Posted on 07/10/2009 12:37:29 PM PDT by dr_who
Sarah Palin's announcement of her resignation as governor of Alaska may be the end of her political career or, as some speculate, the real beginning. What seems clear is that Palin is not conservatism's new hope but its dead end. In recent days, this has been amply confirmed by the arguments of Palin defenders, focused less on her presumed merits than on her presumed injuries at her enemies' hands.
Thus, Ross Douthat, the new conservative voice at the New York Times, hails Palin as Everywoman—living proof you can aspire to the White House without an Ivy League degree—and deplores her abuse by the political and media elites based on her "gender and social class." The message to other non-elite women with political ambitions, Douthat sums up, is: "Your children will go through the tabloid wringer. Your religion will be mocked and misrepresented. Your political record will be distorted, to better parody your family and your faith."
Yet Douthat admits that Palin's "missteps, scandals, dreadful interviews and self-pitying monologues" tarnished her role as a spunky common woman challenging the elites. But in that case, how much of the harsh treatment was due to prejudice and how much to Palin's own failings?
Yes, Palin has been the target of extremely vicious attacks (though the notion that no other politician has endured comparable nastiness would amuse Bill and Hillary Clinton). Her left-wing feminist foes have been especially rabid, mocking her in startlingly misogynistic language—"Republican blow-up doll" was one of the milder epithets—and denouncing "her pretense that she is a woman." The bizarre theory that Palin's youngest child, Trig, is really her grandson is still afloat in the gutters of the Internet.
And yes, this hostility has an element of snobbery. Former New Republic editor in chief Andrew Sullivan, currently a blogger with a bad case of Palin Derangement Syndrome, recently posted a catalogue of Palin's sins that included "white trash concupiscence."
Yet, such revolting extremes aside, some of the unpleasantness has been self-inflicted. Palin agreed to be John McCain's running mate knowing her teenage daughter was pregnant and single. (Of course, if Chelsea Clinton had been the expecting unwed mom, not one unkind word would have crossed the lips of Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter.) Nor was she particularly eager to shield Bristol Palin from the spotlight.
And then there's the matter of Palin's fitness for the second-highest office in the land. I say this as someone who initially hoped she would be an inspiring standard-bearer for conservative/libertarian feminism, a model of a woman who had it all and was a winner, not a victim.
It's not just the "liberal elites" that found Palin clueless; so did many in her own camp. Indeed, Douthat concedes she has to "bone up on the issues" if she is to have a political future. Those who believe Palin held her own debating Joe Biden forget that the McCain camp had requested a less-challenging format for that debate, with follow-up questions limited.
Palin critics on the right—George Will, Peggy Noonan, David Frum—have been slammed by the Palinistas as "haters," elitists threatened by a political star without proper intellectual credentials. Yet these same conservatives have been devout admirers of Ronald Reagan, hardly a product of the Ivy League.
Some of Palin's followers see her as the second coming of Reagan. But Reagan, despised as a "dunce" by his liberal detractors, had extensively read, written, and talked about the key issues of his day. While not an intellectual, he was a man of ideas. Palin is not known to harbor those. Her appeal is described in terms of "speaking from the heart" and exemplifying the virtues of faith and family—which is ironic, given the usual conservative derision of emotion-based liberal politics. Shortly after Palin's nomination, former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson suggested that her choice to bear a child with Down's Syndrome rather than have an abortion was an adequate substitute for a political philosophy.
If Palin does have a philosophy, it is the flip side of the class-and-culture warfare of which she has been a target. In fact, it was Palin who fired many of the volleys in this war—extolling the moral superiority of small towns and rural areas and calling them "pro-American parts of the country," mocking people who had traveled abroad as spoiled kids with rich parents.
While eschewing "victim feminism," Palin has enthusiastically embraced "victim conservatism": the grievances of cultural traditionalists who feel trampled and disdained by the more educated and influential (and often, more affluent) segments of American society. Like the "oppressed groups" of the left, these traditionalists have some valid complaints but channel them into a destructive ideology of polarization and resentment.
Such a zeal can energize the base—but also fatally split it and alienate the unconverted.
Most likely, Palin will be back. But if conservatives expect her to be their warrior princess in shining armor, they are courting defeat.
Cathy Young is a Reason contributing editor and a columnist at RealClearPolitics. She blogs at cathyyoung.wordpress.com. This article originally appeared at RealClearPolitics.
By pointing out your egregious lies and misquotations?
Vince Lombardi quit the Packers, retired for a year, and joined the Redskins. Try again.
LOL!
Zing!
Yes or no, do you endorse what Michael Reagan wrote in his shill piece for the McCain campaign entitled “Welcome Back, Dad”?
Thanks, I will keep up my sniveling whining. You don’t have to read it, little prick. So get lost.
Yet Douthat admits that Palin's "missteps, scandals, dreadful interviews and self-pitying monologues" tarnished her role as a spunky common woman challenging the elites. But in that case, how much of the harsh treatment was due to prejudice and how much to Palin's own failings?The idea that Bill Clinton has endured political nastiness would amuse the shade of Richard Nixon, who wouldn't have lasted even two years in office under the clouds which Clinton's maladministration deserved. It doesn't actually matter "Who hired Craig Livingstone," the fact that Clinton announced that Livingstone "was fired" - note the passive voice, with no acceptance of any responsibility even for hiring someone who hired Livingstone - would have destroyed Nixon. If indeed Nixon had survived the mere disclosure that Filegate - hundreds of counts of a felony - had happened in the very White House itself on Nixon's watch.Yes, Palin has been the target of extremely vicious attacks (though the notion that no other politician has endured comparable nastiness would amuse Bill and Hillary Clinton).And that says nothing about Cattlegate, or Billing Record "gate" or Travelgate or . . .
There were so many legitimately major scandals in that maladministration that you can never call to mind the half of them at any given time. And we didn't even know about Gorelick's "wall" at the time.
Her left-wing feminist foes have been especially rabid, mocking her in startlingly misogynistic language—"Republican blow-up doll" was one of the milder epithets—and denouncing "her pretense that she is a woman." The bizarre theory that Palin's youngest child, Trig, is really her grandson is still afloat in the gutters of the Internet.She would have taken some heat, no question - but not from any major news organization. And in the context of the legion of substantive misdeeds of the Clinton WH, it would scarcely have merited notice.(Of course, if Chelsea Clinton had been the expecting unwed mom, not one unkind word would have crossed the lips of Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter.) Nor was she particularly eager to shield Bristol Palin from the spotlight.And then there's the matter of Palin's fitness for the second-highest office in the land.
Given that the Democratic VP nominee was Joe Biden, and that Palin's limited executive experience exceeded that of all three of the other major-party candidates for national office combined, that argument is underwhelming.
You lied about Reagan being a Libertarian.
You lied about Reagan being a "rising from the grave" and "wearing lipstick."
You're lying about Michael Reagan being a shill.
You're on a roll.
“NeoCons”
Hardly, it is a Libertarian rag. Paleocons.
The D.C shooter hated NeoCons. You need to find better roll models
Do you describe the "elite" or the "self-rightous"?
But, to your point, there's no shortage of those in the commentariat that believe that their way is the only way. That's fine. If they didn't think that it was, they'd probably believe something else.
My criticism is more focused on those who would be so reflexively dismissive of anyone who dares criticize Palin and also happens to be the fortunate recipient of an Ivy League education, or the unlucky owner of a Beltway address.
What's more, there also seems to be a philosophical thread that runs through Palin that seems to embody "Us vs. The Big Guy (code word = elitist)" mentality. Simply put, the populist aura that surrounds Palin and her admirers is deeply troubling to me.
One thing our Founding Father's were not, was populist. When Jefferson said...
""To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association--the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."
It was anything but populist. When I hear Palin's criticism of "the Wall St. fat cats", I'm terrified. Who's the next "fat cat" on her hit parade? Populism is the antitheses of conservatism. To pretend otherwise, is actually a belief in something else altogether.
And you need to find a sense of sarcasm. Otherwise, some comments may go completely over your head.
I quoted from it You lied about it.
Welcome Back, Dad by Michael Reagan, September 4, 2008
And you lied about this one too. Worse still, when you were busted you refused to man up and admit it.
or “You can’t swim in the deep end of the pool while you’re holding onto the wall in the shallow end.” - Same somebody
You can't run a sub-4 marathon unless you do 10K a day.
If you're going to toss around analogies from a Thesaurus, make it about something that you are capable of yourself. Envy is a socialist character trait.
Yeah, but Lombardi never quit in the middle of the season.
With so many anti Jewish - anti National Security people on FR who throw that word around like spit, without a /s
after it would look like more of the same.
Lombardi quit law school after one semester.
And I didn't. But, I'm not a football coach, and Lombardi's not a lawyer. But, Palin is a politician. She quit the only elected office that may have qualified her to run for the presidency. And, she didn't leave office because she was taking a promotion, as so many other do. She left because the heat was too much to bear.
If the heat in the Alaska governor's office makes her quit, what would the heat of the most widely and passionately criticized office in the world do to her? The White House is no place for shrinking violets, no matter who the or what the current occupant is.
You put words into Michael Reagan's mouth. Pretty despicable but not unexpected.
Oh, come on, come on, come on, come on!
Didn't I make you feel like you were the only one - yeah!
Didn't I give you nearly everything that a I possibly can? GOP, you know I did!
And each time I tell myself that I, well I think I've had enough,
But I'm gonna show you, baby, that a citizen can be tough.
I want you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it,
Take it!
Take another little piece of my freedom, baby!
Oh, oh, break it!
Break another little bit of my heart now, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, oh, have a!
Have another little piece of my live now, baby,
You know you got it if it makes you feel good,
Oh, yes indeed.
You're out on the socialist street looking good,
And baby deep down in your heart I guess you know that it
ain't right,
Never, never, never, never, never, never hear me when I cry,
Babe, I cry all the time!
And each time I tell myself that I, well I can't stand the
pain,
But when you hold me in your arms, I'll sing it once again.
I'll say come on, come on, come on, come on and take it!
Take it!
Take another little piece of my freedom now, baby.
Oh, oh, break it!
Break another little bit of my life, yeah,
Oh, oh, have a! Have another little
piece of my heart now, baby,
You know you got it, commie, if it makes you feel good.
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