i feel better if the people leading me, or aspiring to lead me, are willing to listen, and are confident enough in their listening, intellective, and social skills to answer questions clearly and honestly.
last night, it looked like palin was taught to recognize certain words, or groups of words, and, if she heard those words, or if she felt that she wasn’t prepped to answer a given question, she responded with the ‘answer the question you want to answer, not the question you were asked‘ response, often described by the media as being on point.
fuck that.
this was particularly clear during the second half of the debate that featured foreign policy questions, and the ‘what is your achilles heel’ question. i didn’t feel she answered most of those questions. instead, she offered variations on campaign slogans.
i wasn’t impressed with either biden or palin (did she really say ‘dog-gone-it’ at one point?) – although biden seemed much more willing to answer the questions.
i was very interested, though, in speaking with some of my fellow traveler’s (i watched the debate in an airport – but google that phrase for a double entendre), who seemed to think that she’d done a good job. i think that her ‘answers’, especially the non-linear, ‘answer the question i want to answer’, platform shill answers, seemed to have exuded confidence while making sense, and somehow that was enough to create an overall impression that she is, in fact, confident, and even competent, and, to some, even to some who are not on her side, that seems to have meant that she did well in the debate. hmmmm.
how easily some of us seem to be swayed away from following the development of an argument as a dialogue between two or more speakers, and, instead, seeing and accepting an event like the debate last night as two separate, but related monologs, and being ok with that.
moments like this make me realize how disconnected from each other we really are. minimal listening=minimal empathy=big problem.
the debate reminded me of this:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BrLEuzVCVQ[/youtube]
think about it.