Albert Camus said that charm is a way of getting the answer "yes" without having asked a clear question. The art of flirtation is part of a woman's charm, if she's good at it, of course, and though I find her less than charming, I'll give Sarah Palin this--she's a hell of a good flirt.
Watching Palin's lap dance of a performance in last night's Vice Presidential "debate" I couldn't quite isolate it, couldn't quite put my finger on it...and then it came to me---it was The Wink. All the bless-their-hearts and the gosh-darns, all the spunky, perky delivery of rhetoric aside, The Wink is conspiratorial and engaging, in a "I'm secretly trying out a new meatloaf recipe" sort of way. The Wink belongs to the sit-com mom who's always smarter than her blue-collar husband but never smart enough to wonder whether she really needs him in the first place. The Wink says--
They just don't get it.
(They meaning anyone who doesn't agree with McCain/Palin, or maybe just Palin, and it meaning some perversion and/or total erosion of constitutional freedoms and fundamental truths). Wink.
The Wink says--
Sure, I can blow that moose's brains out from 500 yards away with a Smith and Wesson bolt-action rifle--but I'd rather watch you do it, you big strong hunk of a man. Wink.
The Wink says, I'm in Room 213, meet me later and we'll "discuss" my "credentials"
WinkWink.
If Sarah Palin's introduction to the country and to the national media a little over a month ago could be called a love affair, then her wink-wink "Come on, you know you want it" debate performance was a little too much like the kind of tawdry come-on you'd see between strangers in an airport bar.
With Dick Cheney's re-invention of the role of the Vice President in mind, some commentators in the post-debate fallout remarked that they'd been stunned to hear Palin say she would like to see the powers of that office expanded even further. But that's exactly the kind of bold request only the stranger from the airport bar could make. Since the "relationship" is brief by definition, the experience must be maximized, and for all her insistence that she loves "her country", Palin's admission of envisioning even greater authority for the role of the Vice President, rather than being the sort of spunky assertion the Republicans would like to say it is, seems more like the sort of bare-it-all confession you only feel free to make because you have an understanding that there's no strings attached; her words may say "America, I love you" but Sarah Palin's already in a committed relationship, with Sarah Palin.
I know, what a baseless and completely unsubstantiated thing to say. I'm practically accusing Governor Palin of lacking moral compunction--I don't even give her any points for having been hand-picked by that maverick John "Have-I-Mentioned-I-Was-Tortured-As-A-POW, Lately?" McCain, do I ? No, I don't, and I'll tell you why.
Knowing the circumstances under which John McCain's first marriage ended and a few of the circumstances of his marriage to his present wife Cindy McCain, I've come to the conclusion that not only is John McCain in the throes of a seemingly unending mid-life crisis, he is an emotionally abusive man, to boot. In fact, given his POW experiences I would even venture to guess he can be an emotionally sadistic man. And since we know that McCain only met Sarah Palin briefly before choosing her as his running mate, something about her must have resonated deeply with him.
As this is the last hurrah for John McCain, even the smaller, less important choices are more important than they normally would be, and yet he essentially chose the stranger in the airport bar for a running mate. A man who so obviously needs to see himself as a "maverick" doesn't choose a woman he feels might be his equal for a partner, in any sense of the word. He looks instead for a certain submissiveness, and without going into the gory details here, we can assume he found that submissiveness in both his wives. I imagine with Sarah Palin he found the appearance of it at least--wink.
But I can think of two choices Sarah Palin made into that belief of submissiveness, and which should have told John McCain and everybody else all they needed to know about her. I notice we haven't heard much lately about how Palin's pregnant teenage daughter is faring, and as far as I know no one's asked Governor Palin if she's bothered to look into how a Down's Syndrome infant might be negatively affected by long-term separation from his mother. Given the choice of possibly having a little more time to spend with both of these special-needs children over having even less time to spend with them by seeking a higher political office--when she became John McCain's running mate Palin opted for the emotionally absent choice of turning her children into a photo-op.
Coming out of the blue as it did, you can't help but think John McCain spent about as much time choosing Sarah Palin for a running mate as it would take the couple in the airport bar to find each other. And I'm fairly certain they found each other through the same kind "meat-market" mentality that governs such dalliances. After the broadcast of the Katie Couric interview, a fair number of people seem to have taken pity on Sarah Palin, but I believe their sympathies are misplaced. Remember, Palin's vision of the Vice President's role in government surpasses even the Cheney model; it's a mistake to think that was spoken out of ignorance. Not even her children are as important to Sarah Palin as Sarah Palin is, and if psychological "footsie" playing under the table with John McCain is what it takes to reach her goal, so be it. The charm that so bewitched Republicans immediately following the Convention is as common to the world of con artists as it is to their political equivalents--but it's a safer bet to decline that drink coming to your table compliments of the Governor of Alaska, than winking back at Sarah Palin.
