• Nervous in the Service for Sarah (and Joe, and Gwen, and Maybe the Makeup Artists)

  Posted Thursday, October 02, 2008 11:28 AM | By Melinda Henneberger
  
  
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  Kathleen Parker says her fellow conservative Sarah Palin has exhausted her cringe reflex, and I hear her on that. Mine has been overtaxed for years. Remember the presidential debate for which some malevolent (or high, maybe?) makeup artist painted Al Gore orange? In the privacy of my living room, I listened to most of that one with my sweatshirt pulled up over my eyes because it was too painful to watch. At the first presidential debate in '04, in Miami, I even had to look away from George W., about whom I am not aware of ever having had an admiring thought, because watching him flounder around babbling that being president, well, "it's hard work ... it's hard work ... it's hard work'' just felt cruel. So am I hoping that both Palin and Joe Biden do well enough tonight that I won't have to avert my eyes? No, because my comfort level isn't the point; their competence is. No, because even the most lopsided debate can help the perceived loser more than the supposed winner; there are no straight lines between cause and effect in politics, which I have to admit is part of the attraction, warped as that may be. No, because women have the same right to be underprepared that men have always had. And no, because voters make me even more nervous than candidates do, so whatever happens tonight is still just the prelims.
  Filed under: Joe Biden, politics, '08 election, George W. Bush, debate, Sarah Palin, Palin, Kathleen Parker, Al Gore, VP debate
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