Nothing quite like a summing up by a Brit:

    Friday October 3 2008
      guardian.co.uk
      
      Flirting her way to victory
      Sarah Palin's farcical debate performance lowered the
      standards for both female candidates and US political
      discourse
      
      
      At least three times last night, Sarah Palin, the adorable,
      preposterous vice-presidential candidate, winked at the
      audience. Had a male candidate with a similar reputation for
      attractive vapidity made such a brazen attempt to flirt his
      way into the good graces of the voting public, it would have
      universally noted, discussed and mocked. Palin, however, has
      single-handedly so lowered the standards both for female
      candidates and American political discourse that, with her
      newfound ability to speak in more-or-less full sentences,
      she is now deemed to have performed acceptably last night.
      
      By any normal standard, including the ones applied to
      male presidential candidates of either party, she did not.
      Early on, she made the astonishing announcement that she had
      no intentions of actually answering the queries put to her.
      "I may not answer the questions that either the
      moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk
      straight to the American people and let them know my track
      record also," she said.
      
      And so she preceded, with an almost surreal disregard for
      the subjects she was supposed to be discussing, to unleash
      fusillades of scripted attack lines, platitudes, lies,
      gibberish and grating references to her own pseudo-folksy
      authenticity.
      
      It was an appalling display. The only reason it was not
      widely described as such is that too many American pundits
      don't even try to judge the truth, wisdom or
      reasonableness of the political rhetoric they are paid to
      pronounce upon. Instead, they imagine themselves as
      interpreters of a mythical mass of "average
      Americans" who they both venerate and despise.
      
      In pronouncing upon a debate, they don't try and
      determine whether a candidate's responses correspond to
      existing reality, or whether he or she is capable of talking
      about subjects such as the deregulation of the financial
      markets or the devolution of the war in Afghanistan . The
      criteria are far more vaporous. In this case, it was whether
      Palin could avoid utterly humiliating herself for 90
      minutes, and whether urbane commentators would believe that
      she had connected to a public that they see as ignorant and
      sentimental. For the Alaska governor, mission accomplished.
      
      There is indeed something mesmerizing about Palin, with her
      manic beaming and fulsome confidence in her own charm. The
      force of her personality managed to slightly obscure the
      insulting emptiness of her answers last night. It's
      worth reading the transcript of the encounter, where it
      becomes clearer how bizarre much of what she said was. Here,
      for example, is how she responded to Biden's comments
      about how the middle class has been short-changed during
      the Bush administration, and how McCain will continue
      Bush's policies:
      
      Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing
      backwards again. You preferenced [sic] your whole comment
      with the Bush administration. Now doggone it, let's look
      ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them
      in the future. You mentioned education, and I'm glad you
      did. I know education you are passionate about with your
      wife being a teacher for 30 years, and god bless her. Her
      reward is in heaven, right? ... My brother, who I think is
      the best schoolteacher in the year, and here's a
      shout-out to all those third graders at Gladys Wood
      Elementary School , you get extra credit for watching the
      debate.
      
      Evidently, Palin's pre-debate handlers judged her
      incapable of speaking on a fairly wide range of subjects,
      and so instructed to her to simply disregard questions that
      did not invite memorized talking points or cutesy
      filibustering. They probably told her to play up her spunky
      average-ness, which she did to the point of shtick - and
      dishonesty. Asked what her achilles heel is - a question she
      either didn't understand or chose to ignore - she
      started in on how McCain chose her because of her
      "connection to the heartland of America. Being a mom,
      one very concerned about a son in the war, about a special
      needs child, about kids heading off to college, how are we
      going to pay those tuition bills?"
      
      None of Palin's children, it should be noted, is
      heading off to college. Her son is on the way to Iraq ,
      and her pregnant 17-year-old daughter is engaged to be
      married to a high-school dropout and self-described
      "fuckin' redneck". Palin is a woman who
      can't even tell the truth about the most quotidian and
      public details of her own life, never mind about matters of
      major public import. In her only vice-presidential debate,
      she was shallow, mendacious and phoney. What kind of
      maverick, after all, keeps harping on what a maverick she
      is? That her performance was considered anything but a farce
      doesn't show how high Palin has risen, but how low we
      all have sunk.
      
      Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008