I posted this on Wednesday, on Twitter: "Palin addresses investors in Hong Kong http://bit.ly/3uSlw. What could she POSSIBLY hv to say to thm? Can see HK from roof if use telescope?"  I couldn't work out why high-powered investor-type people would have any interest in hearing the thoughts of a former half-term governor of a small American state who knows little or nothing about finance.  One of the more preposterous things she said during last year's presidential campaign, of course, was that being a governor of a state which is close to Russia amounted to foreign-policy expertise (paraphrased on SNL by Tina Fey as "I can see Russia from my house!").  I picked up on that theme here, if that's not extremely clear.

A few hours after this tweet (awful word, just awful), I heard on a social-networking site from a former colleague who said the following in response: "Unlike geniuses such as VP Joe Biden (ahem)."  My former colleague is, of course, entitled to his opinion of Joe Biden's intellect.  (And I encourage anyone to disagree with me publicly when I say things in a public forum.)  My opinion is that the vice president is smart and well informed.  He gets some flack for being (by his own admission) a gaffe machine (e.g. referring to Barack Obama during last year's campaign as "Barack America"), but I've never sensed that lack of intellect was the cause of these gaffes.  Furthermore, I have nothing against this former colleague, who at any rate has a sense of humor about Palin, allowing, in a subsequent exchange, that "she sounds like an extra from Slingblade."

But here's the thing: I didn't mention Joe Biden in my Twitter post.  The intellectual capacity of Sarah "Death Panels" Palin has nothing to do with the intellectual capacity of Vice President Biden.  If Biden were a stupid man, this would not make Palin any smarter.  If Biden were a "genius," this would not make Palin any stupider.  I wouldn't mention this business about my tweet (awful word, just awful) having nothing to do with the vice president, except that this isn't the first time I've heard some version of "well, what about X, though???  He's downright Y!!!"

I heard it frequently during the Bush years.  I'd say something about Bush (that I felt he was not competent; that while being smart enough, perhaps, he showed an appalling lack of intellectual curiosity, resulting in a dangerous sort of ignorance; that he was simple-minded; that he was arrogant; etc.), and the reply would occasionally be something like, "well, would you prefer that John Kerry had won in 2004?"  As it happens, I would have preferred John Kerry or SpongeBob SquarePants or just about anyone to President Bush (especially the second time around: we re-elected President Bush, for God's sake).  But the question is irrelevant.  If Kerry were a semi-literate semi-moron, this fact would have no bearing on whether or not President Bush handled Katrina in a stunningly irresponsible way, or trashed America's reputation around the world, or generally did quite a bit of harm to my country over the course of eight years (or, that's my opinion -- but if I'm wrong, the proof of my wrongless will not have anything to do with John Kerry).

A slight variation on this occurs if one disparages, say, Bill O'Reilly.  The response is often something similar to, "oh, like Keith Olbermann is any better???"  Well, no, actually, and I can't stand Michael Moore either, but what does this have to do with anything?  If Olbermann were not on the air, would O'Reilly be any less of a pompous windbag?  (The answer is "no, he wouldn't be"; we know this because he was being a pompous windbag on Fox long before Olbermann got a show on MSNBC.)

I don't know...  The level of discourse in this country hasn't been lower in my lifetime.  And I'm biased: I'm a Democrat, and a liberal.  But doesn't it seem to be the case that while we have fringe people on the left who make as little sense as fringe people on the right, the signal-to-noise ratio is lower on the mainstream right than it is on the mainstream left, at least at the national level?  Isn't this, come to think of it, reflected in Congress, where among Democratic legislators we have lefties and liberals and moderates and even a few conservatives, while among Republican legislators there's a much smaller range of political opinion?  And for that matter, reflected in our current President, who -- despite accusations of "socialism" and "Marxism" and "Maoism" -- has thus far disappointed many liberals for not being "liberal enough"?

I don't know.  I suppose I'm not contributing much to the discourse myself with my comments about former Governor Palin claiming to be able to see Hong Kong from her roof.  It's just that it's stunning to me that anyone in this country takes Sarah Palin seriously.  And when the "defense" of Palin is, to paraphrase, "well Biden's no genius," instead of addressing the issue head-on of whether Palin is or is not a rather limited person, this tells me...  I'm not sure what it tells me.  It tells me that something's off in our country at the moment.  That something's off.