The 'American Idol' Distraction

By Cernig

Over at right-of-center blog The Volokh Conspiracy, David Post gets it exactly right.

... along comes the Palin thing, and now we seem to be arguing about fundamentally irrelevant things – like about whether the mayor of Wassilla, AK did or did not ask the school librarian to ban books (and which books they might be), about how many colleges the Governor of Alaska has attended (and the relative value of a University of Idaho vs. a Harvard Law education), about the virtues of small-town life, about hunting, and snowmobile racing, and whether the Governor of Alaska did or did not improperly interfere with the state police to remove a trooper she didn’t like, and about a thousand other things like that. If you had asked me early last week, those all would have struck me as pretty insignificant, in the greater scheme of things, and entirely irrelevant to the 2008 election. But now they are relevant, alas – McCain has made them so.

As McCain campaign manager Rick Davis recently revealed "“This election is not about issues" - the McCain campaign have constructed a narrative where the election will, if they have the choice, all about carefully constructed personas (not personalities, we're not supposed to talk about how the candidates really are). And, so far, the media and progressives both have fallen for it hook, line and sinker.

It's like they've deliberately turned the election into a season of American Idol where viewers vote on which contestant is cuter or sexier, fits their prejudices more, dresses better, snarks back at Simon - rather than, y'know, who has a better singing voice. But even American Idol voters couldn't be that dumb, could they? Oh...D'oh!

Comments

[Fledermaus]

the sad truth of it is that we live in a country filled with small minded tribal ignorant bloodthirsty assholes. And they are looking for a president just like them. McCain's got this election in the bag

[Ron Beasley]

Palin was always meant to be a distraction from the issues. The Republicans can't win on the issues. We have fallen for it hook line and sinker - yes, me too. I said early on we should ignore her, I was right unfortunately I didn't listen to my own good advice. It has become a Palin/McCain ticket. The Democrats probably can't win that one. They can beat John McCain however.

[johng]

Recent U.S. presidential elections are always about personalities. After the Iowa caucuses, Hillary delegates, upset about the rise of Obama, threatened to cross over and vote for McCain in NH. This illogical assessment from committed party voters is nothing compared to the almost random fluctuations among the un-decideds. How else can you explain the polls in an environment where the incumbent party which is prolonging a lost war in a deteriorating economy is tied with the opposition?

We have to remember that the press reports what the people paying the bills want to hear. The people want this to be an American Idol contest; educating themselves on the realities is too hard and depressing.

[smintheus]

I don't entirely agree with David Post. Book-banning and Troopergate are both issues of abuse of power. There's a Cheneyesque ruthlessness/arrogance about Palin and that very much ought to be brought out.

Besides, Palin's unseemly past is part of the larger question of McCain's (a) willingness to choose somebody totally inappropriate, and (b) failure to vet her adequately.

It's true that some liberals have allowed themselves to be distracted by trivia, but on the other hand cutting the Palin myth back down to size is completely necessary and useful.

All that said, I think politically the most useful charge against Palin is that her attacks on the Dems are snide and she's just looking to further the Bush/Cheney divisiveness.