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What’s The Matter With Sarah? [Must Read]
The Manila Times ^ | September 13, 2008 | Janet Albrechtsen

Posted on 09/12/2008 11:54:07 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

For left-leaning elites outside the United States, the nomination of Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential candidate is a case of “only in America”—a sneering phrase foreigners use to explain a weird or distasteful American phenomenon. For them, the emergence of a small-town conservative Christian woman with a large family and a beehive hairdo, who talks about the small-town American values of faith, family and love of country, is the equivalent of crass American television. Mrs. Palin, with “her churchgoer’s smile” and her hillbilly family with their hillbilly names, was a “soap opera . . . too implausible even for day-time television” wrote Anne Davies in the Sydney Morning Herald. “A race that began as the ‘West Wing’ now looks alarmingly like ‘Desperate Housewives,’” said Jonathan Freedland in Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

If one needed a primer on why a certain class of elites outside the US will always detest the political, cultural and social undercurrents flowing through the heart of middle America, the emergence of the gun-toting, pro-life Mrs. Palin has provided it. With tedious predictability, a steady undercurrent of anti-Americanism explains why foreign liberals detest Mrs. Palin. Her rising popularity across America has rudely confirmed that not all Americans care about the preferred presidential pick of the international left-liberal community. Barack Obama is their anti-American dream candidate, a man who is part of their project to bring America, the great Satan, to heel. After all, he never spoke about the possibility of victory in Iraq. Only American withdrawal and defeat. And thus America’s humiliation. Both Mrs. Palin’s beliefs and her evident popularity cast doubts on whether Americans are really on board with this overseas vision for America’s future.

All along, this international strain of anti-Americanism evident in Australia and beyond has been driven by a determined refusal to comprehend that peculiarly American curiosity: those who wear their God-fearing, love-of-America conservative values on their sleeves. In other words, people such as Sarah Palin who mean it when they say “God Bless America.” Respectable politicians in places like Australia don’t speak about the love of country. And certainly not in secular Europe or multicultural Britain.

The selection of Mrs. Palin and her role in Republican electoral math this year are also highlighting issues in American politics that surprise and confuse foreign left-wing intellectuals. Commentators in Australia, such as the Sydney Morning Herald’s political editor, Peter Hartcher, have lately sniped about Mrs. Palin’s deeply pro-life beliefs and at those Americans for whom abortion is an election issue. The tendency is to crow about the less divisive politics of abortion in Australia without explaining, or necessarily even understanding, why the issue is heated in the US. No mention that in Australia, unlike the US, abortion has not been fuelled by an activist, social-engineering judiciary. No mention that a cadre of unelected judges stole the issue from the American people in the 1973 decision of Roe v. Wade. As US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said in his 1992 dissent in another abortion case, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, by hijacking the issue and telling Americans they could not decide abortion laws for themselves, “Roe fanned into life an issue that has inflamed our national politics.” Such explanations are diligently ignored by progressives outside the US who prefer to portray abortion politics as driven by a creepy and peculiarly American religious Right.

One sees the same studied ignorance of the US when foreign left-leaning folk talk about guns and the death penalty. Australian elites regard those provisions of the US Constitution guaranteeing the right to bear arms and permitting the death penalty as signs of a venal, backward society. It’s another case of “only in America.” Deriding Mrs. Palin for her hunting habits is a neat way for them to ridicule small-town Americans who cherish those constitutional rights.

To be sure, much of the hysteria from the left wing in Australia mirrors the leftist frenzy within the US Mrs. Palin was always going to upset the global sisterhood for not being the right kind of careerist woman. She is a happy feminist who doesn’t moan about female victimhood. She loves to shoot moose but is not a fan of aborting babies. That you should be opposed to hunting animals but in favor of abortion on demand is an international article of the feminist faith.

Similarly, left-wing media pundits outside the US were always going to parrot the class-driven condescension of her attackers at home. A self-declared “hockey mom” educated at a no-name university, a former beauty queen who used to broadcast the local sports news surely cannot aspire to be vice president. The provincial Mrs. Palin is the perfect proxy-without-borders for the universal disdain metropolitan elites harbor toward those allegedly less sophisticated than themselves.

Blinded by their anti-American prejudices, progressives outside the U.S. mistakenly treat Mrs. Palin as a country hick who has simply roused evangelicals and gun-loving and hunting Republicans. They miss the significance of her nomination. The Governor from Alaska is attracting so much positive attention outside the beltway of American politics—and indeed 10,000 miles away, where ordinary Australians are cheering her on even as their elites pour scorn on her—because she is the real thing. She is a sassy, happy, straight-talking mother of five who has succeeded, not through affirmative action programs or family connections, but through sheer dint of hard work and conviction politics. If Australia’s left-wing elites don’t understand Mrs. Palin’s attraction to middle America it’s because they don’t or won’t ever understand middle America.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Politics/Elections; US: Alaska
KEYWORDS: 2008; abortion; banglist; election; elections; mccain; mccainpalin; obama; palin
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To: xzins

My late father’s family was Missouri hillbilly, and you are correct. Usually one sees Old Testament Biblical names, flowers for girls or perhaps place names.


21 posted on 09/12/2008 12:16:59 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (Barack Obama: In Error and arrogant -- he's errogant!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

ping


22 posted on 09/12/2008 12:17:55 PM PDT by phs3 (Call a terrorist a freedom fighter, I call you the enemy.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Wow, just wow! Janet Albrechtsen!


23 posted on 09/12/2008 12:20:08 PM PDT by Navy Patriot (The beauty of conservatism, Sarah Palin.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The New Zealand Herald is almost shrill with assurances as to why Obama is going to win in November. As if wishing will make it so.

That is an excellent indication that McCain/Palin are doing it right: read the NZ Herald and believe the opposite is always a good policy.

They are a contrarian’s dream come true. They have been wrong so consistently it’s truly an accomplishment.


24 posted on 09/12/2008 12:20:23 PM PDT by DieHard the Hunter (Is mise an ceann-cinnidh. Cha ghéill mi do dhuine. Fàg am bealach.)
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To: hosepipe
"The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism .-Karl Marx "

The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to SHARIA LAW ,--- ---- Mo Ham Med

/

Another danger that needs watching !

25 posted on 09/12/2008 12:28:35 PM PDT by litehaus (A memory tooooo long)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
I'd strongly encourage Obama to go on another world tour. Say, for about 8 more weeks.

He can talk to all of the non-voting non-campaign-contributing citizens that he wants, and inflate his already overblown ego to enormous proportions. Perhaps he can practice his concession speech on the fligh home.

26 posted on 09/12/2008 12:29:59 PM PDT by wbill
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Excellent post. Bookmarked.


27 posted on 09/12/2008 12:30:47 PM PDT by Southside_Chicago_Republican (Sarah Palin just field dressed the Obama campaign.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
or perhaps place names. ...Chevy Backseat Smith? Motel6 Jones?

:-)

28 posted on 09/12/2008 12:31:58 PM PDT by wbill
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To: wk4bush2004

Don’t get too upset. The US has been know to support candidates in other countries, too.


29 posted on 09/12/2008 12:34:17 PM PDT by Little Ray (I'm a Conservative. But I can vote for John McCain. If I have to. I guess.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

SHE DOES NOT HAVE A BEEHIVE HAIRDO. I like her hair. There, I said it. I feel better.


30 posted on 09/12/2008 12:36:12 PM PDT by Hildy ("We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.")
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To: xzins

You forgot Willow. But I agree, NOT hillbilly names.


31 posted on 09/12/2008 12:37:00 PM PDT by Vor Lady (Proud to support Sarah Palin for Vice President!)
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To: Prophet in the wilderness

“God uses the simple things to confound the wise ( elitist, snobs )”

Yes, the Apostle Paul really hit it on the head: “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise;....1Cor 1:27a”.... the implication being the things that are foolish, weak or base, of no value... to the world, to those who are wise in their ‘OWN’ eyes, the so called ‘elites’. Not those who are foolish from God’s point of view.

Well I don’t CARE what these TRULY foolish people think. Sarah, to my eyes, seems to be REAL. I can identify with and admire her. She comes from people like ME, and my friends and family. I can identify with HER. I think I can trust her.

I think she will be a GREAT influence on John McCain. He has to be watching the reaction of the ‘conservative base’ to his selection of her. She will be our voice, OUR advocate with the President.

cheers, pattyjo


32 posted on 09/12/2008 12:42:04 PM PDT by pj_627
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Janet's page: Here
33 posted on 09/12/2008 12:42:18 PM PDT by Navy Patriot (The beauty of conservatism, Sarah Palin.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
"...US when foreign left-leaning folk talk about guns and the death penalty. Australian elites regard those provisions of the US Constitution guaranteeing the right to bear arms and permitting the death penalty as signs of a venal, backward society."

Notice how they are in "Australia"? They are ataying away. They can talk all they want, but at least they are not here in the US spreading their hatred for the Constitution.

34 posted on 09/12/2008 12:44:04 PM PDT by Ultimatum (As we speak, another liberal implodes. When they move their lips, just a bunch of gibberish.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Bookmark


35 posted on 09/12/2008 12:45:16 PM PDT by Tramonto (0bama-Biden: Brite Artikulit Clean)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Excellent! I hope you don’t mind, but I posted on another thread about debunking the Anti-Palin issues. Here are the links I sent to my very good, but somewhat left leaning friend, with the hope that it might help to clear up some questions.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122098339946615609.html?mod=Best+of+the+Web+
Today

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/sliming_palin.html

http://feministsforlife.org/news/ffl-member-sarah-palin-vp.htm

Tatt


36 posted on 09/12/2008 12:51:15 PM PDT by thesearethetimes... ("Courage, is fear that has said its prayers." Dorothy Bernard)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Self-ping


37 posted on 09/12/2008 12:54:15 PM PDT by MortMan (Those who stand for nothing fall for anything. - Alexander Hamilton)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
An excellent read. Thanks for posting!

"Barack Obama is their anti-American dream candidate, a man who is part of their project to bring America, the great Satan, to heel. After all, he never spoke about the possibility of victory in Iraq. Only American withdrawal and defeat. And thus America’s humiliation."

38 posted on 09/12/2008 12:58:44 PM PDT by stillonaroll (McCain/Palin 2008!)
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To: pj_627
We got to pray for Sarah and John and their families.
I pray that what every schemes, tricks, plans that they ( MSM/DEMS/OBAMA try against Sarah, John and their families fall back on them and crush them.
More slimball attacks against Palin http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2081033/posts
39 posted on 09/12/2008 1:01:09 PM PDT by Prophet in the wilderness (PSALM .53 : 1 The FOOL hath said in his heart, there is no GOD.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I have my own moonbat theory.

After we finally defeat the Islamofascists and their dreams of a ninth-century theocratic dystopia, we’ll finally move on to World War IV - when the majority of people have to confront the elite oligarchs in government bureaucracies, academia, the media, and other leftist organizations. Maybe the Battle of Sarah Palin is a preview of what’s to come.

Anyway, a moonbat idea.


40 posted on 09/12/2008 1:01:27 PM PDT by redpoll
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