Palin the athlete
I’ve got an article up today at Pajamas Media. It’s a meditation on Palin’s appearances of the past few weeks, and how they reflect her history as a clutch athlete who gives her best performances when under the pressure of competition and in front of an audience.
[NOTE: I’ll be writing here about the bailout bill later today.]
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Speaking of appearance…
Several folks have mentioned her looking at the the camera, or through the camera to America (or to Joe Six Pack).
Some people forget a few things.
Example. Biden forgot (surely a man of his vast experience knows this and just forgot it) that when the little red light on on the top of the camera is ON, the camera is connected to the on-the-air circuits and pleopl OUT THERE in JSO-land can SEE you picking your nose, or what ever.
Example: Palin (nee Heath) actually has had jobs, one of which was on-the-air talent at a TV station. Where theylearn not only about the little red light, but that when it is on, you want to look through the camera and make eye-contact with JSP sitting out there.
(Another reason for paying attention to the camera is that sometimes they hide a TelePrompter in it. Some even project the words you are supposed to say across the hole where the camera lens is.)
I’m not sure Palin needs a TP much, but it is clear that she knows how to use one if it serves a purpose. Like reading canned script about the hockey scores or chasing Hezbollah out of Lebanon.
I think its a fundamental mistake that we even consider politics a profession to be learned and mastered. The evidence is overwhelming that nearly all those who approach the field in this way actually suck at it.
What politics is sorely missing are people with real life experiences. Experiences that mold leadership skills you wont discover in a book. Experiences that are more incredibly diverse and well rounded than any lecture hall full of groupthink wannabe lawyers could ever replicate.
Its not people like Sarah Palin, but narrow focused, reality starved intellectuals, who have the premise of great political leadership all wrong.
Nice post, Neo.
As a father of two athletic girls (soccer) it amazes me how things have changed since my youth. In those days the “jocks” were the dumb ones to be mocked.
Now, the jocks are the leaders in the school, and usually are also the ones doing well academically. I now believe that’s because they are the only ones left who have grown up in an environment where personal performance matters. AND, they are the only ones who get called out if they screw up. The PC environment of modern education kills initiative and personal accountability. We need more jocks like Sarah.
neo and physicsguy, you might like this, one of my all time favorite articles 17 REASONS WHY FOOTBALL IS BETTER THAN HIGH SCHOOL Lots of good stuff there –
#2. In football, teenagers are encouraged to excel.
By this, I don’t mean performing up to someone’s standards (which may already be limited), but to go beyond anything they’ve ever been asked to do before, to constantly improve. There is no such thing as “good enough.” We congratulate players on their improvements, but we don’t give them much time to be complacent we ask them to do even more. In the classroom, we give them a test on polynomials, and the best result they can get is to score high enough to never have to deal with polynomials again.…
#17. In football, a public performance is expected.
The incentive to perform in front of family and friends was a great motivating force for the athletes I knew. The potential for doing that performance poorly was another motivator nobody wants to be embarrassed in public. These kids were performing an important civic service for their small community, with over a thousand home fans at every game, and they took that responsibility seriously. But school work was almost always performed and evaluated in private. Both their successes and their failures were unseen, and their successes and failures were both irrelevant to the happiness of their neighbors.