This Palin smackdown from Peggy Noonan is definitive, and you should read the whole thing. Here are some excerpts:
Sarah Palin's resignation gives Republicans a new opportunity to see her plain--to review the bidding, see her strengths, acknowledge her limits, and let go of her drama. It is an opportunity they should take. They mean to rebuild a great party. They need to do it on solid ground.Her history does not need to be rehearsed at any length. Ten months ago she was embraced with friendliness by her party. The left and the media immediately overplayed their hand, with attacks on her children. The party rallied round, as a party should. She went on the trail a sensation but demonstrated in the ensuing months that she was not ready to go national and in fact never would be. She was hungry, loved politics, had charm and energy, loved walking onto the stage, waving and doing the stump speech. All good. But she was not thoughtful. She was a gifted retail politician who displayed the disadvantages of being born into a point of view (in her case a form of conservatism; elsewhere and in other circumstances, it could have been a form of liberalism) and swallowing it whole: She never learned how the other sides think, or why.
In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool. She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn't say what she read because she didn't read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity. She experienced criticism as both partisan and cruel because she could see no truth in any of it. She wasn't thoughtful enough to know she wasn't thoughtful enough. Her presentation up to the end has been scattered, illogical, manipulative and self-referential to the point of self-reverence. "I'm not wired that way," "I'm not a quitter," "I'm standing up for our values." I'm, I'm, I'm.
In another age it might not have been terrible, but here and now it was actually rather horrifying.
Noonan goes on to take apart all the comforting myths Republicans tell themselves about Palin and her flameout, e.g.:
"The elites hate her." The elites made her. It was the elites of the party, the McCain campaign and the conservative media that picked her and pushed her. The base barely knew who she was. It was the elites, from party operatives to public intellectuals, who advanced her and attacked those who said she lacked heft. She is a complete elite confection. She might as well have been a bonbon."She makes the Republican Party look inclusive." She makes the party look stupid, a party of the easily manipulated.
"She shows our ingenuous interest in all classes." She shows your cynicism.
Noonan goes on to explain why this matters, why neither the USA nor the GOP has room for these pissy little faux-populist posturing and political gamesmanship. It's a powerful column, and a true one. I know you're about as sick as I am of reading and talking about Palin, but no kidding, you should read the whole thing.
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People who believe Sarah Palin is special need to believe they are.
If Sarah Palin was the waitress refilling my cup at the diner each morning, I would love her, tip her big, buy baby gifts for her and her daughter, give her Christmas gifts, show respect and appreciation for the qualities that made me love her; her humor, friendliness, family values love, outdoors loving camaraderie.
If Sarah Palin was a bar maid at my favorite watering hole, I’d be loyal and supportive and generous for all the reasons above.
If she worked in my local hardware store that she and her husband ran, I’d shop there always,,,, despite the higher prices.
In other words, she’s the kind of person you want to support in an every day role that interacts with your life’s daily rhythm. In other words, I agree she’s salt of the earth ‘normal’. But if one day she decided she was Martina Mc Bride…or Carrie Underwood…and I was expected to buy her CD instead of her kids’ girl scout cookies…. I’d probably head for Denny’s, change bars, and shop at Lowe’s.
I am not sure why all of the hate towards Palin. I feel bad for the
nonsense she had to put up with in the media...not saying she would get my vote in 2012 but I don't like how she has been treated
Emilee, not everyone who thinks Governor Palin is a lighweight 'hates' her. She simply bores them. And with some certifiably good reason. As many GOP pundits...including our host here, Rod... have stated for months after their initial rapture.
That said:
Sarah Palin is treated the way she anyone should be, male or female, when they proudly see their inadequacies as a selling point to be regarded as special. I stand by my above post. And I do so with far more feminist credentials than most women in that I was (as I've said many times ad nauseum) raised by an activist feminist mother whose mother...my maternal grandmother...had been a suffragette.
Neither fought for woman to be treated with kid gloves when they are 'normal' and 'ordinary' thinkers ....with little intellectual curiosity and even less interest in acquiring some.....but see themselves as special and uniquely qualified. I doubt that you're pulling the poor woman/mean man game card. But I could bore you to tears with the things I have done in my lifetime to further the cause of smart and talented women...in business, etc. It was I who was able to get female issues like mammograms on my company’s health plan long before that was normal, etc. I have been a pro-woman activist of sorts myself throughout a thirty year span of three careers. But Sarah Palin is not what the woman I know and knew who fought and marched were supporting. Anymore than the women who raised me saw abortion as the prophylactic it sadly became. To them, abortion was supposed to be a last resort, not the default birth control for the irresponsible and lazy.
So yes. Sarah Palin deserves any criticism she has invited. And those who love her will continue to love her because it reinforces their own need to believe that 'normal' means 'special'. Whereas I believe 'normal' can, …and in this case I believe does mean…ordinary. So yes, I hope Sarah Palin opens up a winter retreat where people can hunt and fish and meet her and enjoy her demeanor. She is a uniquely northern frozen dish that cannot be safely thawed and served nationally.
For pete's sake, this constant refrain of "She's one of us!" is exactly what scares the bejeezus out of thinking people.
Talk about your lowest possible common denominator.
Shurely America wants/needs/deserves something better than 'one' of millions of typical Americans. Used to be you wanted the smartest person in the country to be President, not some fisher who doesn't have a clue. To quote a quote, a "ponder-free zone".
Palin is a fine person. Is it wrong for her to seek public office? Must every politician be approved by the media elite? There is a tendency that never infected the conservatives before but now nearly constitutes a majority of conservatives that demands that our politicians be like Gods. Woe unto us when we learn that no man is! Support the humble, God-fearing woman instead of the demagogue, demi-God who laughs are your faith.
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