FWIW

To continue the Sarah Palin thread, she was speaking to a wingnut radio host recently and was saying something along the lines of / Americans are really excited to have someone of the Joe Six Pack mentality in the office of the Vice President/. 

Stop Right There Sister - 

I expect better.  I expect the people who represent me to be the exact inverse of "Joe Six Pack". 

I am Joe Six Pack (or more accurately Jean 750ml Chardonnay) and I have neither the work ethic nor the knowledge to serve as the vice president (Dan Quale not withstanding).  Hell, Ben Kingsley playing vice president in the movie "Dave" (which incidently is the "Pretty Woman" of political movies) is more convincing than either I or Sarah Palin.  And I think that makes me a "Good American", a "Patriot" if you will.  To expect our leaders to be self aware, knowledgeable, earnest and hard working and to know the limits of their ability should be a pre-requisite of citizeneship.  The dark underbelly of American egalitarianism (one of our better traits) is the notion that all men being equal in the eyes of the law means that all men are equal.  Call me a Chardonnay guzzling elitist (please) but not all men are equal (and here I mean the race of man, my apologies ladies).  Fabio (was) better looking than me.  Paul Newman was more generous, a better thespian, and a better driver than me - and to add insult to injury, both better looking and richer too.  Rush Limbaugh is a better entertainer than me.  And John Stewart and David Letterman are better than Rush.  Point being, not everyone can do every job equally, and someone who can't even name which magazines they read (not even a moldering Metropolitan Home in the dentists office) should not pass any true Patriots muster.  American exceptionalism is not about the mean.  Faux populism gets you Hugo Chavez.