Fear and trembling and Sarah Palin

I begin with a photo from the great Andre Kertesz to soothe me. It has two things that soothe me: one is that it's set in France, and I love France. The second is that there's someone reading on the other side of the window, and I love reading.

I need to be soothed because I'm anxious about the presidential race. I know, I know. Obama is ahead in the polls. But I don't trust McCain, the Republicans, and I've already described my terror in the face of Sarah Palin. And God help us, now she's resorted to winks and nose wrinkles. Mean girls flourished in high school and never got caught. Why should that change now? Civilization as we know it is doomed.

I watched the debate between Biden and Palin, and certainly Biden won, but this isn't UIL debate competition, now, is it? It's an ideological tug of war, and I don't have the kind of faith that can help me believe that the left will pull as hard as the right. And I know the right will do anything--and I mean anything--to get their side in the White House. I'm afraid that in a couple of weeks we'll be wishing that mud were the only thing flying.

At the end of the last presidential election, M and I escaped into books--the ripping yarns of Patrick O'Brien to be exact, and we read our way through the entire lot of them, sad to see them end.

I escaped a bit early this year into a WWII spy novel (Blood of Victory by Alan Furst--not as ripping a yarn as O'Brien, but plenty absorbing) just because I find Palin so upsetting and because I'm really worried that there's something seriously wrong with McCain. I've read that the older we get, the less our social filters work, and that's why old people can be heard to say things like "How'd you get so fat?" or "Is your friend ever going to go home?" Seeing his public performances lately, I'm thinking his filters are going fast.

I wish he could see that he's not the ideal personality type to be president (dear god, I agree with George Will about something!), but egotistical men in the military and politics are not oddities, and I can sort of understand it. But, for the life of me, I cannot see how Palin can see herself as ready to be president. I didn't even see myself as a good fit to be head of my department! And I've got the experience to do it.

I don't understand anything.

Except a good book. I need to collect a comforting pile.