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.
The biggest problem Governor Palin faces is the elitism in the Republican Party! The elite snots running the GOP (prior to Steele’s arrival) do not have a solid person to whom they can turn in 2012 and are not going to try and overcome whatt he socialist enemy media have done to Governor Palin. THAT is defeatism at work in the scrotumless GOP. If Steele is whom folks say he is, the healing of Sarah Palin’s media imgae will begun shortly whether the GOP elite think she can win in 2012 or not ... if they do not utilize her sparkle they are worse than feckless, they are defeated before they begin because they fear the enemedia in America. With such feckless leadership that would allow the cesspool media to trash a solid conservative woman, this nation needs a thrid party to arise and squish the GOP as the stink bugs they are becoming.
I've been thinking it more and more, especially of late: But I believe the Legislative, Executive, and the Judicial-branches to be traitors; aiding and comforting the enemies of this country by their gross negligence of duty. (USSC, why couldn't you just say "show that DAMN birth-certificate"!? Congress, why couldn't you tell the scare-mongers to fuck-off... executive-branch... WHY THE F--- ARE THERE PEOPLE IN CONGRESS WHO ARE PROVEN FRAUDS, TAX-CHEATS, BRIBE-TAKERS?)
I thought America was supposed to be about Truth and Justice for all! Hell, we went in, kicked-ass and now the Iraqi people are having free and honest elections; yet we can't stop the obviously corrupt SHIT (ACORN, "Unlimited Recounts", poll workers "finding" boxes of ballots, people winning areas with more than 100% of the vote...) over here!?
WTF?! WTF!?
[Catty]
A lot of that here too, sad to say.
Ping of interest.
When does your oath kick in?... When the federal oligarchy chooses to use you. You see, cj Roberts abrogated the Constitutional contract We The People had, so now it is every oligarch in whatever branch of the federal rule does what is right in his own eyes or what he is ordered to do. [[I’ve heard that being elected just one time to the federal oligarchy nets a nice guaranteed retirement plan. I wonder, could I get elected ... LOL]]
There isn’t one right now. But one that can’t win a national election isn’t the solution.
Where do you hide those crystal DNC balls that tell you what cannot be done in three years? You just marginalized yourself, honey.
Is it wrong to want some justice... bloody, the ends up with dead scum and tyrants in the oligarchy dead? Swinging at the end of a noose as the traitors they are?
I hope you prove this wrong and she does win, leading a Reagan-like revolution of lower taxes and limited government. But that is very unlikely. The GOP needs a different conservative candidate for 2012 if they want to stop this socialism stampede.
More than that: she is an existential threat to the childless/husbandless/middle-aging career women, because she is not only beautiful, but successful in a man’s profession, with a hunky husband and kids. But also because she blasphemed by choosing not to abort a down’s syndrome child. She had to fail, because only her failure would save their self-image. The irony is that if they were ever to meet her most of them would like her. That doesn’t go for the gays, who hate strong women, and especially those who profess Christianity.
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.
Sowell's insightful - and right - as usual!
Post-abortion rage, a lot of it in liberal women who were polarized.
I dunno, Katy Choleric fits your description of those who would like her, yet Katy hates her after spending time with her sabotaging her to the max. Liberals are dead inside. I don’t think they react well to life like inhabits Sarah Palin. Christians are an uncomfortable lot for liberals to be around. Fake christians, like Barry Lynd are another story, but Sarah is the real deal, the Spirit dwells in her and folks aren’t comfy with that, as Howlingdolt is showing us.
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Thanks potlatch
Great thread!
She was by far a better stump speaker than Obama. I must be dense, but I have never been taken with THE ONE. His formal style is pompous, his accent odd, and his face works oddly as he speaks. He has a good baritone voice but his words are forced, like James Earl Jones when he stayed in his base range as Darth Vader. In other words, artificial.
Good! It seemed hard to find good ones tonight but it may just be me, lol.
It’s the media that has claimed Obama is the “gifted orator.” Apparently what comes across as arrogant yelling is considered “inspiring” by them. There has been a general decline in speech.
Katy,accotding to the gossip, is a bitch and she was on a mission to take Palin down because Couric’s reputation was in the toilet. It was a career saving move for Couric. Now it doesn’t matter what her ratings are.
find later
Not also an ideological commitment to liberalism? Doesn’t she get the thrill up the leg for the One?
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