Sarah Palin mangles the Constitution — but why?
November 1, 2008
I have a simple creed for politics, based largely on Occam’s Razor. Among my core beliefs: everything a politician does is political.
With that in mind, let’s contemplate the widely reported stylings of Sarah Palin on the Constitution, including this and this.
The first of these was repeated not once, but four times in various fora, as so helpfully pointed out.
So what’s to make of this? I have heard others say they would like their candidates for President and Vice President have encyclopedic knowledge of the Constitution they swear to defend. But that is a bit hyperbolic: when was the last time you heard anyone hold forth on the Third Amendment? Thought so.
Most observers think Palin is, oh, say, stupid, less well-informed than a third-grader, deserving of ridicule, or, perhaps in the case of the first gaffe, repeating the Cheney talking point of aggrandizing political power to oneself without a whit of concern for whether others would find that extra-Constitutional.
Suppose there is another possibility. I know, it’s hard to imagine. No, not that one — she is no Constitutional scholar, so it is really stretching it to imagine that she gets the finer points of First Amendment law (of which there are many — have a look here if you really want to) and is consciously trying to twist it to her advantage. For that matter, she would have a tough time doing so.
She reminds me more of a certain archetypal first-year law student who faces the twin hurdles of unfamiliar material and an intimidating classroom setting that requires speaking in front of one’s peers. This student constructs answers to professors’ questions by continuing to speak — and speak, and speak, and speak — in a hyperverbal string, thinking that somewhere in their stream of consciousness will be some nugget of truth. And, perhaps, this is thought to demonstrate an affability that increases the chance of the prof liking the student. To the contrary, a prof who prizes brevity and taut answers won’t be impressed, but it does often make this student more popular with her peers in several respects. First, it gobbles up class time and reduces the likelihood that others will be called upon. Second, as most other students themselves are just learning the virtue of concise answers, they might not object if an adequate answer was somewhere in the speech, if buried. Finally, there is an obvious adversarial dynamic at work, and any student who can compose an answer, no matter how tortured, is perceived to be doing intellectual battle with The Man.
Remember, everything politicians do is political. So perhaps there is a simple calculus at work in Palin’s statements that is not appreciably different from that of my hypothetical law student. As she starts to answer, she believes she might be right — at some point, at least. Sure, she runs the risk that experts contradict her. But after all, they are no different from professors (of course, sometimes they are law professors), that is, not part of a demographic she cares about politically. Your fans will not care that you are slightly, even wildly wrong. You are holding forth on the Constitution and that’s more than they do in their daily lives. If cornered, you would spin, as Palin’s spokesperson did, that your words were taken out of context. By that time the media have moved on to the campaign issue du jour.
There is an obvious alternative course of action, one my better law students take when face with a question they cannot answer effectively. They say, “I don’t know.” It is often one of the best answers a student can give, particularly when uttered with some humility. What prevents Palin from doing this is the same Tracy Flick-like sureness that motivates the over-verbing law student: a deliberate, hard-wired confidence that little to no harm will befall you with your targeted political constituents even if you turn out to be wrong. Not a quality I admire in the people I support for national office.
