[Mrs. Don-o]

I know I´m in there minority here: Ross Douthat´s right. He was right to enthusiastically endorse her in 2008, right to defend her sturdily from the EneMedia wolves, right to see her, at the time, as the hope of principled, substantive conservative policy (though she turned out not to be).

Like Douthat, my husband and I voted for the McCain-Palin ticket mainly because we wished we could reverse the order of the names.

She was more qualified than Obama, by far; but that´s because Obama was utterly, completely, 100% UN-qualified and she could beat his best simply by being a half-term governor ("It´s kind of like being a community organizer, except it has actual responsibilities." -- best sentence ever spoken in a political campaign).

But she was in over her head. If she had (as in our dreams) been elected and then called in by some McCain mishap to be President-fo-sho, she would have been, like Obama, an intern-President, a trainee-President, except of course without the malevolence.

She makes a horrible reality star, a Caribou Kardashian. She´d make great Governor --- or Senator--- for Alaska. I wish she´d go back to that and pick up some cred.

I do wish her well. Her and all her kin.

[detective]

“Ross Douthat's right. He was right to enthusiastically endorse her in 2008”

From the article:

“Palin gave interviews - terrible, terrible interviews. She was in over her head. Her own paranoia took center stage. She became her critics' caricature, embracing a mix of willful ignorance and proud ressentiment.”

First, “ressentiment” isn't a word. But beyond that the author says he was originally attracted to Sarah Palin but then wised up after watching her “terrible interviews”, her “paranoia” and her “willful ignorance”.

He is saying he sees how people would be attracted to Palin but those who do just aren't smart enough to see through her act and realize how bad she is.

He then attacks Trump. He says he understands the appeal of populism but that Trump is not a real populist like the author. He then throws in some weird and incoherent rambling about Putinism and other topics.

[don-o]

Interesting that there might be different brands of "populism" just as there are different brands of "conservatism."

Many have noted here over the years of the shameful way Sarah was treated by not only the media, but also by McCain and his people.

It was clear to me from the get-go back in 08 that she was struggling with a lot of things that were out of her wheelhouse. Yet, I trusted her core, and I still do.

My worry is in her allying with a man who has pragmatism at his core. I'll go ahead and repeat this

Pragmatism as a philosophy was developed and popularized at the end of the last century by philosopher William James, along with such other noted intellectuals as John Dewey and George Santayana. It was James who gave the new philosophy its name and shape. In 1907, he published a collection of lectures entitled Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking, and thus defined a whole new approach to truth and life.

Pragmatism has roots in Darwinism and secular humanism. It is inherently relativistic, rejecting the notion of absolute right and wrong, good and evil, truth and error. Pragmatism ultimately defines truth as that which is useful, meaningful, helpful. Ideas that don't seem workable or relevant are rejected as false.