Sarah Palin Supporters

I’ll be frank: Sarah Palin needs to shut the hell up.

Alright, I admit that might not be quite fair. Although I happen to think she is an incompetent political figure that is trying too hard to fit in on the national stage, she represents a certain intangible something that resonates with a lot of Americans. While I’m not a fan of her as a politician, I can appreciate that she is an inspiring image for people who disagree with me on core issues.

So I’ll rephrase my earlier statement: Educated people who support Sarah Palin need to shut the hell up.

I’m standing by this one. It’s one thing to view Palin as a beacon of representation for your interests as a “common man” (I refuse to indulge in the term “Joe Six-Pack”, lest I encourage such drinking habits). It’s quite another thing entirely to have a college degree and not be bothered by the fact that this woman needs crib notes to help her remember to “lift Americans [sic] spirits”.

Few stories show this problem of incomprehensible defensiveness more than the recent hullabaloo over jokes recently made on the Fox animated show Family Guy, in which a character with Down’s syndrome noted that her mother is “the former governor of Alaska”. Now understandably, Palin was none too pleased about this, as the gag was an obvious reference to her two-year-old son, who also has Down’s syndrome. People may accuse Palin of overreacting, but I can definitely see how her maternal instincts would want her to protect her children from such high-profile, low-brow humor.

What is much less excusable is the reaction of her supporters. Take this article by nationally syndicated columnist Ruben Navarrette Jr., in which he seems to believe that Family Guy is the voice of the Democratic Party. He argues that liberals who are downplaying the joke would not be so complacent if their idol Bill Clinton were targeted with the same malicious humor, despite the fact that the show had an entire episode dedicated to him.

I am extremely disinclined to give any leeway to public victimization here. Palin was too eager to cry foul on the “liberal media” during her failed VP bid for me to feel sorry for her now, especially since she is now a paid member of the media herself. I can understand why she may want to fight against perceived attacks on her family, and I can even grudgingly accept that her politically removed supporters will instinctively rise to arms to defend her at every opportunity.

But what I can’t stand is when smart, educated people say things that do not meet the standards of scrutiny imposed by their privileged place in society. All such argumentation does is to remove rational discourse from discussion and replace it with emotion-fueled name-calling. It gives easy fodder to Palin and others like her so that they may parrot the conclusions of others and sound slightly less moronic because they have a source to cite.

So if you support Sarah Palin, and you consider yourself to be in any way more intellectual than those Americans who have no leisure time to spare for intellecualism, stop and think. Does this make any sense? Is Family Guy really doing anything worse than it has done to countless other celebrities? And does this woman have the skills required to be successful in the political realm?

Think hard, and then please, kindly, shut the hell up.

The Verdict: No surprise here. The Glass Is Half Empty.