Yesterday marked an anniversary of sorts for me. I felt compelled to start this blog when Sarah Palin first came onto the national political scene. And now that she is threatening to.... uhhh.... do some sort of unspecified thing in a big way, I feel like it marks a milestone in the trajectory of this weird mode I have found of cataloguing my thoughts while, once again, questioning some people’s grip on reality.
I realize that in a post-post-modern age, it's hard to speak of one overarching "reality" without offending somebody's subjective sensibilities and sense of the thing. However, without establishing some consensus parameters and standards within a social and political context, not to mention an educational one, mere existence becomes an onerous task and communication barely possible. It is here that I question the die-hard faction of the oddity that has become the Republican Party in their belief that this woman is capable of one day leading this nation.
Maybe I don't speak English "so good"; but I can't make heads or tails of what ex-Governor Palin is actually trying to communicate in her "miracle speech" [1]. However, after the speech and despite it's lack of any trace of comprehensible substance, one could actually see the mental cogs spinning in the brains of her unquestioning supporters as they recuperated from shock by quickly tapping into their weird inner-reserves of faith in order to view her act of quitting (and the word quitting has not yet lost its negative connotations) as a bold move on Palin's part to lead them out of the wilderness and into the promised land. It seems to me that either these people have not yet developed the skills necessary to navigate in an era of spectacle; or maybe it is I who am still holding onto some old fashioned idea of reality, not to mention grammar.
[1] And I borrow the label “miracle speech” from Michael Feldman’s reference to Ms. Teen South Carolina.
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