Señ said:
Methinks that at this point in our republic (in the USA of course) the roles of president and vicepresident are merely ceremonial. The real decision making takes place somewhere else. I mean, the president gets to decide on some things like when to start bombing stuff and when to bail people out, but whether to bomb or bail people out, or not, was decided by somebody else.
But that's the people we vote for, so we get what we deserve. Anyone who needs 60 advisors to make a decision is not a leader, he/she is an ignorant fool.
Having said all the above... why are people so surprised about Palin? She's from Smalltown America. She doesn't know it all (really!). She doesn't have a fancy degree in anything. She doesn't hang out with the elites. She doesn't live in Washington. But her message is on point all the time and resonates with many Gringos because it's simple and, best of all, it simplifies a very complex world into two or three abstract concepts they kinda sorta are able to understand.
Does it matter that she's an ignorant milf whose only purpose is to become filthy rich?
To answer your question, yes it does. Because at the level of pure international image, she is simply not fit to assume such a visible role.
Believe it or not, any empire lives on as much image as it does might. It has always been that way with every empire throughout history. Every empire has its heyday, which is a certainty, though it is also a certainty that every empire goes into decline and eventually falls. The gravitational field will always eventually shift. Most Americans don't realize this, but the American empire is well into decline, as the axis of world power is shifting in this very historical moment from West to East. When the image no longer has any force, implosion. Because empires implode, they do not explode.
It is rather telling that, in the moment of precipitous decline, America would even consider, among a consideral part of its conservative electorate, a populist figure of such inadequate preperation for so significant a job such as Palin. It demonstrates, among other things, what crude knowledge and understanding those eligable voters have of the world, which has of course a myriad of complexities that only lazy or indifferent minds would like to have presented to them in black and white. It must be nice to not have to be burdened by the so many cares that always occupy the concerned and conscientious, but this is not what is called for when nominating a global leader.
It is simply indecorous first of all and secondly, shows that the American decline is well under way. But this is what happens when a people can't see beyond its own frontiers. Palin is a stereotype of this miopic, self-centered and contracting vision, and thus becomes a metaphor for the American implosion.
It might be argued that Obama has tried to be the antithesis of all this and he demonstrates Americans' attempt to regain a worldly vision, yet the reality is that the forces at home have left him incapable of making serious reforms, whereas the pressures from abroad, and especially in regards to China, have showed how America's leadership and capacity to resist powerful forces is no longer what it was just 20 years ago.