators called on the carpet for their total lack of oversight?

NO.

...but she'll need to convince McCain to close the border and drill in ANWR as a good boy should.

When I was reading this article I kept thinking "From William F. Buckley to Sarah Palin in a generation."

Perhaps someday they will meet in GOP heaven. Sarah will bound over and say "Pleased to meetcha! Can I call ya' Bill?"

I'm not sure what Mr. Buckley's response will be...

"And in the same sad way, [Quayle] too benefited from the drastically reduced expectations applied to anyone whose inadequacy is so obvious."

This is very interesting; today I said to someone that I had found myself judging Palin as if she were operating as a sophomore in high school. I had, indeed, lowered my expectations of her and sometimes found myself thinking that (as a sophomore in high school) 'she's pretty good!'

What does she have or do to make people think she's pretty good?

She has the ability to project her voice and capture her audience; she uses eye contact with her audience (as her public speaking teacher in high school may have taught her); her voice and eyes make her words seem important, the unintelligibility of her thoughts notwithstanding; she is pretty and wrapped like a gift package; she uses sex as a ploy, no doubt letting even John McCain feel she cares about him (and today I am hearing that other men, even those who see her only on TV feel turned on, have fantasies and dreams about her); she uses put-downs and sarcasm cutely, making some people who dare not or can not do that admire her, and borderline personality types, who DO find it easy to talk that way, see themselves in her; she performs an interesting trick: talking like a little girl at the same time as spanking like a mom -- her voice at the debate so often had the quality of Well! Now that we have you all buttoned up, you are ready to go outside! -- a caretaking mom. She is absolutely sure she is right -- this comes across with some people as wisdom I suppose.

HOWEVER, she is determined to win at all costs -- and the cost of the truth is the bigget cost so far. She has no obvious vulnerability, and this appeals to some people, especially those who have only known her a short time. We have heard that people in Alaska have said that she takes revenge, that it does no good to disagree with her or to challenge her -- you will get punished. Her barracuda teeth (see the picture that comes with this article and others), bared, her large jaw jutting in a determined way, seem to expose her ruthlessness. She seems to lack the ability to put herself into someone else's shoes. Lacks empathy, in other words; her relationship in public with her children doesn't belie this. (The way she picks up her baby, shows him frontally, then puts him back into one of her kids' arms; her stalking onto the stage or into a crowd leaving her younger daughter to walk behind alone; there was too much space between them. Connective mothers typically, especially in a crowd, make sure to have either eye or touching contact with their young children. Sarah Palin does neither of these.) Her disregard for polar bears and their losing their habitats and drowning, her seeming total uncaring about this fact, next door to her own neighborhood, is completely disheartening. Not to mention her shooting wolves. Shooting wolves from an airplane. (And her friend at the hair salon raves about wanting to get 'a bigger bear than my husband', bigger than 9 feet. Why would someone want to go out and unnecessarily try to find a bear to kill? These are the people Palin hangs around with and whose values she shares.) She is sarcastic, rude and mean.

After listening to her I don't feel uplifted. I feel appalled. And downhearted and fitful. Trying to be fair, I tried putting her into the position of being 'on our side', as a Democratic pick for vice -president. I found I would have to be deeply embarassed, would have to leave the party. The more I write and think about this, the more I think she is dangerous, and dangerously potentially on the brink of being put into a position of far too much power. (To say the least.)