Subatomic analysis of the vice presidential debate

Thanks to Sarah Palin, I finally have the difinitive response for foreign friends who ask me to explain the difference between Republicans and Democrats.

As leader of Republicans for the last eight years, George W. Bush established a precedent for distinguishing the parties, a simple litmus test we have sorely needed since the ascendancy of nylon and polyester put paid to Pat Nixon’s cloth coat. So Bush will be remembered for giving the English-garbling world “nukyuler” for a lot longer than anybody remembered constitutional checks and balances.

In her debate with Joe Biden Thursday, Palin repeatedly took up the nukyular mantle with an insistance worthy of a commander in chief. Her opponent subtly defended the Democratic-approved stance, meeting Palin’s verbal detonations by inserting the high-taxing, big government watchword “nuclear” into the gaps not otherwise filled by “darn” or “doggone.”

It swayed her no more than Biden’s pointed hints about the U.S. general in Afghanistan. Maybe her references to Gen. McClellan represent abortive attempts by the spirit of Abraham Lincoln to slip Palin some classical eloquence from the Great Campaign Trail in the Sky. He probably feels responsible for using up all the Republican literary mojo at Gettysburg and his second inaugural.

However it started, the Republican preference for mangled prose and malapropisms now stands as fundamental policy.

Some people probably still believe Colin Powell left the State Department becaue of disagreements about doctrine or pique over being used and humiliated with his U.N. speech in favor of war against Iraq. In the event, the problem was his un-Republican habit of expressing complex ideas in coherent, well-formed sentences. The lesson has not been completely lost on Condy Rice, who avoids meaningful content even while risking her job by correct pronunciation.

Both of them need to remember their roots and pay attention to the example of previous Republican SecState Al Haig, who used the power of his office to make “impact” a verb.

Deep down, that’s the kind of leadership Joe Six-pack, Jane Chablis and Bob Bacardi really want. Not, as Mike Dukakis impotently put it, a president “who can think and talk in complete sentences.”

OK, that was Jon Lovitz, but his version of the debate got higher ratings.

Now, I would like to support an Alaskan on a major ticket, but Palin and the Republicans have taken a stand that reveals an ugly prejudice against my ethnicity. As a copy editor-American, it falls to me to stand up for our rights before the Republicans tack a rider onto the next Wall Street bailout bill that legalizes spelling “barbecue” with a q.

The backers of English-only laws are also overwhelmingly Republican, begging the question of how they propose to govern without violating the statutes every time they open their mouths. If a federal law were in place, Congress would have had no choice but to begin the impeachment process immediately following President Bush’s first State of the Union.

So no Alaskan in the Blair House this time around. It’s disappointing, but if you care at all about the basic rules of pronunciation our founding fathers believed in, your choice in November is clear.

Excuse me — culear.