Going to Be Very Interesting

I will try and watch the debate tonight. It is not that I am expecting anything great to come out of it but I just want to be able to make an independent judgment on what happens. There is going to be one hell of a lot of spin from both sides. If 'Princess Caribou" manages to actually answer some of the questions with actual facts instead of broad generalities and puked up talking points she is going to granted winner status regardless. Both we on the left and the right have now set such low expectations she will have to be speechless, literally, to no exceed them.

Joe Bageant has some thoughts that shouldn't be ignored.

Sarah Palin's real coup is that she brings out the snobbery of the left in their dismissal of her as an ignorant hick typical of small town red state America. They vastly underestimate her. Just like they have underestimated George Bush for the past eight years. While they laughed, George Bush managed to get everything he wanted and assist the looting of America in his spare time. No matter that he is vastly unpopular now even among Republicans. He has fulfilled his purpose to the powerful corporations and financial institutions that animate American politics. You do not have to be smart to be president, just malleable to the greater forces at work.

Yet Palin is not stupid. She may be religious and a right winger, but that doesn't mean she is stupid and incompetent (neither of which ever prevented an astute American politician from success, by the way.) She may be the last person any thinking leftist would want to see as vice president, but so far Sarah Palin has been a very successful politician. She has a high domestic approval rating and has soared to the top in record time. And each time Democrats and liberals take a shot at her religious beliefs and moral choices, which just happen to be those of tens of millions of heartland voting Americans, she gains political ground, or at a minimum, holds some for herself and McCain.

There is, of course, more and we on the left have had our fun with Madam Palin but the 'he who laughs last' comes to mind. I have come to the belief that to underestimate the complete irrationality of the vast majority of my fellow Americans is folly of the highest order.