Eric The Blue

Answers in Genesis

At work, my desk is closest to that of the office fundamentalist.  It could be worse: he doesn't just launch into disquisitions without a pretext, but waits until the subject is at hand, at least tangentially, then springs.  He knows not to mess with me, as I've told him what I think, but, on account of his nearness, I'm obliged sometimes to hear his conversations with others.

Today, I heard him tell someone that Sarah, Abraham's wife, lived to be 127.  When asked, with evident earnest skepticism, "How did they count years back then?" he answered very quickly, "Same as they do now."  There followed a tedious discussion of the amazing life spans of people in the Old Testament.

Tonight, I typed into WikiAnswers, "Why did people live so long in Old Testament times?"  The answer is: "Because even though they still sinned, they walked closer with God.  Now we do not have close relationships with Him like back then and we are punished for it with our shorter-lived lives." One of the alternative answers is that "there has been a progression towards shorter lives as sin accumulated." I guess the difference is that now the notion of punishment is only implicit.  In tacit acknowledgment that these answers might be controversial, we are informed, helpfully, that "there are some who believe it was because they didn't eat meat until after the Great Flood."  Ah, science! 

Doesn't it seem as if people who believe this stuff forfeit their right to be skeptical of anything?  Can they possibly believe that these ancient semitic people routinely lived longer than anyone does today but doubt that the previous owner of the used car they're looking at was a little old lady who drove it only to church and the grocery store, ten miles per week?  What is the standard that permits them to regard with skepticism only the more probable proposition?

It seems to me that a considerable amount of the stupidity all around us can be traced to the realm of religion.

Counter editorial

On its editorial page today the Minneapolis Star Tribune endorsed Norm Coleman, the incumbent Republican, in his re-election bid for US Senate.  The endorsement raised eyebrows, as the newspaper's editorial board leans Democratic and Coleman's challenger, Al Franken, has mounted a strong challenge.  According to most of the latest polls Franken, who trailed significantly in the summer and into September, has taken a small lead. 

The editorial is, given the rhetorical task, predictably unpersuasive.  Here is the second graph, which functions as what an old-fashioned composition teacher might call a "thesis statement":

Independent judgment, exercised on behalf of the best interests of the country and the state, is what we hope to see from our US senators.  With that hope in mind, this newspaper recommends the reelection of Republican US Sen. Norm Coleman.

Everything that follows may be regarded as a lame effort to explain why the second sentence, which does not follow from the first, follows from the first.  For example, Coleman "helped speed money to Minneapolis for a new Interstate 35W bridge"--as if he had to overcome the fierce opposition of unnamed powers opposed to rebuilding this plainly essential piece of public infrastructure.  And "he stood up to President Bush on extending publicly subsidized health insurance."   True, but no mention of the fact that the few instances of Coleman "standing up to President Bush" occurred after Bush's approval rating in the state had fallen below Joe Mauer's batting average and his own re-election campaign loomed.

The time to stand up to Bush was in 2003 and 2004, when he launched the war in Iraq and pushed large tax cuts, benefitting mainly the already-rich, that even John McCain voted against.  The cuts passed, with Coleman's enthusiastic support, and to this day he insists that backing the Bush war resolution  was the right thing to do. 

Coleman's record is that of a Bush toady who trimmed his sails when the president's policies proved disastrous for our country and the world.  What the editorial calls "independent judgment" is just political calculation at the service of political ambition.  Franken, according to the editorial, is a mere "critic," while the "pragmatic" Coleman has been getting things done.  Something more than the talking points of the preferred candidate's campaign is what I hope to see in a newspaper editorial endorsing the re-election of a US senator.

Let the voters of Minnesota cast their appraising eye over the past six years and then render judgment on what Coleman's "independence" and "pragmatism" have wrought. 

More slime from Power Line

Power Line's execrable Scott Johnson has up a post under the title "a word fitly spoken."  This refers, we learn, to the biblical proverb, loved by Abraham Lincoln, that "a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." And Johnson has a contemporary instance of a fitly spoken word!  He links to one Erick Erickson, who, on the subject of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) yanking its financial support of the repugnant Michele Bachmann's re-election campaign, writes:

Let's just call Tom Cole (R-OK), the head of the NRCC, what he is: a douchebag.

So the "word fitly spoken" turns out to be "douchebag."  The boys are so distressed over the coming electoral disaster that they are besliming fellow Republicans.  What can account for all the bluster and aggressive vitriol?  Is is possibly a compensation for, er, physical shortcomings? 

Regarding taxes

As I said the other day, I liked Colin Powell's take down of Michele Bachmann outside the Meet the Press studio, after his endorsement of Obama on that morning's show.  But I think I liked even more something else he said on the same occasion:

Taxes are always a redistribution of money. Most of the taxes that are redistributed go back to those who pay them -- in roads and airports and hospitals and schools. And taxes are necessary for the common good, and there's nothing wrong with examining what our tax structure is or who should be paying more, who should be paying less. For us to say that makes you a socialist, I think, is an unfortunate characterization that isn't accurate.

James Maule points out that this is if anything a bit tame, since taxes are not "always a redistribution of money": there is no "transfer of wealth" when the taxpayer receives, in return for cash, a road, an airport, a hospital, a school.  But that is a quibble.  It seems all McCain has left is Joe the Plumber and Obama's alleged "socialism" for having pronounced the words "spread the wealth around."  Powell takes aim and scores a direct hit, just as he did on Bachmann.

I sometimes wonder what Republicans would say if fundamental provisions of the Social Security Act had never been adopted and were now being proposed by progressive politicians.  "Here we go again.  Big government taking money from these guys and giving it to those guys.  Of course the nanny state knows best who should get this money, and it is not the people who earned it.  How about a little personal responsibility?  It's not as if retirement and misfortune aren't predictable.  Prepare for them!"

Questions for McCain:  Are social security payments an instance of wealth redistribution undertaken by the government?  And are you for or against?  Should anyone but Wall Street institutions and the rich benefit from the government's largesse?  Why do you keep lying about Obama's tax plan?

Emetic needed

A beautiful day in Minneapolis.  We walked to the Kingfield Market, at 43rd and Nicollet, where we bought some squash, and then headed west on 44th Street for the mile or so to Lake Harriet, which we circumnavigated.  The Obama to McCain lawn sign ratio in our part of the world is on the order of 20 to 1, which means nothing.   As I pushed the stroller along, taking in the Obama signs, which on some blocks take on the aspect of rows of markers in a military cemetery, my free-associating mind fell upon Pauline Kael, the New Yorker's legendary film critic who, on the occasion of Nixon's landslide re-election, is supposed to have remarked:  "I can't believe he won.  No one I know voted for him."  

Or, as a player in a comedy sketch we saw last week at the Brave New Workshop says, "When the crazies come out of the woods and vote, the crazies win."  And speaking of crazies coming out of the woods, how about that Michele Bachmann?   Now the whole country knows she's a despicable idiot.  I got a lump in my throat watching Colin Powell take her down in the course of explaining, outside the Meet the Press studio, why he supports Obama for president. Good for him.

The October campaign of the Republicans is making it hard to await the outcome of the election with equanimity.  Their defeat, like vomiting after you've swallowed poison, is a necessary first step for recovery.

Infant mortality: America not no. 1

A few days ago, while scanning the A-section of my hometown paper for campaign news, I ended up reading a story that ran on page 4 under the headline "Infant mortality rate nearly unchanged in U.S."  Here is the lede:

After a century of declines, the U.S. infant mortality rate barely budged between 2000 and 2005, causing the United States to slip further behind other developed countries despite spending more on health care, according to a report released Wednesday.

Regarding the details of "further behind other developed countries": In 1960, the U.S. had the twelfth lowest infant mortality rate in the world.  By 2004, the last year for which comparative data is available, it had dropped to twenty-ninth.  In infant mortality, the U.S. is keeping company with Slovakia and Poland, and lags far behind most of the countries of western Europe. 

The New York Times editorializes on the subject here.  Back in January, I wrote about the "delusional" views on health care expressed by the field of Republican candidates for president. Though health care comes up in the general election campaign, I don't know why it isn't even a bigger issue.  I also don't know why Americans aren't even more upset--hell, embarrassed--by our "health care delivery system": it's obscenely expensive, fails to cover about 47 million of our people, and, as our standing in infant mortality demonstrates, achieves inferior results.  What's to like about it?  What would have to be true for it to be pronounced a failure requiring a complete overhaul?

The compensations of algebra

Before he retired, my dad was a physicist.  When as a teenager I approached him with questions about my algebra homework, I got more than I bargained for.  I remember him casting an appraising eye on my textbook, the better I assumed to address my questions in an appropriate fashion, before remarking, "It is obvious that the author of this textbook knows nothing of mathematics.  I really must speak with your teacher."

Not what I had in mind. 

His subsequent interest in my mathematical education was the source of some tense moments.  He cared more for math than for my self esteem and sometimes had a hard time understanding how I could not understand.  His first language is Norwegian, and he worked hard to eliminate the inflections of that language from his spoken English, but when agitated, as he was by my trouble simplifying algebraic expressions by factoring, his voice would rise, and he would suddenly sound scary and foreign.  The sounds of our algebra sessions carried to other parts of the house and  I remember my mom peering into the room we were working in while nervously drying her hands on a dish towell.  I wished she would interrupt but she didn't.  How could I concentrate with her just standing there and him talking loud at me, his voice rising sharply in that weird Norwegian way at the end of his emphatic speech acts?

But I received a grounding in algebra.  It's its own reward, I think, but once in awhile you get to amaze the uninitiated with your mystical powers.  Today, in a meeting, someone wanted to know the product of 54 and 46.  While someone else began reaching for a calculator, I announced, "Two thousand four hundred and eighty four."  When a few seconds later the guy with the calculator verified my answer, jaws sagged, and I think my colleagues now regard me as a genius, or possibly as an "idiot savant" along the line of the Dustin Hoffman character in Rain Man.  But it is really just the simplest algebra.  It just happens that 54 is four more, and 46 four less, than fifty.  So you have an instance of (a + b)(a - b) where a = 50 and b = 4.  Since (a + b)(a - b) = a² - b², it follows that 54 x 46 = 50² - 4², which is not too hard to do in your head.  If the problem had been the product of 54 and 44, the fellow with the calculator would have gotten there first.

Well, maybe not: 54 x 44 = (44 x 50) + (44 x 4) = 1/2 (4400) + 176 = 2376.  It was from my dad's way of teaching algebra that I learned to think like this.  Before, algebra had been to me a kind of incomprehensible code, the whole object of which was to memorize certain abstruse manipulations that allowed you to "solve" meaningless "problems."  The realization that it is arithmetic generalized--that made all the difference.

Hot zingers, cool Obama

I had one eye on the presidential debate last night while trying simultaneously to defend my honor in a grudge match of Chutes and Ladders.  Unable to give the debate my full attention, I have only the following general impression:  Doesn't it seem that Obama is always the same preternaturally composed person, while McCain, in a desperate attempt to get what the professional commentators call "traction," keeps trying on different personas?  Last night he was the attack dog.  The wingers probably liked his newest act, but I thought he just seemed grumpy, mean, panicked, and small. 

Of course, I am not an "undecided voter." 

Reading news accounts this morning, I noticed that McCain's insistence that he is not Bush seems to have attracted a lot of journalistic attention.  "If you wanted to run against Bush, you should have run four years ago," he testily informed Obama, who replied by pointing out the similarities in the economic views of the two Republicans.  Later, McCain told Obama that Herbert Hoover was the last president to raise taxes during tough economic times.  I thought Obama might have responded, "Senator McCain, I am not Herbert Hoover.  If you wanted to run against Hoover, you should have tossed your hat into the ring in 1928." 

But there is no place for zingers in Obama's style.  Zingers are hot and he's so cool.

Letter to the editor

Last week one of our local up-and-coming wingnuts had a piece in praise of the electoral college published on the editorial page of the Minneapolis daily.  I have a dim view of the electoral college and so undertook a reply in the form of a letter to the editor, which it seems is not going to be published.  So I will publish it here.

October 8, 2008
 
To the editor:
 
Andy Brehm's "Electoral College serves us well" (October 8) betrays the strain involved in defending our crazy method of electing a president.
 
"The Electoral College," says Brehm, "requires candidates to seek the support of a broad cross-section of the national electorate."  Does he think a candidate aiming at winning the national popular vote could forgo this effort?  Well, no, but thanks to the Electoral College, candidates cannot "turn a deaf ear to the rural electorate."  Where does this "rural electorate" live?  Alabama? Idaho? Illinois? Kansas? Mississippi? Texas? Utah? Wyoming?  I don't think the citizens of any of these states are basking in the attention of this year's aspirants.
 
Neither are the citizens of California or New York. Why is a system that makes "battlegrounds" of Nevada, New Mexico, and New Hampshire to be preferred to one where the candidates might seek votes in Houston, Silicon Valley, and Brooklyn?
 
Brehm continues, "The Electoral College also brings definitiveness to a close presidential race."  Yes, and up is down.
 
Toward the conclusion Brehm complains that abolishing the Electoral College, which "operates so magnificently," would cause "harm to political minorities."  Oh, yes, the African-Americans of Alabama would lose their voice!  It apparently has not occurred to Brehm that the Electoral College has the practical effect of disenfranchising something like forty percent of the voting public.  Republicans in California and Democrats in Texas understand that it is impossible for their vote to count.  On election day they can stay home, or for exercise walk to their polling place--it makes no difference as to who becomes president.
 
There is one local advantage to the Electoral College:  it can truly be said that Republicans here in Minnesota had nothing to do with putting Bush in office and, therefore, bear no personal responsibility for the disaster.

--Eric Jorgenson

The undiscovered country

Consecutive issues of The New York Review contain essay/reviews of ruminations on decline and death: Frank Kermode on Julian Barnes's Nothing to Be Frightened Of (October 9) is followed, in the October 23 issue, by a piece co-authored by Diane Johnson, a novelist, and John F. Murray, a physician, on (besides two other new books) David Shields's The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead.

Kermode begins with a brief examination of some of the wisdom on death available in the western literary canon.  He does not seem particularly impressed.  For example, having quoted some lines from Hamlet--

We well know that death shall come
And our future is unknown:
stealthy as a thief he comes
and body and soul he does part
So be of trust and confidence:
Be not too much afraid of death,
For if you fear him overmuch
Joy you nevermore shall touch.

--he paraphrases, "Death will do terminally bad things to you, so don't be too afraid of him--it will spoil your fun," advice that he judges an "unhelpful non sequitur."  (Kermode does mention, without commenting on the possible significance, that the speaker is Polonius.)  Montaigne's view--that people make too much of death on account of having all their lives made too much of life--is the occasion for some philosophical taxonomy: stoic philosophy versus the "authentic shudder" of Barnes's "thanatophobia."

Apparently Barnes's exposition of his death dread--the fear of dying as well as the fear of oblivion--deploys his brother as a kind of foil.  Kermode's description of this brother is intriguing.  He is, I guess, a philosopher living in France, where he breeds llamas and regards with cool bemusement his more famous brother's anxieties.  The term the brother applies to Julian's thanatophobia is "soppy."  I get the idea that Nothing to Be Frightened Of is not a very funny book, but the possibilities for comedy come into view.  Julian's brother could be like Mickey's dad in Hannah and Her Sisters--the scene where Mickey is back home, questioning his father about the fear of death.  Aren't you afraid?  You won't exist!  Etc.  His father is busy getting together a snack and seems not to be listening too closely.  "Who thinks about such nonsense?" he finally interjects.  "Now I'm alive.  When I'm dead, I'll be dead."  On the supposed horror of oblivion he has this to say:  "I'll either be unconscious or I won't.  If not, I'll deal with it then.  I'm not gonna worry now about what's gonna be when I'm unconscious."  He might have added that neither does he quake when considering the long period of nonbeing that preceded his birth, so why all the fuss about the other side of the (very) brief interregnum?

The second review makes the point that, after our reproductive years have passed, and our genes successfully transferred to the next generation's repositories, nature no longer cares for us.  It is, as is said, all downhill from there.  This sometimes long period of decline is referred to by the authors as "evolutionary largesse."  But the largesse, if that is what it is, has unfriendly accoutrements:

Beginning in the twenties and thirties, but accelerating in the forties, fifties, and sixties, is a steady age-related waning of physical performance as the lungs and heart reduce their capacities to deliver oxygen into the bloodstream and pump it around the body; blood vessels harden and become less elastic; muscles shrink and weaken; reflexes slow and coordination worsens; bone density decreases and fragility increases; and the usually vigilant immune system no longer protects against the onset of infection and the transformation of healthy cells into malignant ones.

One recognizes the hard truth even while feeling that perhaps it is not really so bad as that makes it sound.  The co-reviewers of The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead suggest that its author is too eager to press upon us the unpleasant facts of our biological lives.  They remind us that there is a considerable amount of individual variation to the pace of our steady declines, and that remedial measures such as exercise "to some extent" can work in our favor.  Social life, too, may usefully divert us from dwelling too constantly on what is happening to our bodies.  Maybe it's only because I'm fifty and fairly healthy, but I say:  Soldier on!  Let me know if you have a better idea.

Gays, religion, the bible, marriage & politics: I explain it all

The headline atop today's Minneapolis newspaper--"When campaign and cross unite"--is accompanied by the kicker, "Some evangelical pastors are endorsing from the pulpit as campaign fervor grows."  It makes for some discouraging reading, and put me in mind of one of the low moments in the recent vice-presidential debate--the emphatic manner in which Biden, following Palin, stated his opposition to gay marriage.  Of course I understand Biden cannot come out for gay marriage without hurting the ticket.  That's what's discouraging.

Opposition to gay marriage has thin Scriptural basis.  Jesus does not speak to the issue of homosexuality in any of the gospel narratives.  Homosexual behavior is of course condemned in the Old Testament, but, as Christian conservatives are lax in their observation of Old Testament dietary laws, and appear if anything even more casual on the question of what to do with menstruating women, their ardent opposition, on biblical grounds, to what they call "the homosexual agenda," and its centerpiece of gay marriage, is perplexing unless one is to suppose that they start by being determined to make trouble for this segment of the population and consult Scripture mainly for ammunition.

St. Paul, the New Testament's most pugnacious author, is another foe of homosexuality.  Here again, though, the issue of biblical cherry-picking comes into view.  For Paul is no friend of heterosexual love, marriage, and the family.  He repeatedly expresses his view that it would be best if all were to emulate him, a chaste and inveterate bachelor.  The opinion often appears as a kind of exasperated coda to disquisitions on sexual morality made necessary by his randy correspondents, especially those at Corinth.

So palpable is Paul's distaste for all things sexual that some readers have sought its source not in the realms of theology or ethics but, rather, in psychology.  They posit a correlation between those professing the strictest code of sexual ethics and those least able to attract the sexual attention of others.  We don't know what Paul looked like, but his writings convey a vivid personality, and it is not necessarily one that lots of people would find attractive at very close range.

General William "Jerry" Boykin, known to many for his insights on the interplay between religion, military science, and electoral politics, has spoken frankly about the disintegration of his marriage.  Apparently his wife of 25 years told him that she didn't love him anymore, that he was a religious fanatic, and that she was leaving him.  It's possible that Paul knew women like her and resented them and the things they did with the men they preferred.

Others, with more theological habits of mind, have also felt compelled to give an account of Paul's divergence from views espoused by all the evangelicals and Family Councils.  The most persuasive emphasizes his evident conviction that, in the time he was living and composing his epistles, the end of the world was at hand.  He was therefore inclined to regard almost everything, certainly including family feeling and filial loyalty, as distractions from the consuming religious devotion demanded by the epochal times. 

It is a world view one meets up with in the gospels, too.  Though truly human according to orthodox creeds, Jesus never married, and he taught that "the kingdom of God is at hand."  Renunciation of family is a condition of discipleship: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple." A hard saying, to be sure, though for many Republicans perhaps not so vexing as the ones concerning worldly riches. 

The darling of the Christian conservatives here in Minnesota is Rep. Michele Bachmann, who now represents the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities in the Congress.  Back in her days as a state legislator, she led the effort to ban gay marriage by amendment to the state's Constitution, and I remember once seeing her explain her reasoning in a television interview.     Her views may be summarized as follows:  homosexual marriage would be morally wrong; if it weren't wrong, we wouldn't be able to afford paying benefits for homosexual spouses anyway; and, besides, it could lead to people wanting to marry their house pets, since these too are "loving, committed relationships."  The interviewer, taking her cue from Bachmann, didn't even smile.

It's good to have reasons, but one can be involuntarily betrayed by a copious supply, as in the case of the employee who phones the boss on Monday morning and reports: "I won't be in.  I have the flu and my car won't start."  The obvious conclusion is that the worker indeed will not be in and that the one real reason is too lame to be divulged. 

Regarding gay marriage, the one real reason has to do with aversion to homosexuals.  Politicians now march in gay pride parades.  I hope I can live long enough to see a candidate on a national ticket come out for gay marriage--and win.

Norman Mailer in "The New Yorker"

The October 6 New Yorker contains a selection of Norman Mailer's letters on political subjects.  I enjoyed the entire section but would call particular attention to these back-to-back gems from the last years of his life.

To the Editor of the Boston Globe

March 13, 2002

George F. Will writes (Boston Globe, March 12): “Bush’s terseness is Ernest Hemingway seasoned with John Wesley.”

Well, one is hardly familiar with John Wesley’s sermons, but I do know that to put George W. Bush’s prose next to Hemingway’s is equal to saying that Jackie Susann is right up there with Jane Austen. Did a sense of shame ever reside in our Republican toadies? You can’t stop people who are never embarrassed by themselves. George Will’s readiness to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse can be cited as world-class sycophancy. . . .

Norman Mailer      

 

        

 

To Sal Cetrano

June 17, 2003

Dear Sal,

. . . Even if you’re a deep-dyed conservative, and Republican, please disabuse yourself of the idea that Bush is a good guy. Please, Sal. It seems to me the best argument you can present is that he’s a total, shallow, manipulative shit, but that he’s got the luck of the devil working for him and so his policy may not end up a total disaster. . . .

Cheers,      

Norman

The luck ran out.  His policy is a total disaster.

The beat goes on

It appears Sarah Palin will be seeing a lot more of Carl Cameron, of Fox News, than of, say, Katie Couric.  But look!  She's been studying!

What is with the promiscuous use of "also"?  Does she know there is no word that's a cross between "hideous" and "heinous"?  And it's "eminent domain," sweetie, not "imminent domain."

I know, I know, my complaints are "elitist."  But the Republicans' complaint with The Elite is just their cute way of acknowledging that the best and brightest do not see it their way.

The soft bigotry of low expectations for cocktail waitresses

I get a kick out of the righthanders who claim Sarah Palin "won the debate" the other night on account of having "exceeded expectations."  Why not just admit that, of course, if you grade her on a curve, and the curve is sufficiently steep, while evaluating Biden in the straight-up way, then and only then did Palin hold her own?  The claim that she exceeded expectations withers under scrutiny.  Expectations were so low that she couldn't help but exceed them.  Consequently, we expected her to exceed expectations, and actually to exceed expectations therefore meant she had to exceed expectations by a lot, which would have required more than a peppy recitation of the contents of her notecards.

It seems Republicans are against affirmative action--except for themselves; against "the soft bigotry of low expectations"--except for their candidate for vice-president.  Excuse me while I guffaw.  And no one deserves a bigger one than Rich Lowry, who was, shall we say, stimulated by Palin's performance:

I''m sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can't be learned; it's either something you have or you don't, and man, she's got it. 

One of Andrew Sullivan's correspondents has the definitive riposte:

In reaction to Rich Lowry, I'm sure I'm not the only woman who, upon reading his words, sat up a little straighter and said, "Is he kidding?  Is he goddamn kidding me?"  Is this the kind of reaction the women in this country should want men to have to the possible first female Vice Presidential candidate in history?  Holy hell.

I thought Palin's performance at the debate was downright embarrassing and on top of that I have to read this clown's blog, stating more or less that Palin gave him an erection? Little starbursts my ass.  Here's what I thought when Palin "dropped" that first wink at us: "Did she just wink at us like she was America's cocktail waitress?" Rich Lowry is on the verge of slapping Sarah Palin on the ass and asking her for another of those fantastic whiskey sours. 

More Palintology

Sarah Palin continues to astonish.  In the interview with Katie Couric aired this evening on CBS, it was evident that Roe is the only decision of the Supreme Court that she knows.  I won't bother to link to the video, which is all over the Web.  Couric asked her what other decisions, besides Roe, she disagreed with.  There was a pause, then a short gush of vacuous nonsense before, helpless, she returned to Roe, stammering, "Going through the history of America, there would be others, but, um. . . ."  Couric interrupted to ask, "Can you think of any?"  She could not.

John McCain called the recent decision of the high court in the Boumediene case "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country."  It did not however occur to Palin to name it.  Suppose she wanted to avoid current controversies and appear reasonable.  She might then have cited Dred Scott or Plessy.   But these landmarks in our history are as unknown to her as--the Bush Doctrine.   She appears to be as incurious as the current occupant.  In another segment, when Couric asked what newspapers and magazines she read, Palin was either unwilling or unable to name one.  She doesn't read and it is evident that she has not wasted her time "going through the history of America." 

That Palin is on the Republican ticket is--laughable? pathetic? an outrage?  I think it partakes of all three.  People ask whether she's qualified to be president, as if there is something to be said on two sides of that question.  The salient point is that McCain, by choosing her, showed that he is not qualified to be president.