The most popular type of website remains pornography; does this mean we should admire pornographers for their genius or shake our heads at their shameless pandering to the lowest element of our humanity?
Sarah Palin would not be a household name if the Republicans had not tapped her to be McCain's running mate. For all we know, she would have completed her term as governor rather than be lured by a multi-million dollar contract with Fox News and a lucrative book deal.
I have a beef with any public servant, including candidates for national public office, leveraging their name recognition which they gained through no personal merit per se (there were strategic reasons for selecting Palin that had nothing to do with any accomplishments) into lucrative private contracts. That includes ex-presidents receiving $100,000 a pop to speak when the only reason they are paid so much is because they once held a public office. All the goodwill that comes with that office (here I am using goodwill in the business sense) is a function of the trademark and brand recognition that is really the property of the taxpayer.
(My "if I were king of the world" solution? Apply a very high return-to-the-people tax on the proportion of speaker's fees or book royalties that could reasonably be assumed to be a function of the fact the person held public office, in the same way that we must pay capital gains on the proportion of proceeds from the sale of stock that represent a profit. In other words, if someone was paid $10,000 for speaking prior to being elected president, then is offered $100,000, it is safe to assume that $90,000 of those fees are generated as a function of publicity gained while serving the people; why not tax that $90,000 at 50% and use it to reduce the deficit or publicly finance the next election, rolling the money back into the public coffers?)
Yes, Palin has some organizational skills and a knack at manipulating public opinion (her "death panels" post on Facebook perhaps more than any other single factor brought the popularity of healthcare reform from over 70% to about 50:50 for and against).
But were it not for the clout of the Republican Party and the national publicity a run for president gave her, she would be using those skills at the level of her local PTA, town council, or Alaska statewide politics (a state, let's not forget, with a population less than Columbus, Ohio). Instead of 2.5 million likes, she would have 2,500. As Barbara Bush pointed out, Sarah Palin seems happy in Alaska - perhaps she should stay there.
In our winner-takes-all media circus, we will have exaggerated measures like this that seem to make people appear much more important, popular, or significant than they really are. Let's also remember that 2.5 million is less than 1% of the population of the country, and that no doubt a number of those "likes" are more than one person (since people often have multiple profiles).
I would not be surprised in a country in which 4 million Americans believe they have been abducted by aliens that 2.5 million like Sarah Palin.
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