So what does it take to be President?

It’s all pretty beguiling, isn’t it? The lipstick controversy, the stunning view of Russia from the Alaska coast, Karl Rove suggesting that there is such a thing as too much lying, it’s all the press can do just to keep up with it. This campaign season has offered us such a bewildering dog-and-pony show that is has become easy to forget what prompted it all.

Apparently it all has something to do with who should become our next President. You’d think in that case that we’d be hearing about why each candidate is qualified and what goals he would aim to achieve while in office. But it’s been slim pickings on that front.

McCain has stressed his long experience in Washington, whereas Obama has stressed his sound judgment and credentials as the bringer of change. Meanwhile, Sarah Palin has attacked Obama for not having ever run anything and points to her time as mayor when she had a couple dozen employees under her. As for Obama, he has steadfastly avoided mentioning his Harvard education lest he be called an elitist, and instead gone on the offensive accusing McCain of being unable to type or send an email. It’s all less than edifying.

So before I get drawn into anything so trivial as actually discussing the issues, let’s ask one question: what does it take to be President? What does the guy/gal need to be able to do?

Well, let’s start with what he/she does not need to do. The President does not have to manage his employees and look after the payroll. He does not have to do the accounts. He does not have to type his own memos. We are picking someone who must be able, on a daily basis, to gather information, consider expert advice, balance priorities and then make intelligent, well-informed and considered decisions for the well-being of our country. These candidates are spending millions of dollars campaigning to lead the free world, not to become the manager of the local Denny’s.

We can all agree to disagree on what qualities best serve these ends. Certainly experience helps. So does raw intellect backed by a solid education. Boldness can be an ally to quick decision-making, while subtlety and caution may achieve more consistent and reliable results. But if we pick our next president because he talks more like us, or because he can type, or because he was in the military three decades ago, or because he runs a good smear campaign, we will regret it.

Letting the sunshine do its work

Sunlight is the best disinfectant, as Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously wrote. So what do you do when the light shines on something you’d rather hide? You blow smoke.

Rhetoric necessarily involves emphasizing some facts over others in order to convince an audience. While we may decry this as distorting the truth, it is no easy thing to present the truth evenly in a way that does not distort it on one direction or another. Many would argue it is impossible, that there is no objective truth to distort. But even if there is no uncontestable truth, there are certainly many uncontestable untruths. And far too many of them in recent days have been emanating from the McCain campaign.

Of course both liberal and conservative bloggers have been guilty of spreading lies on the internet, and the media have on several occasions been far too quick to report accusations as fact. Neither candidate could prevent that even if they wanted to. I am relatively certain that McCain does not approve of the repeated use of Obama’s middle name by some conservative bloggers as a ploy to appeal to voters’ Islamophobia. I am equally certain that Obama does not approve of silly photos of Palin in a bikini. But we come to something different when the campaigns themselves lie, actively endorse misstatements, or encourage others to make them.

Let’s be honest, both sides have engaged in some rhetorical stretching of the facts, of drawing conclusions that are not quite supported by the premises. But the scorecard so far is very clear: the McCain camp have been playing fast and loose with the facts more often and more egregiously than Obama.

Luckily we have FactCheck to keep track of these things. Factcheck.org has been brilliant at taking both candidates to task for misstatements and for debunking both the silly rumors and the more understandable misconceptions that have flown around during this election season. It may be impossible to have an arbiter of truth, but they have been the sunlight shining on untruths, which at least clears the air so that we can make informed decisions.

But in a new twist, a recent McCain ad misrepresents the statements of the very people who are there to shed light on misrepresentations. The ad claims that FactCheck denounced Obama’s attacks on Palin as “completely false” and “misleading.” In fact, the statements FactCheck was referring to were not by Obama. FactCheck’s response:

Less Than Honest

With its latest ad, released Sept. 10, the McCain-Palin campaign has altered our message in a fashion we consider less than honest. The ad strives to convey the message that FactCheck.org said "completely false" attacks on Gov. Sarah Palin had come from Sen. Barack Obama. We said no such thing. We have yet to dispute any claim from the Obama campaign about Palin.

So how long before we start hearing that FactCheck itself is biased? Conservative bloggers will certainly go after them, as it plays into their general angst about a liberal media conspiracy. And the McCain campaign itself? The fact that they are willing to abuse FactCheck’s neutrality and distort their findings is extremely disturbing. It’s a bit like smuggling arms in a humanitarian aid convoy – although it might bring short term gain to one side, it endangers something civilized and good that is of equal value to both parties.

It is in all our interests, whether liberal or conservative, to support FactCheck’s mission to keep both sides honest. Let’s not blow smoke, and let the sunshine do its work.

If I am a gentleman, and you are a lady, then who's going to put the pig out of the parlor?

Last week we had dogs with liptsick, this week it's pigs.

But apparently what's good for the dog is not good for the pig. McCain has lashed out, suggesting that Obama was making a veiled porcine allusion to Sarah Palin. McCain seems to have forgotten that the "you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig" line was his own (one of his better ones, actually), used quite recently in reference to Senator Clinton's heath care plan. No one then claimed that McCain was calling Clinton a pig, but then Clinton had never compared herself to a dog and, in any case, probably wears lipstick less often than former beauty queen Palin.

So now the party who fought the Equal Rights Amendment tooth and nail, the party who used to scoff at “political correctness,” the party who have consistently treated feminism like a persistent skin disease are now apparently outraged by some perceived sexism against Sarah Palin. Is anyone else confused?

As a good self-flagellating "new man" who came of age during the rise of the politics of identity in the late 80's/early 90's, I've done my best to spot the sexism and to feel guilty for it. Yes, critics have questioned whether she is a good mother but, quite frankly, if Obama had been parading a baby around amidst the noise and klieg lights at the DNC in a similar ostentatious display of parental adoration, I have the vague suspicion that that too would have provoked comment.

The fact is that Palin has been trading on her motherhood and, in doing so, has invited comment. It was her choice to flaunt being a “hockey mom” as a credential and to make a point of her role as a mother of a child with Down’s Syndrome. She has made her motherhood a part of her political identity in a way that few male politicians would do with fatherhood precisely because she knows she can get political mileage out of being a female candidate. She has every right to do so. But her critics have every right to call her on it.

McCain’s outrage is every bit as silly as the outrage over Clinton’s JFK comment during the primaries, and let’s hope for everyone’s sake he drops it quickly. Distractions such as this, along with the feigned outrage over supposed sexism in the election coverage, should be relegated to the darker corners of the blogosphere along with speculation over Obama’s suspicious middle name.

And as for the implications of lipstick on pigs vs. lipstick on dogs? Can't we talk about something simpler, like the Russian intervention in Georgia, or the feasibility of cellulosic ethanol? If only.

Folks just like you...

McCain's and Palin's RNC acceptance speeches have shed some light on the campaign's election strategy. In the coming weeks, amid a flurry of swiftboating tactics from plausibly deniable third-parties "unconnected" to McCain, we will witness an attempt to put on a good cop/bad cop performance, with McCain cast as the dignified statesman and Palin as the conservative firebrand pit-bull (her term, not mine...). Saber-rattling over abortion and creationism will galvanize some on the religious right, but it won't win the election.

The choice of Palin's rhetoric, however, show another strategy at play. The "hockey-mom" routine, as silly as it seems, is a clear indication that the McCain team are going to paint themselves as "more like you" than Obama and Biden. In the coming weeks the McCain camp will barrage America with the same message over and over again: we aren't smooth-talking lawyers, we aren't fancy Harvard educated elitists, we're folks just like you.

They will get some mileage out of this. Now, this may anger some people, but the fact is that come election time we Americans love nothing better than to be told how wonderful we are. We are a great nation. The average American is painted as outstandingly brave and honest and hardworking and unselfish (How can we ALL be outstanding? What exactly do we stand out from? Cowardly lazy selfish foreigners, presumably...). The more a candidate praises us, the higher his/her popularity soars. Hence we are treated to Sarah Palin talking about the great state of Alaska (So which are the not-great states? Delaware? Hawaii? Rhode Island never seemed that great to me, it's so damned small.) From this near-masturbatory celebration of ourselves it is easy to proceed logically to the conclusion that the best candidate for higher office must look just like this superhuman "average American." Palin is just an ordinary hockey mom - hey I'm a hockey mom too, so yeah, she'd make a great vice-president. Sure, why not?

The absurdity is obvious. if you needed brain surgery, would you be tempted to vet your brain surgeon to be sure he/she was someone "just like you"? Personally I'd hope my brain surgeon was a hell of a lot smarter than I am. Someone whose intellect and judgement I could trust rather than someone who shares my religion or my enthusiasm for ice hockey. Unfortunately in politics a lot of Americans want their candidates to look just like them. The McCain campaign will use Palin in particular to pander to this sort of narcissistic nonsense. Obama is an extraordinary man. He is extremely well-educated, and was editor of the Harvard Law Review. In a sane world this would be to his credit. But no, this will be used against him. Graduating at the top of his class from the best law school in the country means he isn't your average guy. Neither is Joe Biden for that matter. Unless you are pretty extraordinary, they're not just like you. They're smarter. They know more about law and policy than you do, and are probably better able to muster the intellectual resources of those around them to analyze complex problems than you are. And no offense but maybe, just maybe, that's a good thing.

Particularly in the VP debates, the McCain campaign will attempt to portray Obama and Biden as slick overeducated lawyers, as not being folks just like you. How the Obama camp responds to this line of non-reasoning will be crucial in the weeks and months ahead. Does Biden need to suddenly take an interest in bowling? Should Obama confess to having gone to Harvard but plead that he spent most of his time shooting spitballs at Alan Dershowitz and wondering why all these lawyers can't just get by with straight talkin' like the rest of us? Heaven preserve us.

Palin's speech and torture

Palin's speech at the RNC was snarky and at times downright silly, but it was also disturbing. Her snide reference to Obama's strong stance against torture as worrying about whether or not terrorists have been "read their rights" shows her utter contempt for America's most basic principles. The fact that she would snipe at this as if being against torture is funny or foolish shows us just how little she understands the legal and moral foundations of our nation. If she's going to try to get political mileage out of the fact that her running-mate was tortured, she should at least have the decency and common sense not to implicitly condone torture in the same speech.

I would have hoped that the media would focus more on this than on the silliness of the whole "hockey mom" schtick. What we are seeing here is the emergence of her views on the nature of liberal democracy, the suggestion that our constitutional protections, domestic statutes and international treaty obligations can simply be set aside and mocked when it suits our immediate needs or responds to our current fears. Sarah Palin has revealed her contempt for the basic principle of rule of law. While it provides no end of fun to ridicule her feeble jokes about the decor at the Democratic Convention and, even better, her deliciously absurd self-comparison with a viscious breed of dog outlawed in many states for mauling children, the stupidity of these things speaks for itself. Her contempt for the basic principles of our legal system is what should be headline news.