Dangit, ah dun missed anuther'un!
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.
A lot could happen between now and 2012. Obama could embarrass and disgrace himself and his party with these disastrous economic policies to the point Republicans ride back in in the congressional elections of 2010. But Palin isn't the answer. Her appeal doesn't extend far enough beyond populists and the social conservative base.
It's too early to tell what shapes up in 2012. If Palin runs for Senate, I could see that. But not as president. Conservative reform of this mess should not be about any one person. A Palin candidacy would be about Palin as it was in 2008 with Tina Fey riding shotgun on Saturday nights. Palin was effectively Quayled by that. When the candidate is made to look goofy and that becomes the story, that's a problem and a weakness in the candidate. And that is what happened. We don't need another campaign focused on funny hairdos and a goofy voice. The media caricature was unfair but it worked for them.
Well a few more weeks of Obamanomics and you'll owe your 401k money.
Election campaigns take place in the real world. The candidate has to deal with that. If they can't, you need another candidate. This is not rocket science. It's not that complicated. If someone comes across as too goofy, too folksy, or too regional for voting constituencies that are needed to get to the necessary electoral votes, you need another candidate as Pat Buchanan, Pat Roberston, and Alan Keyes could explain. Palin has those weaknesses. The voters chose Obama-Biden.
He can only succeed by following conservative principles. Those same conservative principles that YOU are probably living by this very moment.
When you are short of income and have bills piling up, do you go on a great big spending spree? No, you tighten your belt and look for ways to spend less or earn more.
Your 401k is in trouble because of democrats forcing banks to lend to deadbeats. Bush went along with that. They're all idiots.
Tax and spend WILL NOT work. That's the only answer Obama has.
Well, maybe no conservatives voted for Obama, but obviously Republicans did, and we need all the Republicans out there, whether conservative or not, to win an election.
If you love her, you'd respect her and not post a link to pics like those taken by some low-life photographer hiding in the bushes with a zoom lens. How would you like it if someone secretly photographed your sister in a bathing suit sitting by a pool or at the beach and then posted the pics on the internet.
That is so wrong. I love Megan Fox and I post pictures of her all the time. Sometimes when it's barely even relevant.
Hello....and goodbye....
IATZ
“intellectual” - a dealer in second hand ideas.
Academentia - those committed to the persistant belief that collectivism can be made to work by said intellectuals working with “proper” academic ‘credentials’.
Dangit, ah dun missed anuther'un!
These pics are different.
That one was gone in a hurry.Repeat offender?
Most likely...
Reality is that the media will so this to whomever. With the magic of the cutting room floor, they could make Einstein into a drooling idiot.
No turn of phrase is accidental, no lighting angle (to make someone look older/younger/tired/sick/healthy--or even make them blink constantly), make-up 'mistake', no dramatic pause, cut to commercial is merely coincidental, and even off-camera distractions can be timed to stop the interviewee at critical moments.
A golf ball in the chair cushion, quarter under the corner of the podium, and someone looks off balance, unable to focus, or worse.
There is no limit to the dirty tricks which can be used, nor the will by the politically biased to use them.
Gov. Palin impresses me as someone who would deal fairly with even those she disagrees with, an encumbrance those on the left, and especially the leftist media, are not known for.
You come across as an elitist punk. I makes me so angry that my teeth are grinding.
Most Americans like Sarah Palin. She is by a long short the leader of American conservatism right now. She is a star and has a pop culture like appear. I think she is the only one that could go toe to toe with Obama on the national stage.
Remember, the media will go after any candidate we trot up. You are from the same school of thought that brought us the legendary campaigns of Bob Dole and John McCain. You want to appease stereotypes and fight a candidate that will be more acceptable to the left. What is wrong with you ?
Sarah Palin is a bright spot. Did you see what I saw ? That speech she gave at the convention was EPIC.
sit down or get off the bus. people like you are the problem with our country. people like you set the stage for Obama with your weak, pathetic and flimsy attempt to make the Republican party more “mainstream”...
respect Sarah.
Now? We are a ruled people. The democrat and republican parties have ballooned the entitlements/dependency class to the point of usurpation; the dependents have handed the authority and the power to the ruling elite.
And there are Republican representatives (like Specter, Snowe, Collins, and a sad array of House members) quite happy to be in the ruling elite so they do not shake the tree of despotic oligarchs we euphemistically call the federal government.
Our last hope were the subpreme c, but the Roberts snort sold us out with ease, even as Roberts made a show of sticking strictly to the Constitution! Made me sick to see that repeated oath spectacle knowing that Roberts had violated his office ethics by entertaining Obama just prior to the inauguration while cases questioning his eligibility were before the snort (I refuse to call that gaggle a court any longer).
And people actually encourage US to pray for the president!
We also do not need an underqualified woman as president just to prove a woman can win. However, if people want to debate beehive hairdos, moose hunting, and Tina Fey again, they can try. But it would be silly.
Well said and I will never pray for that arrogant snot poser sitting in the WH. Sarah is real, that POS calling himself president is a Marxist phony.
If Obama fumbles, Palin could win.
If Obama still has sky high approval. run Huckabee or somebody like that.
And whom is your brilliant candidate? Romney, Paul, Huckabee? Or perhaps you think Bobby Jindal can side-step the Constitutional requirements like Barry Soetoro has done.
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