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.
Go pound sand you libertarian!!!
Yes or no - do you believe that marriage should be only between a male and a female?
No, it shows that I'm not a wacko.
No, it simply shows you're in denial.
Once again, I clearly stated we were in the early stages of the implementation of Stalinist techniques and methods of intimidation and repression. It is an incremental process.
In response you again engage in hyperbole and falsely claim I said things I clearly did not, e.g. "If you think we're living in another Cambodia or the Soviet Union, you're delusional." To the contrary, I simply, and quite correctly pointed out that the preliminary techniques, laws and regulations, demonization of "undesirables" by the political elites and media, etc., etc., etc., those precursors which history already shows often lead incrementally to more overt and brutal forms of oppression, all of these are already being implemented right now.
I wouldn't be posting here if I wasn't concerned about the way things are going, but I'm not afraid of being stuck in jail for voting Republican or for that matter, posting on Free Republic.
Nor am I, for the moment. Again you resort to hyperbole while ignoring the actual examples where state-sanctioned intimidation and threats are being applied, some of which I referenced in my previous post. They will go for the most easily demonizable groups and individuals first, e.g. protesters and activists for "undesirable" causes, bloggers and New Media, gun owners, etc.
I'll go further than that and say that Obama isn't to blame for all of the bad precedents that are being set and the current political/economic situation. His predecessor gets much of the blame for that.
Finally we are in complete agreement on something. Obama and Bush are both merely useful operatives in a much bigger plan, one which has been in process a long, long time. Millions of Americans are finally beginning to become aware of this, but unfortunately the hour is very late, perhaps too late...
“That’s what I’m afraid of... that She could be hard to stop in the primaries, but easy for 0bama to roll in the general election. Just like her mentor John McCain”
If you think mccain was her mentor, you got another think coming. obama didn’t roll over mccain either. mccain rolled over FOR obama. mccain picked her because he thought she was a sure loser. She scared him half to death by being a winner in every way possible, and everything he is not and could never be in a million years.
Money began to flow to his campaign. Conservatives got excited and came out to see Sarah by the thousands.
Once he realized how formidible she was, his own campaign set out to destroy her.
HE was a millstone around HER neck.
And my caps work. I gotta respect someone to cap them. I have NO respect for mccain or the rino, treason machine he rode in on.
Should the time come, I will be glad to admit I am wrong...but I hope I am not.
I do want folks (including Sarah and her people) to know that there are literally millions out here like me ready and willing to support her completely in the effort when the time comes.
Depends on what the question is.
Alex:She resigned her position as governor in order that she could successfully run for president.
FWIW it’s also my understanding that serious presidential candidates must earn political capital by building up their party during off year congressional races. I also share your take away from Palin’s resignation speech, that she intends to do just that. Then again, I too may be wrong.
Oh, they’re scared to death of her. Its like a cross to a vampire. Rinos and Rats alike, They all fear her. Good.
"I will go around the country on behalf of candidates who believe in the right things, regardless of their party label or affiliation," she said over lunch in her downtown office, 40 miles from her now-famous hometown of Wasilla — population 7,000 — where she began her political career.
There isn't a political solution to what is screwed up with our country.
The only thing that politics and politicians can do is get out of the way, get out of the private lives of citizens, and let people sink or swim on their own merits.
People tend to lead moral, thoughtful lives when they have the responsibility to do so. When they don't have the responsibility, they do what they like, and to heck with morals.
The solution isn't more "conservative" social programs to fix society's ills. It is many fewer social programs of all types, shapes and sizes.
Would you please enumerate the abuse that Newt Gingrich has suffered?
I would suggest to you a search of press articles and news videos circa 1995 and 1996.
So you have no answer? Just "search for press articles"? You made the accusation, but have no further information about the sorts of things he was unfairly accused of? Not even a hint?
Interesting.
So you have no answer? Just "search for press articles"? You made the accusation, but have no further information about the sorts of things he was unfairly accused of? Not even a hint?,/I>
Anybody who was around in '95 and '96 and who was paying attention saw the daily demonetization of Newt. He was accused of wanting to starve kids and being mean to old people.
Sorry if you were to young to remember that, but I would no further help you with more information on this, similar to if you were to ask me to document that the Pope is Catholic.
LOL, yup.
Sorry if you were to young to remember that, but I would no further help you with more information on this, than I would help you with information that the Pope is Catholic.
Sounds like Change to me....YES!
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