Having now seen the movie, "Game Change," it is possible to evaluate it in ways that previously were impossible. Richard Cohen's analysis actually hits upon a number of criticisms that I might also make. But as usual with political partisans, in his case on the Left, more of what he says is wrong, or wrong-minded, than otherwise. How is it possible for partisans to be so completely oblivious to their own pettiness ? This is a rhetorical question, no need to answer. Actually it was quite good as a movie. Great casting. Terrific story line. Sense of the dramatic. Well done individual scenes. The film-maker deserves kudos. But as the previous review I sent to the group makes clear, the film is also filled with inaccuracies. With allowance for that fact, there are inaccuracies, the impression I get from remembering the 2008 campaign, the film also got a lot of things right, more, easily, than it got wrong. Palin is a terrific personality. She has considerable "native intelligence." Her heart definitely is in the right place. However, few candidates for high elective office have been as woefully unprepared for the position she sought than Sarah Palin. Cohen is also right to the effect that being uninformed now seems to have became no bar to GOP candidates seeking high office. I really liked Mic hele Bachmann as a person, I agreed with most of her stands on values questions, etc, but half the time ( by way of exaggeration ) she didn't know her stuff and made a number of elementary mistakes, the kind of basic errors that Palin made again and again. Then there was Herman Cain, completely unqualified for anything remotely like the presidency. Where Cohen misses the point, however, is in utter failure to see the counterpart failings of Democrats, just about all of whom are morally bankrupt ethical cretins. Think Dennis Kucinich, now defeated for re-election in a party primary, but most of all think Barack Hussein, someone with a hopelessly Politically Correct view of the world, one in which morality is stood on its head and good becomes evil and evil is seen as relativistic, understandable, excusable, etc, and therefore OK by the infallible doctrine of "different strokes for different folks." Game Change also reinforced the conclusion that McCain ran one of the least thoughtful presidential campaigns in recent history, not as bad as Dole in 96, but bad enough. Ironically, it was Palin who understood the power that would have been unleashed had the GOP made an issue out of Rev Wright and other Obama associations and his highly questionable social values. McCain simply had no idea what to do with such issues, he was completely lost, uncomfortable discussing them, and essentially uninformed about anything along these lines. At one point in the movie McCain talked about "populism," about which he obviously knows very little and about which he is frightened out of his wits. This is ridiculous Even one good course in US political history could have allowed him to see populism for what it is, a major driver in US politics that can easily be made use of for a genuinely good cause. Billy ======================================================== W Post March 13, 2012 Sarah Palin's Ignorance as a Platform By _Richard Cohen_ (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/authors/?author=Richard+Cohen&id=14737)
At some point while watching HBO's absolutely smashing (and terrifying) movie "Game Change," it occurred to me that Sarah Palin has ruined America. The movie has been scalloped out of the book by the same name and focuses on Palin rather than the entire 2008 presidential campaign. The decision to do so was absolutely correct. With her selection as John McCain's running mate, American politics lost its way -- and maybe its mind as well. The movie portrays Palin as an ignoramus. She did not know that Queen Elizabeth II does not run the British government, and she did not know that North and South Korea are different countries. She seemed not to have heard of the Federal Reserve. She called Joe Biden "O'Biden," and she thought America went to war in Iraq because Saddam Hussein, not al-Qaeda, had attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. Not only did she know little, but she was determinately incurious and supremely smug in her ignorance. At the same time, she was a liar. In the movie, she was called exactly that by McCain's campaign chief, Steve Schmidt, who came to realize -- a bit late in the game -- that one of Palin's great talents was to deny the truth. When confronted, she simply shuts down -- petulant, child-like -- and then sulks off. Palin objects to this characterization -- as does McCain -- but the movie has been endorsed by too many of Palin's top campaign aides to put its veracity in doubt. Some of them had come to revile the Alaska governor -- enough to leak some awful facts but not quite enough to go public. Had the election been really close, I wonder if they would have run out into the street yelling that Palin -- a heartbeat away from the possible presidency -- was a monster. Everybody loves their country. Some people love their careers even more. All this is now history, I want to say. But then I must instantly correct myself. Apres Palin has come a deluge of dysfunctional presidential ca ndidates. They do not lie with quite the conviction of Palin, but they are sometimes her match in ignorance. As with Palin, it seemed hardly to matter. Herman Cain for a while was a front-runner. He had a nonsensical tax plan, zero knowledge of foreign affairs and had never held elective office. Yet, for a brief but terrifying moment, many Republicans were saying he should be the next president of the United States. Michele Bachmann told a touching fib about vaccinations and Rick Perry did not know squat about who governs Turkey, a NATO ally and a vitally important Middle East power. He got wrong the number of justices on the Supreme Court -- he said eight -- and could not remember a Cabinet department he had vowed to eliminate. Rick Santorum knows his stuff, but his stuff includes a wild denunciation of John F. Kennedy's famous speech about the proper role of religion in public life and a characterization of President Obama as a snob for extolling the value of college. Newt Gingrich has the wattage to be president, but so does Hannibal Lecter, if you get my drift. As for Ron Paul, he appears to be running for president of some theme park. I have excluded Mitt Romney from my list of fools and knaves. (He has other problems.) But there once was a time when Romney would not have stood out as the only candidate who knew something about the issues that confront a president. Since Palin, though, ignorance has become more than bliss. It's now an attribute, an entire platform: Vote for me, I know nothing and hate the same things you do. Palin is no longer an anomaly. McCain didn't choose her for her intellectual or experiential qualities nor because he was geographically or ideologically balancing the ticket. She was an anti-abortion woman with a pulse: Enough! She, like the out-of-nowhere Obama, had the stuff of celebrity -- the snap, the dazzle, the self-assurance, the sex appeal. She didn't need to dance with a star. God told her she already was one. So far, the Palin effect has been limited to the GOP. Surely, though, there lurks in the Democratic Party potential candidates who have seen Palin and taken note. Experience, knowledge, accomplishment -- these no longer may matter. They will come roaring out of the left proclaiming a hatred of all things Washington, including compromise. The movie had it right. Sarah Palin changed the game. -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
