McPalin no McDucks Story

I think perhaps the most lucid 30,000-foot view of the prospect of Sarah Palin becoming Vice President (and very likely President within a couple of years) was articulated recently by Matt Damon when he compared the possibility to a “really bad Disney movie.”  When you realize the truth in his comparison, realize also that this is the script – the playbook – the McCain campaign is following.  Running a campaign is all about writing a story, and they’re writing their story according to a generic formula with which we’ve all got womblike comfort – the Disney formula of plain-old-gumption triumphing over massive, sophisticated machineries.  In the Disney movies, it always turns out those machineries are dopey and weak (which of course they’d have to be for a hockey mom to stare down Putin), but that fairy tale conception of the world doesn’t usually reflect reality.  That’s why these movies make so much money: they are rooted in fantasy and they facilitate a deeply craved escape from reality.  A real McCain/Palin presidency won’t follow the movie-version path.

Real tragedies happen.  McCain/Palin is a tragedy of epic proportions waiting to happen to the American people and the world.  Let’s not invite us in as if it’s an innocent remake of The Mighty Ducks.