Sarah Palin: Hotspur of the Moment

Discussing her autobiography "Going Rogue" with Oprah Winfrey on Monday, Sarah Palin came off as someone who fell prey to her emotions. The closest parallel was of another "Hotspur," from a play over 400 years old -- Harry Percy, anti-hero of the Shakespearean drama "1 Henry IV."
Both Palin and Percy suffer because of their emotions. On "Oprah," the former Republican vice-presidential candidate addressed her biggest failure during the 2008 campaign: The disastrous interview with Katie Couric. Palin provided some context: She was soaring in confidence following popular acclaim, which made Couric's questions -- such as what newspapers she read -- seem like an affront. Yet in blaming Couric for the candidate's poor performance, Palin came off as tempestuous as Shakespeare's Hotspur when he told King Henry IV that he did not give His Highness his prisoners of war because ... a royal official offended him.

I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold -- To be so pestered with a popinjay! -- Out of my grief and my impatience/Answered neglectingly, I know not what...

Hotheadedness is a bad quality in a leader. It dooms Hotspur's rebellion; he alienates allies and fights a fatal battle with the King. And while Palin's publicity is rising with her "Oprah" appearance and book tour, her tempestuousness may quash any hopes she might have for national political success. A nation embroiled in two wars and an economic crisis cannot have a commander-in-chief who governs by snap decisions.
Palin should use last fall's defeat as a chance to reflect. Her running mate, Sen. John McCain, apparently learned from his primary loss to George W. Bush in 2000, and used this knowledge to win the presidential nomination last year. If she wants to emulate McCain's success, Palin should start thinking about a more levelheaded approach.
So let's hope Palin has fun on her book tour ... and that when it's all over, she takes a good look at her shameless eggers-on like Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck and thinks to herself a modern-day version of what the true hero of "1 Henry IV," Prince Hal, speaks in a soliloquy:

I know you all, and will a while uphold/The unyoked humour of your idleness. Yet herein will I imitate the sun,/Who doth permit the base contagious clouds/To smother up his beauty from the world, That when he please again to be himself, Being wanted he may be more wondered at...

Obama Shakes up GOP on torture debate

"And let me speak to th' yet unknowing world
How these things came about. So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts..."

~William Shakespeare, Hamlet

We observed the Bard's birthday this month -- he was baptized April 26, 1564 -- and we also observed President Obama do something in the style of Shakespearean monarchs (think Fortinbras in Hamlet) ready to examine the sins of their predecessors: He's looking for answers on the waterboarding issue. And maybe Obama's doing it in part for Shakespearean reasons: He's seeking to divide the Republican opposition.
Waterboarding, Fox News reports, works as follows:

(A) detainee is strapped to a gurney with his head lowered and a cloth placed on his face. Interrogators pour water onto the cloth, which cuts off air flow to the mouth and nostrils, tripping his gag reflex, causing panic and giving him the sensation that he is drowning.At that point the cloth would be removed, the gurney rotated upright and the detainee would be allowed to breathe.

No wonder the Obama Administration has taken steps against this -- the most recent one being last Thursday's release of Bush-era memos describing its use against detainees in the War on Terror.
In addition to rousing a nation's conscience, this move could split the opposition. Some Republicans could argue that while waterboarding is heinous, flying airplanes into buildings is even more despicable, and that winning the War on Terror justified whatever means were taken. On the other hand, GOP members already uneasy with sidestepping the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment may find the past administration even more unsavory now that we know just how cruel and unusual its punishments were.
"Let this same be presently performed," Horatio tells Fortinbras of disclosing former King Claudius' misrule in Hamlet, "Even whiles men's minds are wild, lest more mischance/On plots and errors happen." Not only has Obama stopped "more mischance" from the CIA, he could also start a debate among the GOP about how it prosecuted the War on Terror.