On yesterday's debate

If yesterday's debate was a contest on who could appear folksier, homely and cutesy then Gov. Sarah Palin hit the ball out of the park. Of course, that is not what debates that help us choose leaders for our nation are about - or is it? With nowhere to go but upwards, she did not have a meltdown that most predicted. In fact, she came off as very articulate, very clear and lucid on every answer - except that her responses were not really answers to the questions posed. She managed to go off tangent to just about any and every question asked of her on policy, healthcare, Iraq and domestic affairs. She also relied on this strange circular logic where on the one hand she said that Sen. McCain will enforce strict governmental oversight while in a retort right after said that government is the problem and needs to get out of the way… One cannot have it both ways!
When did expectations sink so low that when reactions the next day are 'Thank god she did not embarrass us' became the standard to judge vice presidential candidates?

Sen. Biden on the other hand was fairly calm and collected with his answers. His answers were more direct and to the point and he managed to produce pertinent answers to questions asked of him. In particular, I was shocked by the following factoid ‘we have spent more money -- we spend more money in three weeks on combat in Iraq than we spent on the entirety of the last seven years that we have been in Afghanistan building that country’. I have not fact checked this, but if true is simply an astounding example of misguided leadership. Of course, expectations that his answers would be long winded, empty and airy were not fulfilled. Here again we breathed a sigh of relief and said, ‘Thank god, he did not shame the campaign with his gaffes’. Of course, he was definitely, very definitely more Presidential of the two and handily won the debate.

In our fervent prayers that candidates scrape by and not embarrass themselves, we are lowering the bar for ourselves in general and for the country at large.

In keeping with her style, Palinesque moments that had a 'Kouric interview' feel to them abounded - some of them here:

• “Nuclear weaponry, of course, would be the be all, end all of just too many people in too many parts of our planet” – magnetic poetry alert.
• “The reason we don't read about Afghanistan anymore in the paper, it's succeeded.” – the last I checked there was a growing Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan slowing winding its way into Pakistan.
• “As we discuss ANWR there, at least we can agree to disagree on that one. I will keep pushing him on ANWR” – I have no idea what she meant here…

Full transcript here.

Poem

“Andrew Seabrooks passed away on 6/21/08”

She walked out into the moist morning air
last week, looking for candles.
(It had rained the night before, but
she did seem to notice the petering drizzle).
She did not find them at the corner bodega,
found some old candles at the supermarket
among the mops and liquid cleaners.
As she paid, she asked for a
few pieces of tape. The cashier obliged,
noting her puffy eyes and unmade hair.
She then went to the cab stand where
Andrew Seabrooks, the man she loved,
had worked for most of his life.

The dispatcher at the cab stand helped her,
together, they laid it outside the storefront,
the candles on the ground, the taped piece
of paper at the gate. She wrote slowly,
in unsteady hand, in blue ink, her phone
number, in case, anyone had questions
about the sudden news of
the death of Andrew Seabrooks.

The piece of paper showed an image,
It was almost a silhouette, a burly man,
a khaki military uniform, a camouflage hat,
the sun strong behind him,
Andrew Seabrooks standing tall.
After lighting the candles and securing the tape
one more time, she stopped by his barber to tell
about the prayer service that afternoon.
She also informed the postman about the same.

They all came to the prayer service for Andrew Seabrooks,
who once drove a cab, sometimes installed car stereos,
but who could not find enough to pay the mortgage...
It was the thought of losing their home,
home to his wife, and their
four year old son Xavier Seabrooks,
that made him go to Kandahar.
Just before he left, (she seemed to remember)
the first foreclosure notice was delivered
by the same postman in the pew.
And for some reason, it helped cement his
shaky decision to save their home.

7,000 miles away, the week before,
Andrew Seabrooks passed away on 6/21/08.
A resident of South Ozone Park NY,
collector of action DVDs,
inveterate homebody,
a tinkerer of things mechanical,
an occasional joke player
and last, but not least,
a National Guardsman,
killed by an improvised explosive device
outside Kandahar, Afghanistan.

It is amazing what strange bedfellows
like the subprime mortage crisis
and an army trolling
for bodies (willing to die) can accomplish.

I wrote this poem using lines adapted from a story printed in yesterday’s New York Times.