The MILF and that other Oedipus complex

I guess everyone has had that experience of being called upon in school when you didn’t really know the answer. And instead of owning up to it, you try to fake your way through it, except that it is of course painfully obvious to everyone that you’re essentially trying to surf on a wave of bullshit. For instance, my undergraduate theatre history class at Penn State was infamous for being tough. Due to the fantastic amount of detail we were expected to know, it was a difficult class to stay on top of, and once the professor caught me unprepared on the subject of an obscure Roman playwright named Pomponius. It went something like this:

Prof: Vikkitikkitavi, please explain the significance of Pomponius.

Me: Well, Pomponius was a playwright in ancient Rome, and as a Roman, he wrote about themes that were popular with the Romans, using characters that ancient Romans would have been familiar with. So he was quite a significant playwright.

Prof: What themes would those be?

Me: Uh, love, and…um, life. And of course death.

Prof: And what was his contribution to Stoicism?

Me: Oh, he was definitely a member of the movement of Stoicism, and he wrote his plays using the principals of Stoic literature. His heroes were, um, Stoic as well in that they adhered to Stoic ideals.

Prof: It sounds as if you believe that this rather minor comic playwright is one of the pillars of classical Stoicism.

Me: Oh. I…um… I wouldn’t say that.

Prof: What would you say, then?

Me: Well, um, that being a minor comic playwright, of course, his take on Stoicism…is different than what, you know, a major tragic playwright’s take would be. But still an important take, you know, just different. Because he’s a comic playwright, I mean, a minor one, but still.

I bring up this rather painful and humiliating memory because it reminds me of watching Sarah Palin in her first television interview since being named the Republican VP candidate. Watching Charlie Gibson prod her through some fairly cringe-inducing lapses, it struck me that she resembled nothing so much as a student trying to bullshit her way through an oral exam. Witness this exchange:

GIBSON: Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?

PALIN: In what respect, Charlie?

GIBSON: The Bush -- well, what do you -- what do you interpret it to be?

PALIN: His world view.

GIBSON: No, the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war.

PALIN: I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell bent on destroying our nation. There have been blunders along the way, though. There have been mistakes made. And with new leadership, and that's the beauty of American elections, of course, and democracy, is with new leadership comes opportunity to do things better.

GIBSON: The Bush doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense, that we have the right to a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to attack us. Do you agree with that?

PALIN: I agree that a president's job, when they swear in their oath to uphold our Constitution, their top priority is to defend the United States of America. I know that John McCain will do that and I, as his vice president, families we are blessed with that vote of the American people and are elected to serve and are sworn in on January 20, that will be our top priority is to defend the American people.

GIBSON: Do we have a right to anticipatory self-defense? Do we have a right to make a preemptive strike again another country if we feel that country might strike us?

PALIN: Charlie, if there is legitimate and enough intelligence that tells us that a strike is imminent against American people, we have every right to defend our country. In fact, the president has the obligation, the duty to defend.

Here’s another classroom tactic on display as she tries to defend her suggestion that Iran’s nuclear ambitions can be controlled with – surprise! – sanctions:

GIBSON: But, Governor, we've threatened greater sanctions against Iran for a long time. It hasn't done any good. It hasn't stemmed their nuclear program.

PALIN: We need to pursue those and we need to implement those. We cannot back off. We cannot just concede that, oh, gee, maybe they're going to have nuclear weapons, what can we do about it. No way, not Americans. We do not have to stand for that.

GIBSON: What if Israel decided it felt threatened and needed to take out the Iranian nuclear facilities?

PALIN: Well, first, we are friends with Israel and I don't think that we should second guess the measures that Israel has to take to defend themselves and for their security.

GIBSON: So if we wouldn't second guess it and they decided they needed to do it because Iran was an existential threat, we would cooperative or agree with that.

PALIN: I don't think we can second guess what Israel has to do to secure its nation.

GIBSON: So if it felt necessary, if it felt the need to defend itself by taking out Iranian nuclear facilities, that would be all right.

PALIN: We cannot second guess the steps that Israel has to take to defend itself.

Yeah, when you only have one thing to say, just keep repeating it. If you emphasize different words each time, no one will even notice.

Also, I noticed that the Governor has resorted to the Bush affectation of pronouncing the word “nuclear” as “nuke-ular.” No doubt the campaign is not anxious to invoke any Bush/Palin foreign policy parallels, which might explain why, during the Republican convention, the word “nuclear” was spelled out for her phonetically on the teleprompter as “new-clear” in each place where it occurred. True.

Some other notable events of the interview, in which Palin:

-reversed her opinion that the jury was out on whether humans contribute to global climate change…so now they definitely “could be”

-decided that maybe she is not privy to God’s day planner after all

-advocated defending Georgia, even if it means war with Russia, which apparently invaded Georgia without provocation, although didn’t mention that this opinion might have been influenced by a lobbyist for the government of Georgia now working for the McCain campaign

-believes that proximity to Russia imparts to her, apparently through osmosis, foreign policy experience – which is great news for me, because it means that proximity to my broken sink now means that I am a plumber

-definitely does not know what the word “hubris” means

And readers, as anyone who has studied their classical playwrights knows, it’s that last one that gets ya.