How Facebook taught me to fear and loathe Sarah Palin

in Politics by griffn — August 9, 2009 at 4:11 pm | 0 comments

Let’s get one thing straight. If you take Sarah Palin seriously, I cannot take you seriously. This is a woman who has shown clearly and repeatedly that she has no idea what she’s talking about on virtually every subject. This is a former governor who recently gave her two weeks notice to the state of Alaska because she didn’t feel like going to work anymore. The extent to which you value her opinions is the extent to which I devalue yours.

I’ve pretty much felt this way about Palin since last fall, when America was first introduced to her. The morning that John McCain’s shocking vice presidential pick was announced, Palin– the first female VP pick since Geraldine Ferraro in 1984– gave a rousing speech to a rally in Ohio. I thought, “Wow, this move is kind of brilliant.” Five minutes later, after scanning her Wikipedia page, I thought, “Wow, this is going to backfire spectacularly.” By the weekend, the news broke that her teenage daughter was pregnant by her high school dropout boyfriend. And a fumbling response from the McCain/Palin camp promising a shotgun wedding by the spring signaled that the Palin circus was officially in town.

But two recent occurrences have led me to fear and loathe Palin even more. Oddly, both occurred on Facebook.

The first was a status update that showed up in my news feed one morning about a month ago. “Uncle So-and-So is a fan of Sarah Palin.” I wiped the sleep from my eyes and blinked in disbelief. I knew my uncle was a Republican, and I respected that. He’s also a ridiculously smart guy who works high up in corporate America. I think he’s even run for local office a few times, which makes him a better citizen than me. But seeing that status update was like receiving news that your smart, successful uncle had suddenly joined a cult.

Later that afternoon, I checked my Facebook again. “Uncle So-and-So voted ‘yes’ in the ‘Sarah Palin for President in the year 2012?’ poll.” I blinked again. It’s one thing to subscribe to her fan page, but president? Before then, I believed that the only people who still thought Sarah Palin should be in possession of our nuclear codes were knuckle-dragging ideologues who cared more about keeping their guns than they did about preventing the entire country from looking like post-Katrina New Orleans. But if someone like my uncle could support Palin, then America was in way bigger trouble than I thought.

The other recent event that shaped my opinion of Palin occurred earlier this weekend. For the first time since resigning as governor, Sarah Palin issued a policy statement. On her Facebook page. Here’s what she had to say about the current debate on health care reform:

Who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

First, note the glaring hypocrisy of her not only bringing her baby into the discussion, but her “baby with Down Syndrome.” She constantly drags her family into the spotlight and uses them for political purposes– especially that poor kid Trig– then complains when people talk about her family. Pick a side, Sarah; either they’re in the discussion or they aren’t.

Second, note her cartoonish characterization of Congress’s very serious proposals. According to her, health care reform equals an Obama “death panel” that will institute a system that’s “downright evil.” If you’re looking for a reason why we can’t have a civil debate on health care, why town hall meetings have turned into mob scenes, and why seniors enjoying all the benefits of Medicare are the ones screaming loudest about the evils of government-run health care, look no further. On one side, you’ve got Congress doing real work to improve our access to health care while still keeping the industry profitable, on the other side, you’ve got Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin telling people that we’re going to start gassing senior citizens and mentally handicapped babies.

Finally, note the fact that Palin’s “death panel” conclusion is a complete and fundamental misreading of the proposal in question. As Politico’s Ben Smith notes, either she just doesn’t understand what she’s talking about or she’s purposely misleading people. (I think it’s a little from column A and a little from column B):

The former governor is basing her claim on language in the House bill which cites “advance care planning consultation.” As non-partisan sources note, the provision deals with medical practicioners helping individuals prepare living wills, powers of attorney and the like. It’s a long ways from there to a “death panel” where bureaucrats decide who lives or dies.

So again we come back to the fact that there is a disturbingly large group of people in America who believe that Sarah Palin is the person who should be steering the ship, including my very smart, very much should-know-better uncle. Specifically, there is a disturbingly large segment of the Republican Party who believes that experience and intelligence are irrelevant, and that anyone who can parrot the right conservative talking points is capable of running the nation.

Now, I have no worries whatsoever that Sarah Palin will ever become president or even win the Republican nomination. I’m confident that no matter how large her ambition, there’s no chance she can hold up under the scrutiny of an extended nationwide campaign. My concern is that there are still people in America– a lot of people, smart people– who care what she thinks. It’s one thing to have an honest debate, it’s another thing to have to stop in the middle of an honest debate to discuss whether the moon is made of cheese.

So it’s time to draw a line. You’re either with us or you’re with Sarah Palin. If you show up to a town hall meeting shouting arguments you heard from Sarah Palin, expect to be ignored. If you exercise your right to publicly support Sarah Palin, expect your friends and neighbors to exercise their right to talk behind your back. And if I see you on Facebook subscribing to Sarah Palin’s fan page, expect to get some funny looks at the next family reunion.

Tags: Facebook health care john mccain republicans Sarah Palin