The same rule always applies: smile pretty and watch your back

Okay. Say what you will about Sarah Palin (Lord knows everyone else has). I think this is interesting:

One of the biggest complaints the Democratic Party has raised against her (besides, of course, bringing up her history of book banning, ethics-violating, unfair-firing, and economic mismanaging) is that much of her supposed appeal solely rests on her supposed normalcy. In the same way the "sit down an drink a beer with me" president wound up being an unprecedented disaster, they say, it would be a similarly huge mistake to elect a vice president you'd want to invite to knitting parties.

Sorry, that was sexist of me. It would be a similarly huge mistake to elect a vice president who, like most moms, cracks lame jokes to demonstrate how fierce she is.

Anyway, the point is, many liberal snobs are distressed over the fact that superlative education and extraordinary traits are seen as detractors rather than assets. Obama's cerebral and pensive style may potentially lose to Palin's relative obscurity, and if it does, it will at least partly be because voters know that no one likes a know-it-all. Such voters forget that it's the know-it-all's who get the A's and go on to be doctors. I'm not going to vote for McCain/Palin because, really, if Palin can be vice president, I could be vice president.

That's an argument I've been hearing a lot. That I, whomever I may be (and there are a lot of I's), could do a better job than her.

And that's the interesting part of the argument. I would bet that a disproportionate number of Americans believe (secretly if not vocally) that they could successfully function as vice president of the United States. It's the belief that fuels this particular argument against Palin. But if I believe that I could be the vice president, what does that say about me? It says that I believe that I, an average American, am up to the job.

Just like Sarah Palin, an average American, is up to the job... Oh, wait.

Democrats complain about the seemingly fundamental American urge to vote for people who are just like them--normal. But there are plenty of Democrats who counter-argue as I did above. They, like most Americans, could be said to want to vote for someone who is just like them, too--because they know how to do the job right. On one side is the misguided belief that an average person is qualified for a prestigiously abnormal job. But the other side, to a degree, is fueled by the similarly misguided belief that I, normal as I am, would do a better job.

The two ideas flower from the same plant. Why argue what will, under scrutiny, make either side look like a hypocrite? This specific argument should be abandoned, seeing as so much as a glance at the latest Newsweek cover can provide everyone with another.