Mocking authenticity

Every politician knows when they have arrived. All they have to do is watch Saturday Night Live and see how big a SNL regular has the job of mocking them. Most of the time I go right along with the mocking of politicians from both sides of the aisle. I even find Tina Fey’s mocking interpretation of Sarah Palin almost a tribute in a strange left-handed kind of way.

On the other hand, the mocking done by op-ed columnists of the New York Times and other publications of their ilk, is irritating, to say the least. It would be okay with me if Maureen Dowd would occasionally take the opportunity to mock a democratic figure. Surely Barney Frank was mockable after his performance over the last few weeks. But no, Ms. Dowd seems to be a one-note partisan mocker. Her topic recently was Sarah Palin’s speech accents and linguistic patterns.

I don’t know if you have noticed, but every once in a while when Senator Obama is not reading from a teleprompter speech, and is uh, you know, uh, answering a press question, he tends to start to verbally flatulate. It is pretty normal, in fact. It is probably his authentic manner of speech. If this was also the way he delivered speeches I think it would be sort of out of line to mock him.

However, because Palin speaks in tones and phrases that are unusual to our ears, it is cool and even required, that we make fun of her manner of speaking. It isn’t sexism. It isn’t racism. It is some kind of wierd way we make fun of people we don’t understand. The way we mock asian or hispanic speakers, right?

Disagreeing with a person’s policies and politics is one thing, but making fun of the way they speak or, for that matter, wink, just doesn’t seem right, doggone it!