Sarah Palin, Mark Sanford and Occam's Razor

Stanley Fish argues the public statements and actions of Sarah Palin and Mark Sanford are so puzzling and unusual that maybe, just maybe, they are exactly what they seem to be. Here's Fish:

Maybe he should look at the video and pay attention this time to the reasons she gives. It is true that her statement was not constructed in a straightforward, logical manner, but the main theme was sounded often and plainly: This is not what I signed up for. I'm spending all my time and the state's money responding to attack after attack and they aren't going to let up because, "It doesn't cost the people who make these silly accusations a dime."

The accusations had been coming from all sides, from investigators of her ethics, from Alaska Democrats and fellow Republicans, from officials in the McCain campaign, from scathing magazine articles, from what she termed the mockery and humiliation directed at her son Trig, from late-night comedians taking potshots at her daughters.

She dated the beginning of her trials and tribulations from the moment in August, 2008, when "political operatives descended on Alaska digging for dirt." She complained that "millions of dollars go down the drain in this new political environment." She signaled repeatedly her weariness with the "superficial political blood-sport" politics has become. She returned to her own sport, basketball, to explain that because she had become a distraction she was going to do what a good point guard always does, pass the ball to someone (her lieutenant governor) in a better position to make the shot. And in the end she earned the declaration that "I have given my reasons plainly and candidly."

But the pundits didn't want to hear them or, rather, they were committed to believing that the real reasons lay elsewhere, and were strategic. They couldn't fathom the possibility that she was just giving voice to her feelings. It must, they assumed, be a calculation, and having decided that, they happily went on to describe how bad a calculation it was.

They did this even when reporting on something that might have given them pause. It was generally agreed that because the statement was structurally chaotic, even formless, Palin had written it herself. No self-respecting political operative would have produced something so badly crafted. One would have thought that this would be seen as evidence of the absence of calculation, but instead it was received as evidence of her Alaska-limited understanding of politics. (Doesn't she know, they asked, that resigning is no way to run for president?) Rather than reasoning from what they took to be the political ineptitude of her performance to the possibility that it wasn't political, they just continued on their merry, muckraking way.

Fish goes o

n to deconstruct the Sanford affair, concluding:

So what's the bottom line story? Simple. Sanford is in love. Palin is in pain. Sometimes what it seems to be is what it is.

Sanford, I don't know. The less I say about him the better. But think about this: if you were Sarah Palin, and you didn't have an ambition to become president of the United States, no matter what it did to your family, why would you stick around and keep taking this crap? I know I wouldn't. There's not enough money and power in the world for me to take on a job that would open my children up to filthy jokes by late-night comedians -- and I bet that's true for most of you, too. If that's what it takes to be involved in national politics these days, what normal family person would bother?

Maybe by stepping down from the governor's office -- if that means she's leaving politics forever -- Palin proves she is exactly what her supporters say she is: a normal human being. It's worth thinking about. If any of my children said he or she wanted to become an entertainer or a politician, I would actively discourage them, saying that those worlds would likely chew them up and make mincemeat of family life. That's not to say that one cannot be a good family man or woman and be an effective entertainer (actor, pop musician, etc.) or politician, but it is to say that the odds against it in this culture are pretty high.