Here is a serious question: can a pundit recognize an argument as opposed to a forcefully stated opinion?
In today’s installment of Palin worry, Rod Dreher claims:
Ross Douthat has an insightful reflection on why Sarah Palin’s failure to perform well on TV substantively matters — but also how that discredits the way we do politics today.
Read his piece and do a little thought experiment. Remove any part that is simply a restatement of the following:
1. Sarah Palin gave bad interviews on television.
2. Her interviews show that she is ill informed and unprepared for high office.
3. All politicians give vacuous answers, but Governor Palin is bad at giving them.
Does Douthat actually provide an argument that Palin’s failure to perform well on TV (twice!) matters?
Does he give new data or give fresh reasons for his positions?
Does he make an argument that engages with those critical of his view of the Governor?
Or does he engage in a well written opining of the sort that drove Socrates mad?
Defenders of Governor Palin (such as Joe Carter) have argued that performance matters more than (two!) bad television performances.
The pro-Palin argument is this:
1. Palin was a highly successful governor of a small but important state.
2. During her time in office, she negotiated several reforms and a gas pipe line deal that showed excellent executive skills.
3. She is a natural politician able to command fierce loyalty and admiration from much of the public.
4. She gives a very good speech.
5. She has bad interview skills and may have a shallow command of national and international issues.
—-
Against these facts abandoning Palin after two bad interviews is hasty and ill-considered. Many of us admire Dreher and Douthat, but think they have acted in an irrational and panicky manner, even if they turn out to be correct. In a sense, defenders of Palin have not had to shift their argument, because her opponents have not engaged seriously with defenders like Joe Carter.
Nobody is arguing that Palin’s lack of knowledge is a virtue. Instead, I believe that her manifest problems are fixable over time while her virtues are the sort that are rare and valuable in a leader. If the national government were not broken, we might be content to let Governor Palin take more time to learn better interview skills and deepen her data base of factoids, but the national government is broken. The Republic (and the Republican Party) could use fresh eyes on problems and an effective executive.
Given that she is running for Vice-president of the United States we believe that there is little risk in going to the bench for a rising star. In the best case Governor Palin will be brought to Washington and be given two McCain terms to season herself having brought her fresh perspective to Washington. In the worst case she will bring her political star power, executive skills, and an inherited McCain cabinet to the nation.
Nobody wants Palin to be Secretary of Defense, State, Treasury, or Attorney General. In fact, many of us worry more about candidates who think they can be their own “experts” those areas. We think Palin will get up to speed . . . and govern using her general philosophy (which we like) as a guide.
Palin can be a Reagan. We know most of the “establishment Republicans” who would ace a Couric interview will never be effective leaders. They lack the executive temperament. Of course, some with that characteristic have not made effective leaders (George W. Bush?), but I can think of no “policy wonk” who has made an effective President of the United States in modern times.
In some people (not Dreher and Douthat), attacks on Palin rest on assumptions about education, leadership, and intelligence that rely on stereotypes or falsehoods. (A good example is the amusinganalysis of Palin’s intelligence that ran: all smart people are good bluffers. Another is the dubious assumption that the kind of intelligence that does well in graduate school can be directly correlated to “leadership smarts.” That x went to an Ivy may prove he is not stupid in one way, but may say nothing about his leadership skills.)
We have repeated this argument in several different ways, because critics of Palin never respond to it directly. At least Douthat tries to give reasons Joe Carter and others are wrong:
I think this view is wrong for several reasons: Because Palin’s relatively limited record in politics magnifies the importance of her public comments for anyone who’s trying to get a handle on who this woman is and whether she’s ready for high office; because her performance has been so comprehensively lousy that it has to reflect, to some degree, on her knowledge base and her understanding of policy as well as on her TV chops; and because like it or not, “proficiency on television” is simply a prerequisite for capable leadership in a mass democracy. But there’s a sense in which the apologists for her performance are getting something right: In the process of performing very, very badly on national television, Palin is holding up a mirror to the rest of the political world, and revealing how the mix of talking points, bluster, obfuscation and BS that nearly all national politicians traffic in as a matter of course sounds when it’s filtered through someone who isn’t practiced in it, and isn’t ready for the spotlight. Her performances reflect badly on her readiness for the vice presidency, no question - but they reflect badly on our whole compromised, spin-happy political class as well.
Douthat promises us “several” reasons (in one paragraph!). Let’s list them:
1. Palin’s limited record in government makes her television performance more important than for others in getting a handle on who she is.
2. Palin’s performance is so bad that it reflects on her knowledge base and her understanding of policy.
3. Proficiency on television is a necessary skill in a mass democracy.
These are, of course, unsupported statements (not arguments), but at least they are reasons that Douthat is giving us for thinking Governor Palin unfit for higher office.
Let’s examine the reasons one at a time.
Reason 1 is simply a restatement of the claim in dispute (talking counts more than doing).
Note that Palin only has a “limited record” on television. Let us assume that her performances have been uniformly very bad. (Her interview on Fox apparently does not count for Douthat.) Apparently a very bad limited record on television trumps a very good limited record in government in understanding a person’s leadership potential.
This strikes many of us as absurd.
Why?
On Douthat’s view, her negotiation of the highly complex Alaska pipe line deal tells us less about her than the interview, because it is a “singular” event (even though the Couric interview itself is a singular event).
Is that plausible?
Both negotiating a pipe line deal and doing a good interview (in this situation) with Couric are skills. Which is more revealing about executive potential?
The pipe line deal was a very difficult achievement (read press reports on the deal before Palin became Vice-President to get a fair non-partisan assessment) which required bucking the Alaska political establishment and some of the most powerful companies in the United States. It required bipartisan support and was handled masterfully. Alaska may be a small state by population, but it was an accomplishment that any governor would be proud to own.
Was she lucky or good?
Since she also has passed major reform legislation while maintaining very high popularity ratings, it seems implausible that she was lucky. However short the record, she was widely believed to be a very good governor of an important state. Google 2007 news accounts of the Governor or early 2008 reports before partisanship consumed the media (on either side).
Against this Douthat places (essentially) a single fluffed interview.
His second reason is better, but not persuasive. Douthat believes (two!) interviews show Governor Palin too ill informed to be President.
Is this true?
Most supporters of Governor Palin assumed that she had limited experience with national and international affairs. The promise of the Palin pick was that the “establishment” was out of gas. Picking a bright young executive who could look at the problems with fresh eyes seemed promising. Most of us are underwhelmed with what the sages of other party have managed to do.
If we assume with Douthat that her fluffing two interviews proves her less informed on national and international affairs, we must first determine how ill informed she is and how much we should care about it. Is she (fundamentally) less informed than Reagan was in 1976?
We do know she would not serve as her own Secretary of Treasury or Secretary of State. How much does a leader need to know? Critics never state the answer to this question, but seem mostly content with leaders who bluff well about their ignorance. I see no reason to believe (from their respective answers) that Governor Palin actually knows less relevant information about governance than Senator Biden.
If asked about Senate workings, Biden would do well, but that is actually less relevant than Palin’s decent energy policy knowledge. As Douthat concedes, Palin’s answers to most questions often are no less vacuous than her opponents. (Compare her Bush doctrine answer to Obama’s.)
What do great Presidents know?
I would argue that Presidential history demonstrates that a leader needs a good fundamental vision of the world and an ability to delegate to good people. Such a leader hires good people. Great presidents were rarely the most knowledgeable person in their party.
In general, Reagan mostly picked good people to tell him the details and was willing to fire them when they let him down. Bush, who has a similar leadership style, picked people who let him down and was too loyal to them. What do we know about Palin?
We know that Palin has (sometimes) picked too many loyalists, but that she has generally formed an effective team that has served Alaska well. She has a good “big picture” vision of what government can and should not do as evidenced by her State of the State message where she urged Alaska (before her Vice-presidential run) to get off the “ear marks” bandwagon. She has slowly reduced the dependency of Alaska on Washington (even though it is still very high).
Nixon was smart and well informed, but a bad man. Carter was smart and a good man, but a terrible executive. Palin has the Reagan and George W. Bush personality, which is the right one for a leader, but we cannot know for sure that she would pick a good team. I see no way of knowing this for sure. Bush picked good people (apparently) when he came into office. Was anyone more qualified to head Defense than Don Rumsfield? It was his experienced hands, however, who let him down.
Douthat is only right if Palin (who has been a good executive) has shown herself to be (in Dreher’s words) “an empty pant suit,” but surely that is an overly strong reaction to two bad interviews.
Douthat’s third point may or may not be true. Let’s assume it is. Palin shows strong television skills (outstanding ones) at speech making. She would give very good State of the Union speeches. We know nothing about her press conferences skills yet. We do know she has not (yet!) mastered the one-on-one interview, which she will need to do. Why doubt she can?
My contention is that good leaders are generally born, not made. Governor Palin was a star in the gubernatorial world before she was picked. That is simply harder to do than learning to bluff your way through an interview. You might learn to be a better interview, but nobody learns to be as good as Palin has been as Governor of Alaska.
Douthat overlooks the strong loyalty she instantly was able to command in the Republican base. This is also a major component of leadership (for good and bad) in a mass democracy. Some pols never get what Palin gained instantly. If Couric interviews count, than her appeal to the base should not (inconsistently) be dismissed as populism or “identity politics.” Both are shallow, but necessary components of a mass democracy.
I assert that one is skill that can be learned (bluffing) while the characteristics that earn the loyalty of millions in a mass democracy cannot. Palin has the skill that is impossible to learn and there is no reason to doubt that she can gain the ability to bluff. There are plenty of political serpents to teach her the ways of mass market television bluffing. . . none of whom show the ability to do anything but turn off the base of the party.
Does winning over Couric count, but not winning over the millions of Palin supporters?
Mostly Douthat has restated the original contention (with single sentence elaborations): talking well in two interviews counts more than governing well. Two short interviews (hours) is enough to make a decision about her fitness, but governing well for many months is too little time to balance out the interviews. It is perhaps not surprising that those who work in media with words would make that decision, but it is not persuasive to me.
Count me unimpressed with the argument or the substance of anti-Palinism . . . even if anti-Palinism turns out to be accidentally right, her critics turned on a promising leader too quickly.