Sarah Palin’s Literary Offenses
In last Thursday’s debate between Vice Presidential candidates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, moderator Gwen Ifill asked both individuals to describe their Achilles’ heel. Palin’s response revealed her to be the unlettered tundra hick that we’d always suspected:
PALIN: My experience as an executive will be put to good use as a mayor and business owner and oil and gas regulator and then as governor of a huge state, a huge energy producing state that is accounting for much progress towards getting our nation energy independence and that’s extremely important.
But it wasn’t just that experience tapped into, it was my 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? About times and Todd and our marriage in our past where we didn’t have health insurance and we know what other Americans are going through as they sit around the kitchen table and try to figure out how are they going to pay out-of-pocket for health care? We’ve been there also so that connection was important.
But even more important is that world view that I share with John McCain. That world view that says that America is a nation of exceptionalism. And we are to be that shining city on a hill, as President Reagan so beautifully said, that we are a beacon of hope and that we are unapologetic here. We are not perfect as a nation. But together, we represent a perfect ideal. And that is democracy and tolerance and freedom and equal rights. Those things that we stand for that can be put to good use as a force for good in this world.
John McCain and I share that. You combine all that with being a team with the only track record of making a really, a difference in where we’ve been and reforming, that’s a good team, it’s a good ticket.
1) Achilles Heel:
This is standard fodder for Job Interview 101 — explain your weaknesses. But Sarah Palin clearly doesn’t understand the literary reference to the Iliad, much less the common — even threadbare — expression of the Achilles’ heel that is used to describe a character flaw or personal weakness. I think we know what her Achilles’ heel really is: she doesn’t read anything.
2) American Exceptionalism:
The term American Exceptionalism is an academic keyword used as a criticism of American nationalism, our belief in a “manifest destiny,” and our willful forgetting of all the violence and suffering that attended the founding and expansion of our nation. It carries the exact opposite meaning that she intended.
3) A Shining City on a Hill:
Palin’s statement that America is a “shining city on a hill” is falsely attributed to Ronald Reagan. Had Palin actually read Reagan’s speech, she would know that the former president himself acknowledges that the source of the quotation is John Winthrop, a Puritan, and first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Significantly, Winthrop’s quote — which is taken from a sermon entitled “A Model of Christian Charity” (1630) — is widely discussed as the earliest expression of American Exceptionalism. Winthrop describes the Puritan’s presence in the New World as a mission from God. Several million Indian deaths later, the idea appeared somewhat less “shiny.” Incidentally, Winthrop didn’t say “shining” — Reagan added that part.
And we should also point out that Reagan wasn’t even original here: he lifted the line from president-elect John F. Kennedy who quoted Winthrop in a speech to the Massachusetts Legislature on January 9, 1961. Kennedy used the quote to describe his efforts to assemble his administration for the “awesome” task of governing our country.
Oh, and Kennedy quoted the line correctly.
October 6th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
As you will recall, Achilles was a whining wanker who got his leather thong all in a knot because Agamemnon stole his woman. No good moose-dressing Alaskan heroine is going to reference some boy-baiting Greek ponsey. As for American Exceptionalism, we have to give the sexy governor a pass: she meant to say that America is an exceptional country, save for the pointy-headed academics who make it unsafe for patriotism. As for Winthrop, you might find that–technically speaking, of course–John Endecott was the first governor of the colony. Winthrop himself certainly *meant* to say “shining” city on hill,” but he was too much below decks with the keggers.
October 6th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
It all depends on what the difference is between a “Company” and a “Colony.”
Endicott was just a holdover from a bunch of 17th-century proto-capitalist joint-stock wankers. Winthrop showed up with the charter for the Colony. “Blow my shining city with two hills” he is recorded as saying to Endicott upon their meeting at the Company headquarters. He assumed leadership soon after.