And I suggest you re-examine your literary theories. Again, I think you are confusing consciousness of one’s flaws with merely having flaws. Every living thing has flaws, but what makes us distinctly human is our awareness of them.

When I called you a Palin apologist, I didn’t mean to suggest you were a political supporter of hers. I’m aware that you are not. I’m more iinterested in the human issues involved in this debate than the political ones in any case. And originally I too had hoped that Palin would indeed represent a decent human character that was less packaged than the usual political campaign allows for. But over time I saw that she simply hasn’t got a decent human character, and is even less human than even the average political candidate. The fact that she has flaws is not what makes her human. Conscience is what makes us human. You confuse your own consciousness of Palin’s flaws with her own consciousness of those flaws, of which she has none. It’s a common mistake often made by people who have a lot of conscience, such as yourself. If I’m to make the most charitable interpretation of your post, that would be it. You are guilty of projecting your own good conscience upon someone who lacks one.

The first words out of his mouth were “most fallible”. I take issue with that notion of what makes us “human”. Rather than actually discuss that, you seem obsessed with my interpreting this “charitably”.

As for the rest of his statement, I think I understand what he’s getting at, but I disagree strongly with applying these concepts to Palin. The notion that being unpolished is “human”, is once again, equating our humanity with some rough state of unconscious nature, rather than with the specifically human state of being conscious, self-aware, and able to be responsible for ourselves. And that’s the problem with the Palin phenomena. It’s a glamourization of personal irresponsiblity, as if the human state is to be equated with being irresponsible, fallible, and thus “unpolished”. What’s even worse is that this is a woman who literally worships celebrity, fashion, style, polish, and all the things we differentiate us from the rough, country types who actually scorn these things. I live in a rural area myself, and I don’t dress up, ever, unless that means putting on black blue jeans to go out to dinner, so I have no sympathy for yuppie country types like Sarah.

I’ve got nothing against being unpretentious or not pretending to have it all together. I’ve got nothing against Palin for not having it all together. If she were some honest, down-to-earth country character, I’d find her endearing. And at first, I was hoping that’s just what she’d be. But it turns out that’s just part of her pretentiousness. She pretends to be down to earth and trustworthy, but in fact is a lying little weasel who tries to twist everything her way, and just makes excuse after excuse to cover for her inadequacies. I’ve known these types before, and they get no respect from me for hiding behind rural pieties.. In fact, that’s even worse. There really are so many good “unpolished” rural people out there who simply tell the truth and mean what they say. Palin just isn’t one of them, and pretending she is while covering over her lies and half-truths is pretty fricking offensive.

Now, that E.D. seems to have been fooled by her is bad enough. But coming up with these lame philosophical excuses for Palin’s moral and intellectual inadequacies is not something to be respected or be charitable about. Palin simply is not vulnerable at all, and lacks any self-awareness of her own inadequacies. She wants to be thought of as the equal of other politicians who have actually worked at their jobs, without actually doing the hard work of learning what she needs to know. She’s plastic, in other words, inauthentic, but posing as if she is authentic, and using rural window dressing to acquire those virtues by association, when she hasn’t actually done the hard work of acquiring character, knowledge, ability, and honesty. There’s a reason why she faces so many ethical investigations – she’s lacking ethics. Real, honest to goodness rural people may lack some polish, but they make up for it with honesty and good sense. Palin lacks these, so she substitutes the narcissistic associations to gloss over her lack. That’s as plastic as it gets. If it fools some hapless city-folk with a romantic notion of rural virtue, that’s funny in its own way, but not a very good reflection upon their ability to judge character.

Now, of course there are other possible interpretations, but why should I argue them, when they are not what I see? E.D. is simply trying to be a Palin apoligist, and in the process completely misunderstands so many basic issues of human nature it’s rather hilarious.

It seems obvious to me that E.D. was saying that Sarah Palin, in all of her fallibility, lack of polish, and lack of plastic struck her as someone most like an authentic person.

I say this as someone who is also quite fallible and unpolished (whether I’m plastic is probably not something I have the competence to determine).

The Mountain West states (I include Alaska in that, for some reason) are sparsely populated and out of the way enough that people who are not “professional” politicians get elected from time to time. Not always, of course, but from time to time.

At the time of Palin’s nomination, she came across as someone who, for all her faults, seemed more like a real person who got elected to office rather than a “professional” politician.

This is how I interpreted his post.

The fact that you immediately interpreted it as him saying that “human” means “unprofessional, incompetent, and incapable of handling the public stage” is uncharitable on your part.

I am hopeful that you *MIGHT* see that there is another interpretation of his post that is *POSSIBLE*.

You can, of course, rest assured in your knowledge that E.D. was saying that he really wanted someone with Trig’s genes (including the number of them!) in charge.

I’m just hoping that you’ll open your heart enough to, maybe, see that there might be a possible world out there where an alternate E.D., one with a goatee perhaps, might have meant something closer to my interpretation than one where he meant exactly what you’ve interpreted him to be meaning.

Now, it’s certainly defensible to say that “being human” means having a self-awareness of how wrong we can be. But that’s exactly what missing in both Palin and this defense of E.D. Why not just admit E.D. said something stupid, and leave it at that? If Palin were to just admit, after being called on for saying something both false and stupid, “You know, on reflection, I was just wrong there”, then she’d definitely be showing her humanity. But the very vulnerability E.D. equates with fallibility is missing in her case. And yours.

“The most fallible, I’d say. The least polished. The most vulnerable and least plastic.”

What I said does not misrepresent E.D. It merely points out what a stupid thing it was that E.D. said.

“I think this definition of being “human” as being unprofessional, incompetent, and incapable of handling the public stage is very strange indeed.”

So Churchill, Roosevelt, and Reagan were not human, because they were talented and skilled public speakers who took care not to be wrong about basic matters?

Again, defining “human” by the notion of fallibility is a pernicious delusion used to excuse incompetence, lack of skill and effort, and outright dishonest, especially in the case of Palin. That even her lies are incompetent does not make her more human, it simply makes her a failure even at covering up her failures.