But Palin’s performance last night was more than fodder for a “Saturday Night Live” skit. It was an embarrassment to those who come from small towns.

After the debate, many pundits declared that Palin’s style of speaking is authentic, a breath of fresh air, a cadence that plays well in middle America.

Well, gosh darn, golly gee, I come from middle America, went to school with the sons and daughters of farmers, knew people who struggled to go to college.  And there’s only one thing I felt about Palin’s “authenticity”–insulted.

Palin is not authentic. She instead is what people who live on the coasts believe to be middle America.

She insulted me in another way.

Palin’s debate performance was a slap in the face of some great people who have made great contributions to the betterment of this country during some of its darkest hours–but who didn’t happen to come from small-town America.

What, for example, would Palin say of Teddy Roosevelt–Sen. John McCain’s supposed hero–and his experience?

Born to great affluence, Roosevelt was a man who suffered great tragedy, disappeared into the Badlands only to emerge as the man who busted up the trusts.

And what would Palin say of Franklin Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor, neither of whom suffered through the Great Depression but who inspired a nation to raise itself from the ashes of economic collapse by showing Americans how to reclaim their national spirit and self-worth?

And certainly Palin would have had a field day with Bobby Kennedy, who also came from great wealth but understood and cared for poor people as no politician has since his assassination in June 1968.  Would she have mocked his knowledge of the ancient Greek poets? Would she have ridiculed his large home, his father’s wealth?

The truth is, Palin represents something troubling in U.S. politics. In seeking to be the champion of the struggling middle class, she uses her folksiness to discredit and mock the possibility that someone who speaks with intelligence, grace and reason can know what it means to suffer.

I would search for a quotation here, but I suppose that would show my disconnect from the common folks.

It was then that Walter Cronkite, the CBS news anchor who narrated the daily events for millions of people each night, called Vietnam “unwinnable.” In the White House, President Lyndon B. Johnson said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.”

Now, we are in a different kind of war, one where U.S. financial insolvency seems at risk. Looking at this crisis, Sen. John McCain has said he would suspend his campaign. This included canceling an interview with CBS “Late Show” host David Letterman last night. Letterman said McCain was preparing to head to Washington in an effort to save the country.

The reaction was something the likes of which we’ve never seen.

A furious Letterman called out McCain and, without using the word “liar,” ran live feed of McCain preparing to do an interview with CBS News anchor Katie Couric at the precise moment he was taping.

In addition, Letterman lashed out at McCain’s decision not to have his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, take up the campaign slack while McCain was in Washington.

Letterman even suggested this was all linked to McCain’s recent fall in national polls. “When you call up at the last minute and cancel, that’s not the John McCain I know,” Letterman said. More than once he suggested that “something smells right now.”

Now, Letterman is no Cronkite. He’s not even Ed Sullivan.

But he is the face that millions of Americans see before turning in for the night. For years, McCain has appeared on his show, even announcing his intention to run for president on the program. And to have the affable Letterman visibly boil and go on the offensive showed that, perhaps, McCain, whose campaign has stumbled since the beginning of this economic crisis, is in bigger trouble than one would think.

Perhaps McCain won’t say, “If I’ve lost Letterman, I’ve lost middle America.” Does Letterman even say his audience is “middle America?”

But one wouldn’t be surprised if the Republican candidate began to smell a strong odor seeping into the vents of the Straight Talk Express.