From Smarts to Song

You can often tell someone by trying to understand their enemies. You ask what the folks attacking your favorite politician have in the game. And then you start to understand what’s going on.

There must be something really important about Gov. Sarah Palin (D-AK). Else she wouldn’t have so many enemies. But even an occasional enemy can see the good in her, like feminist Elaine Lafferty in The Daily Beast. Palin’s smart, writes Lafferty, but not in a crude street-smarts way.

I mean, instead, a mind that is thoughtful, curious, with a discernable pattern of associative thinking and insight. Palin asks questions, and probes linkages and logic that bring to mind a quirky law professor I once had. Palin is more than a "quick study"; I’d heard rumors around the campaign of her photographic memory and, frankly, I watched it in action. She sees. She processes. She questions, and only then, she acts. What is often called her "confidence" is actually a rarity in national politics: I saw a woman who knows exactly who she is.

That, of course, is exactly the sort of leader that anyone would want at the top of their political party or movement.

But this is just the intellectual and political side of things. What about the cultural question? What about casting around for a good campaign song for for Palin 2012. It would have to be based on a good old patriotic song so that everyone knows the tune. I have an idea:

O beautiful designer specs,

And amber waves of hair,

Reformer of the female sex

Who’s smart and tough and fair!

America! America!

Let’s end the liberal bile.

And crown thy good with brotherhood

And Sarah Palin’s smile!

It looks like America The Beautiful is out of copyright, so folks could sing it at rallies without having to pay for performance rights.

And it would drive our liberal friends crazy.