FYI,following, a few paragraphs by Camille Paglia back in 08. Know who she is?
One of the most idiotic allegations batting around out there among urban media insiders is that Palin is "dumb." Are they kidding? What level of stupidity is now par for the course in those musty circles? (The value of Ivy League degrees, like sub-prime mortgages, has certainly been plummeting. As a Yale Ph.D., I have a perfect right to my scorn.) People who can't see how smart Palin is are trapped in their own narrow parochialism -- the tedious, hackneyed forms of their upper-middle-class syntax and vocabulary.
Many others listening to Sarah Palin at her debate went into conniptions about what they assailed as her incoherence or incompetence. But I was never in doubt about what she intended at any given moment. On the contrary, I was admiring not only her always shapely and syncopated syllables but the innate structures of her discourse -- which did seem to fly by in fragments at times but are plainly ready to be filled with deeper policy knowledge, as she gains it (hopefully over the next eight years of the Obama presidencies). This is a tremendously talented politician whose moment has not yet come. That she holds views completely opposed to mine is irrelevant
Victor Davis Hanson, who has met and admires Sarah Palin, gave a talk along these same lines at the Hoover Institution back at the end of the campaign which you might be interested in:
Obama, Palin and the Culture Wars
He talks about class, gender and education biases against Palin, among other things. It's really excellent if you haven't seen it, about 39 minutes of your time for the whole thing. You can select segments to watch.
Like Paglia, he's not fooled either by the elitist Beltway blather.
Loved part of his answer to one of the questions during the Q&A related to Palin biases:
"I've found more wisdom on 100 acres south of Fresno [his farm] than I have on the quad over there at Stanford".
Why am I supposed to be impressed by what a feminist Democrat has to say?
I just go by what I observe, and I’ve observed someone in Sarah Palin who is not a leading light among conservative thinkers.
I understand the mentality of those who want to continue John McCain’s work of pushing her onto America.
They believe that she possesses some electoral qualities, starting with her being a governor, and ending with her being female, and the her views on abortion fills the in between.
They believe they are being clever and beating the Democrats at their own game of identity politics.
They like how she looks on paper, and that is good enough for them.
Perhaps they would be on to something, except that her performance under pressure is completely lacking.
When it’s time for her to shine, she’s dim.
When it’s time for her to pick up the ball and run, she fumbles.
Her performance is uneven at best. Watching her in a debate or an interview, you never know if she’s going to give an incoherent bumbling answer, or narrowly squeak by with a passing grade. She never knocked it out of the park, that’s for sure.
I was there, right along everyone else, too.
Crossing my fingers, hoping she doesn’t blow it, and usually coming up disappointed, or relieved by a narrow miss.
And after a while, I had to give up on her.
George W. Bush’s public performances were bad enough, but compared to Sarah Palin, he’s a master orator. His debate where every answer was “it’s hard work” started looking pretty good compared to Palin’s performances.
I don’t want to have to go through that again. It is aging me.
And we shouldn’t have to.
Conservatives were once the guys with the ideas.
Now we’re just playing defense, trying to make excuses for the dimwits we have representing us.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
It shouldn’t be that way.
It’s time for that to end.
It’s time to go back to the era of Reagan and Gingrich when conservatives were the smartest people in the room.