On Thursday night, family rooms and dormitory common rooms across the country were packed in anticipation of the vice presidential debates. With Sen. Joe Biden's track record of either horrific slip-ups or marvelous triumphs and Gov. Sarah Palin's abysmal interview with Katie Couric still fresh in the minds of Americans, supporters of Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) alike gathered around their television sets with bated breath and that buzzing excitement that comes with knowing that anything can happen. While it can certainly be agreed that neither candidate crashed and burned, success, as we all know, is relative and, in the case of Palin, it may have had less to do with her ability to answer tough questions honestly and effectively than the painfully low expectations many in both parties held for her.
Palin's interviews with both Couric and Charlie Gibson in the weeks preceding the debate cast serious doubts, not only on her ability to lead (which was already up for debate), but more fundamentally, on her knowledge of foreign and domestic policy (not to mention her own running mate's positions) and, most disturbingly, on her ability to form a coherent sentence. Even staunch Republicans would have a hard time defending Palin's assertion that Alaska's proximity to Russia constitutes foreign policy experience. However, as scattered and incompetent as Palin was in her interviews, her sheer lack of knowledge and eloquence set expectations so low that it was nearly impossible for her to disappoint in her debate with Biden. Those watching the debate had gone from hoping to hear a comprehensive view on America's energy concerns from Palin to praying for logical sentences that weren't entirely comprised of circular logic and vague references. Despite the fact that she dodged multiple questions (justifying this by saying she wanted to speak "directly to the American people"), focused solely on subjects she felt comfortable discussing and parroted many of Biden's answers, she managed to come out, if not on top, at least still afloat.
This, however, begs a rather distressing question -- several, actually. Do we want our standards for someone who could potentially lead the free world to be so low that a coherent sentence is a triumph? Personally, that seems to be the minimum requirement for the average fourth grade student, not a potential vice president of the United States. Should we be thanking our lucky stars that the running mate of the Republican nominee for president can actually (sometimes) address the growing tensions in Pakistan and Afghanistan and the United States' involvement in Iraq? No. It should not be outrageous to expect such a high-ranking official in our government to have a firm grasp on the issues that face our country everyday, both domestically and internationally.
The very fact that so many consider her performance on Thursday night an achievement stems not from her skill as a debater or her eloquence or her far-reaching understanding of the United States and its role in the world, but from an appearance that seems stellar in comparison to her previous public gaffes. Palin has painstakingly attempted to convey the image that she is the American "average Jane" and the Alaskan "hockey mom," and in many ways she is -- but that doesn't in any way make her qualified to run the most powerful country in the free world.
