I watched last night's Presidential debate and in retrospect I was saddened by it. We as a society - including me - have been "engulfed" by television for about 60 years. Last night's debate was certainly "only theater," and today we are overwhelmed by the critics who attended this particular "theater," It bothers me that so many of the "critics" wish to know who "won" the debate, and review every nuance to come up with an array of "he should have or shouldn't have" moments.
It appeared to me how old McCain looked and sounded, and how "stuck" he seemed to be in his own experiences. Experience is a good thing to have, yet I think one must move on, using that experience to keep you open to whatever is "new and next." He "experienced" the war in Vietnam in a very different way, and while it is probably unkind to diminish his experiences there, I will.
Obama came off to me as a much younger person who having less of a past is ready to look more openly to the future. Obama is VERY SMART. McCain is smart too, but in my opinion, stuck in the mid to late 20th century of ideas and concepts.
The "Sarah Palin" references were almost non existent and I am sorry about that. I will once more engage in weird metaphors in order to make a point. It would have been a mistake, but at some point I would like to hear Obama ask McCain: 'Why Sarah Palin? Why Sarah Palin? Why Sarah Palin?"
In the stage play and movie "Damn Yankee" an older man sells his soul to the devil to become a great baseball player. When Sarah Palin was selected for McCain by his people, I suspected that somehow John McCain had sold his soul to the devil in order to win the presidency.
Now more than a few denigrating words from me about Sarah Palin. I watched the Charlie Gibson "interview" with Sarah Palin a while ago. I was very upset because I expected more of her. McCain selected her to be the President of the United States in the event of his death. Palin replied to Gibson like a "gushing teenager" telling her parents why she had stayed out until five in the morning. She knew little, and everyone could tell, as she was unable to "fake it" no matter how hard she tried.
I have watched her interviews on CBS Network News, and she once more spoke like the same "gushing teenager" giving a series of childlike, incoherent answers to Katie Couric's questions. She made Professor Irwin Corey seem like a great intellect by comparison, and Corey was TRYING to be funny! [he was a comic from the fifties and sixties.] Corey will only be meaningful to those fifty and older.
In the movie "A fish Called Wanda", Kevin Klein often says, "Don't call me stupid." The Republicans are in fact indirectly calling all Americans "stupid" with this nomination. I will give her the benefit of the doubt and speculate it is possible that:
Governor Palin is experienced.
Governor Palin is smart.
Governor Palin is all that and more.
However, it is reasonable to ask if Senator McCain has shown good judgment in selecting her among so many other more qualified American men and women. Has this really happened in our country? Her selection s bizarre.
I love to quote dialogue from one of America's great sources of wisdom, Mel Brooks. The following exchange took place in his movie "Blazing Saddles."
Hedley Lamarr, a character played by Harvey Korman, and Taggart, by Slim Pickens.
Hedley Lamarr: My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention.
Taggart: Ditto.
Hedley Lamarr: "Ditto?" "Ditto?, "You provincial putz."
When I hear Palin respond to simple questions. "My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention."
Many will be annoyed with me for this, but Sarah Palin, like Taggart, is a "provincial putz."
Sorry about that.
Norman Horowitz
At times also a "provincial putz."