[lit-ideas] Something about Sarah

From: "Julie Krueger" <juliereneb@xxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2008 08:07:07 -0500

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*Something About Sarah*

By Kathleen Parker
Friday, October 24, 2008; A19

My husband called it first. Then, a brilliant 75-year-old scholar and
raconteur confessed to me over wine: "I'm sexually attracted to her. I don't
care that she knows nothing."

Finally, writer Robert Draper closed the file on the Sarah Palin mystery
with a devastating
article<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/magazine/26mccain-t.html>in
this Sunday's New York Times Magazine: "The Making (and Remaking) of
McCain."

McCain didn't know her. He didn't vet her. His campaign team had barely an
impression. In a bar one night, Draper asked one of McCain's senior
advisers: "Leaving aside her actual experience, do you know how informed
Governor Palin is about the issues of the day?"

The adviser thought a moment and replied: "No, I don't know."

Blame the sycamore tree.

McCain had met Palin only once -- in February, at the governors' convention
in Washington -- before the day he selected her as his running mate. The
second time was at his Sedona, Ariz., ranch on Aug. 28, just four days
before the GOP convention.

As Draper tells it, McCain took Palin to his favorite coffee-drinking spot
down by a creek and a sycamore tree. They talked for more than an hour, and,
as Napoleon whispered to Josephine, *"Voilà."*

One does not have to be a psychoanalyst to reckon that McCain was smitten.
By no means am I suggesting anything untoward between McCain and his running
mate. Palin is a governor, after all. She does have an executive résumé, if
a thin one. And she's a natural politician who connects with people.

But there can be no denying that McCain's selection of her over others far
more qualified -- and his mind-boggling lack of attention to details that
matter -- suggests other factors at work. His judgment may have been clouded
by . . . what?

Science provides clues. A study in Canada,
published<http://psych.mcmaster.ca/dalywilson/pretty_women.pdf>by a
British journal in 2003, found that pretty women foil men's ability to
assess the future. "Discounting the future," as the condition is called,
means preferring immediate, lesser rewards to greater rewards in the future.

Drug dealers, car salesmen and politicians rely on this affliction and pray
feverishly for its persistence.

The Canadian psychologists showed pictures of attractive and
not-so-attractive men and women to students of the opposite sex. The
students were offered a prize -- either a small check for the next day or a
larger check at some later date.

The men made perfectly rational decisions, opting for the delayed, larger
amount after viewing the average-looking women. You know where this is
going. (Women, by the way, were rational no matter what.)

That men are at a disadvantage when attractive women are present is a fact
upon which women have banked for centuries. Ignoring it now profits only
fools. McCain spokesmen have said that he was attracted to Palin's
maverickness, that she reminded him of himself.

Recognizing oneself in a member of the opposite sex (or the same sex, as the
case may be) is a powerful invitation to bonding. Narcissus fell in love
with his own image reflected in the river, imagining it to be his deceased
and beloved sister's. In McCain's case, it doesn't hurt that his reflection
is spiked with feminine approval.

As my husband observed early on, McCain the mortal couldn't mind having an
attractive woman all but singing arias to his greatness. Cameras frequently
capture McCain beaming like a gold-starred schoolboy while Palin tells
crowds that he is "exactly the kind of man I want as commander in chief."
This, notes Draper, "seemed to confer not only valor but virility on a
72-year-old politician who only weeks ago barely registered with the party
faithful."

It is entirely possible that no one could have beaten the political force
known as Barack Obama -- under any circumstances. And though it isn't over
yet, it seems clear that McCain made a tragic, if familiar, error under that
sycamore tree. Will he join the pantheon of men who, intoxicated by a
woman's power, made the wrong call?

Had Antony not fallen for Cleopatra, Octavian might not have captured the
Roman Empire. Had Bill resisted Monica, Al Gore may have become president,
and Hillary might be today's Democratic nominee.

If McCain, rightful heir to the presidency, loses to Obama, history
undoubtedly will note that he was defeated at least in part by his own
besotted impulse to discount the future. If he wins, he must be credited
with having correctly calculated nature's power to befuddle.

*kparker@xxxxxxxxxxxx*

*Read more from Kathleen Parker on washingtonpost.com's political opinion
blog, *PostPartisan <http://www.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/>*.*

[lit-ideas] Something about Sarah

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