Posted on 02/27/2009 2:51:53 PM PST by SmithL
IF BARACK OBAMA has been the most remarkable phenomenon of the recent political scene, Sarah Palin must be second. The emotional responses to each — especially by the media and the intelligentsia — go beyond anything that can be explained by the usual political differences of opinion on issues of the day.
That liberals would be thrilled by another liberal is not surprising. But there are conservative Republicans who voted for Barack Obama, and other conservatives who may not have voted for him, but who are quick to see in various pragmatic moves of his since taking office an indication that he is not an extremist.
Anyone familiar with history knows that Hitler and Stalin were pragmatic. After years of denouncing each other, they signed the Nazi-Soviet pact under which they became allies for a couple of years before going to war against one another.
Pragmatism tells you nothing about extremism. But the conservative intellectuals who seize upon President Obama's pragmatism to give him the benefit of the doubt are obviously bending over backward for some reason.
With Gov. Palin, it is just the opposite. The conservative intelligentsia who react against her have remarkably little to say that will stand up to scrutiny.
People who actually dealt with her, before she became a national figure, have expressed how much they were impressed by her intelligence.
Palin's "inexperience" is a talking point that might have some plausibility if it were not for the fact that Barack Obama has far less experience in actually making policies than Palin has.
Joe Biden has had decades of experience in being both consistently wrong and consistently a source of asinine statements.
Palin's candidacy for the vice presidency was what galvanized grassroots Republicans in a way that John McCain never did. But there was something about her that turned even some conservative intellectuals against her and provoked visceral anger and hatred from liberal intellectuals.
Perhaps the best way to try to understand these reactions is to recall what Eleanor Roosevelt said when she first saw Whittaker Chambers, who had accused Alger Hiss of being a spy for the Soviet Union. Upon seeing the slouching, overweight and disheveled Chambers, she said, "He's not one of us."
The trim, erect and impeccably dressed Alger Hiss, with his Ivy League and New Deal pedigree, clearly was "one of us."
As it turned out, he was also a liar and a spy for the Soviet Union. Not only did a jury decide that at the time, the opening of the secret files of the Soviet Union in its last days added more evidence of his guilt.
The Hiss-Chambers confrontation of more than half a century ago produced the same kind of visceral polarization that Gov. Sarah Palin provokes today.
Before the first trial of Hiss began, reporters who gathered at the courthouse informally sounded each other out as to which of them they believed, before any evidence had been presented. Most believed that Hiss was telling the truth and that it was Chambers who was lying.
More important, those reporters who believed that Chambers was telling the truth were immediately ostracized. None of this could have been based on the evidence for either side, for that evidence had not yet been presented in court.
For decades after Hiss was convicted and sent to federal prison, much of the media and the intelligentsia defended him. To this day, there is an Alger Hiss chair at Bard College.
Why did it matter so much to so many people which of two previously little-known men was telling the truth? Because what was on trial was not one man but a whole vision of the world and a way of life.
Gov. Sarah Palin is both a challenge and an affront to that vision and that way of life — an overdue challenge, much as Chambers' challenge was overdue.
Whether Palin runs for national office again is something that only time will tell. But the Republicans need some candidate who is neither one of the country club Republicans nor — worse yet — the sort of person who appeals to the intelligentsia.
fyi
later ping
We lost single women, young women badly. Goes to show women are catty. I knew tons of chicks that wouldn’t vote for her not because of issues— but because they didn’t like her accent or thought she was too bubbly. Catty.
OUTSTANDING article by Thomas Sowell! Thanks for posting.
I know a woman who, ostensibly conservative, voted for Obama because she was convinced that:
A. Both McCain and Obama were likely to not survive their term in office, and hence she wanted a VP with “experience”.
B. Palin should not have been running around campaigning because her kids needed her at home.
She told me recently that she was afraid our country was slipping into socialism, and my simple response was, “You contributed to it by voting for Obama.”
Thomas Sowell is a beacon of hope in the conservative community. He would not compliment Sarah if he did not really believe what he is writing.
“But there are conservative Republicans who voted for Barack Obama...”
I think there may be some people who either say they are or THINK they are, but no conservatives who voted for the Kenyan.
Your friend is neither conservative nor very morally grounded. She is, in plain fact, an idiot.
You should have pointed your finger at her face, laughed hysterically and told her that she’s been punked and everything she’ll get crammed down her throat by the Obama regime is her own fault.
The vast majority of us have never had to face the world in such a way that it made us grow up. Witness the current spectacle. Anyone with a brain cell should be horrified, but most Americans are little more than mildly annoyed.
I don't know what's in Sarah Palin's political future but while she clearly disturbs 'intellectuals', she relates nicely with the rest of us, and in a politician, that is almost unstoppable. Most Americans can identify with Sarah Palin. They see themselves reflected in her in many ways and don't like effectively being sneered at and mocked by pointed-headed, over-educated elitists. Sowell has it right.
The more things change...
The only way they could win is through massive fraud.
I don’t know one person the went to see Sarah that didn’t become a huge Palin fan. She inspires people and that’s why the Dems hate her. She scares the hell out of them. She is their worst nightmare.
It is worse than that. Single women elected Obama. If they would have split evenly, we would have won. I am far from convinced it is because they voted against Palin.
I think they voted for Obama because:
He is handsome and young.
He stood for more freebees from the government, and many single women have substituted the government for a man in their lives.
Single women, as a group, are less sophisticated about politics than any other group, IMHO.
Not only that... she works for a conservative talk radio station, so I told her that the fairness doctrine is looming large for her.
I prefer Ron Paul.
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