Rod Dreher is always worth reading.
He has the rare ability of being able to argue from a particular experience to a general principle persuasively.
I do not follow his argument regarding Governor Sarah Palin, however. He seems to believe that Governor Palin has recently done things that place her fitness of the office of Vice-President in question. Almost all of those things relate to:
1. repeating McCain talking points . . . sometimes well and sometimes badly.
2. suggesting at times a lack of factual knowledge in those interviews Dreher wished she had.
3. having little facility at “thinking on her feet” and speaking in a way persuasive to pundits.
Dreher would concede (I think) that most politicians say little or nothing in media interviews . . . but would argue (I think) that they have mastered the skill of saying nothing well. Some have not, but have been doing badly for so long that their badness is accepted and their survival becomes a sure sign of savvy. Joe Biden is the poster child here.
Let me concede (as I need not) that Palin has done particularly badly in these ways. Implicit in his concern is a hidden premise:
“Being poor at 1-3 is a strong suggestion that a candidate lacks the intellectual or other qualifications to be President.”
Let’s call this hidden premise the Parker Principle after its most articulate defender.
I assume the job of the Vice-Presidential candidate is to:
1. help elect the top of the ticket
2. attend to the mostly ceremonial job of being Vice-President if elected
3. act as President if the top of the ticket is elected and dies in office.
I assume Palin is fit to do “1″ and “2.” The actual job of Vice-President is so non-existence that Palin will be taking a power cut if McCain does not enrich the role.
It is “3″ that is in question.
What vision of presidential leadership, however, makes the Parker Principle relevant to determining if Governor Palin would be a good president?
Nobody ever says. I see no reason to think mastery of the Parker skills is a sign of command ability or success as President. If so, then how did Truman do so well?
The problem, I suspect, is that writers and pundits do these things well. They do them so well that they cannot imagine facing down Putin if one cannot face down Couric, when in fact the skills to negotiate as a head of government (which Palin did well in a huge pipline deal) are totally different than media skills.
The President of the United States is not doing media interviews with Putin unable to get information from staff or cabinet members!
Few who know here think Palin is stupid or incapable of reasoning. She has been a wildly successful governor in a state where that role is very powerful. It is small state, but I am not sure the relevance . . . as she has also had less help than she would get as President of the United States. She was much more a one woman show in Alaska.
All of the Parker Principle’s plausibility seems to consist of a conflation of one kind of intelligence (the kind writers and pundits often have) with leadership or command experience, but there is no reason to make that connection.
Even in terms of communications skills it argues too much.
Good off the cuff interviews are only one media skill. As even Parker concedes, Palin has others. (She is great with a teleprompter speech.) Media skills can also be gained through practice.
In my opinion, Dreher and others have failed in any meaningful way to connect failure at the Parker Principle with fitness to command. Since Reagan did not reason from Jeopardy-like factual knowledge and was a great president and Eisenhower lacked much interview savvy and was a fine one, Dreher and other should stop assuming a connection and argue for it.
*******
Let me assume (and I do) that Dreher would vehemently deny the stronger Sullivan Principle:
“For any Evangelical or Pentecostal candidate “x” that candidate has a nearly unmeetable burden of proof to show they are not stupid.”
With corollaries such as:
Some Colleges Don’t Count Rule:
“Attending a state school or religious school and getting a degree will not argue for basic intelligence and hard work.”