Posted on 11/07/2013 12:57:17 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Of all American scholars/writers we know today, Dr. Thomas Sowell ranks at or near the top of any list of the most brilliant observers and commentators of American politics and life. So we were delighted when he took on one of the intriguing subjects we've been pondering for several years now. Four years to be exact.
The subject of our pondering is how the Elite Media picks and chooses who they are going to promote and who they are going to attempt to destroy. Our pondering first began when we observed how the Elites attacked Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. We've been intrigued to watch how, over time both men have come to be viewed as much superior to the picture the Elites tried to pain of them.
But none epitomizes the phenomenon more than does Sarah Palin. We've studied Palin and have found here to be rock solid in her principles and beliefs. And she is usually correct in her analysis and perceptions. She was one of the first to suggest that Barack Obama was a liar. On that she has been proven infinitely correct. Of course, she was correct about ObamaCare when many would not even entertain agreeing with her. Remember the reaction to the "Death Panels." Now we know that the ObamaCare advocate not only in fact included the mechanism within ObamaCare that results in government bureaucrats picking and choosing who will live and who will die, but we even know now that one of the chief architects of the ACA, Ezekiel Emanuel, intentionally included the mechanism and knew Palin was right when she identified it. But Palin was ridiculed…until recently that is.
Over the last five years it has turned out that Palin has been dead on with most of what she has said and Barack Obama has now been exposed as a pathological liar.
So we were intrigued at how Dr. Sowell would assess this phenomenon we have been pondering—about which we will have more to say later. Here is his observation: 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 Governor 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.
Governor 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 Sarah Palin has. Joe Biden has had decades of experience in being both consistently wrong and consistently a source of asinine statements.
Governor Palin's candidacy for the vice presidency was what galvanized grass roots 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 Governor Sarah Palin provokes today.
Before the first trial of Alger 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.
Governor 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 Governor 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.
Why fight it, even the Bible written thousands of years ago says it will happen and Christians will be persecuted. The enlightened can see it coming.
Enjoy the days we have left and go down fighting.
If so, they did a piss-poor job of it. I would judge her the 3rd or 4th most powerful female political figure in the world, based on her influence, stature and the success of those she endorses. Remember, we'd probably be talking about a RINO senator from Texas rather than Ted Cruz if she hadn't got involved and that's just one example. Do you disagree?
The answer.......Just as stupid is as stupid does, so Evil is as Evil does. They are the enemies of what is good.
For the same reason the demon-possessed screeched in horror when Jesus approached. . . .
“Every complaint they made about Sarah Palin could be applied to a much higher degree to Barack Obama.”
I seem to remember libs (on The Daily Kos?) claiming Sarah Palin’s Down Syndrome son Trig may not actually be hers.
That’s a lot of words to try to answer the premise. Simply, the answer is because they—the media and obama—are alike.
Absolutely.
The media gets ten percent (in advertising) from all the money that the government takes from investors and gives to ‘consumer spending’. That’s a recipe for communism if there ever was one.
And liars- advertisers- are the ones who pay all the income the media gets. It’d be crazy if media didn’t prefer liars!
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