My friend John Mark Reynolds and I crossed swords several times over Sarah Palin during the 2008 campaign season. He much later became disenchanted by her. Now he's reading "Going Rogue," and liveblogging it at First Things, and discovering that there's not much to Sarah Palin. Excerpt:
As for political ideas, Palin is apparently for things that have helped her and her family and against things that have harmed her or her family. She is a populist about oil spills (rightly I think), because it impacts her state, but otherwise is sunny about big business.If I read the chapter right, the only bad big business, oil, is bad because Palin has experienced its badness.
This may be uncharitable. Perhaps Palin is a default libertarian who will change her mind in particular instances when big business forces her to do so. In her world view business and business people are innocent until proven guilty.
If so, this is an appealing blend of populism and free markets. It would be nice, however, if Palin said this. Maybe she does later in the book as she spells out common-sense (or roguish!) conservatism.
Not gonna happen, sorry. Later, John Mark finds things to admire in her, especially in her scrappiness and willingness to work hard toward a goal (something I admire too). But having read the book, I agree with his detailed critical blog review of it, and will keep following him as he continues to plow through the thing, and discovers that Palin is simply not going to emerge as an impressive figure. As JMR says, "If one were to support a pol based on their enemies, no conservative Christian would vote for anyone other than Palin." That Palin drives the right people berserk, from a Christian conservative point of view, does not make her presidential timber any more than it makes Kirk Cameron the second coming of Sir Laurence Olivier.
Incidentally, John Mark gets annoyed repeatedly with Palin quoting famous sages ... except there's no record the sage quoted actually said what she attributes to him. I caught this in her crediting Plato for saying, "Be kind, because everyone you meet is fighting a great battle." That line is usually attributed to Philo of Alexandria, roughly a contemporary of Jesus, but I think in truth it's apocryphal. But you put the quote into Google, and it comes up Plato. I doubt very much anybody fact-checked this book.
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Rereading that, I think I was a little unclear what I mean by the 'Court Jester' reference. By analogy with the Emperor's New Clothes, the Jester is the boy who pointed out the lack of clothes, and the townsfolk are the Republican party, who think the Emperor is naked but don't have the guts to say it to his face. I'm afraid people might think I meant the Republican party was the naked Emperor. No. Just the townsfolk who aren't telling the truth.
In modern times, for example, the Jester is the person who shows up on a TV show and points out that several characters are actually in love with 'the wrong' people, and that everyone is living a lie and most of them know it! Or, in more dramatic shows, that the reason acting so weird is that they aren't actually okay with so-and-so marrying outside his religion or race despite what they claim.
Usually leaving everyone deeply uncomfortable and pretending what the Jester said was wrong, usually for a little bit, until the whole thing blows up. Speaking truth that no one wants to hear. To quote Cordelia Chase: 'Tact is just not saying true stuff. I'll pass.'
Of course, in fiction, storytelling convention require this 'truth' to be almost always true, whereas in real life, people often are entirely wrong when they do this.
Sarah Palin is a Republican Court Jester. She's speaking the truth about the government, and about the ideal government policy, that the Republican party has been studiously ignoring for decades. (She even flirted with secessionism.)
The problem is, of course, that said 'truth' was ignored because it is vastly unpopular, and sorta dumb and very naive sounding. This caused the Republican party to, several decades ago, embarked on a plan to defeat their opponents with personal attacks and other nonsense instead of said policies, so carefully hid away these actual policies from all but True Believers.
And now...the truths have escaped. It's really sorta funny watching from the outside. The party itself freaked out and tried to distance itself, which then caused a freak out in True Believers who were (rightly) sure what Palin was saying was entirely what they'd been told this entirely time, and why the hell was the Republican party having issues with this?
That is, incidentally, why I like this place. We have a lot of Republican truth tellers here. Very very sincere people who insist it's not the business of the government if people starve in the streets and stuff.
DavidTC, I wonder if some things sound good to people because they really haven’t been tried. The reality might turn out to be somewhat different than people think. As someone mentioned on another thread, there has been no President who has governed as an absolute conservative, cutting government programs to the minimum, reducing taxes, cutting down on regulations that industry finds burdensome (even in areas such as food safety) and letting “the marketplace” work things out, even when it comes to employee protections, product safety, environmental hazards, and whatnot. I’ve seen threads where people say Republicans should all be shipped to Texas (sorry, Rod, I’m not the one who said that!) and left alone to live their own way. I don’t agree with that.
But I do think it would be interesting if there could be a couple of opt-out states where people could pay less federal taxes than in other states. And opt out of federal programs, including Medicare and transportation funding and stimulus help and anything that smacks of federal revenue sharing. And the rest of us could live under the existing system, where we pay federal taxes to support programs for the common good as well as national defense. And where federal regulations protect some workplace activities. It would be interesting to see how an opt out and a return to something closer to the pre-reform age would work in practice. Food and other products are imported into the different states from all over. So there’s no way to test how voluntary food and product handling would work out, absent safety requirements and the regulatory “burden.”
Rarely do I see Republicans, other than Bruce Bartlett, tackle the budgetary issues. To balance the federal budget, you have to have severe spending cuts or large tax increases. Aging baby boomers increasingly will be drawing on Medicare in the near future. If Medicare is off the table, it is not possible to cut federal spending sufficiently to balance the budget. If cutting Medicare is on the table, then a Republican President would have to make a compelling case to the American people to cut back on spending for seniors. Keep in mind that right now, interest on the debt and other mandatory spending (including Medicare) make up two-thirds of the federal budget. That leaves ONLY a third as discretionary federal spending, the part that covers non-entitlement domestic programs, military and national security spending.
Before Medicare legislation was passed in 1965, discretionary spending made up 72% of the budget and mandatory a mere 29%. Of course, before the passage of LBJ’s Great Society legislation, a lot of elderly Americans lived in poverty. Some were wealthy enough to meet the increasing medical costs that usually occur as one ages. Americans could shoulder the burden of personally helping out with their elderly parents’ health care payments again, as they did before 1965. Or seeing some of the unfortunate fall into poverty and distress in their last years, after a lifetime of hard work. Or they can continue to support Medicare as a program, with no cutbacks. (I think eventually there will be some reductions in what Medicare will pay for, actually.) If the latter, then cutting the discretionary 33.7% of the federal budget to a bare minimum is not going to be enough to bring down the deficit. And it might have implications for national security. Would a Republican President do then, raise taxes? Support a Value Added Tax?
If your criteria for higher office and being a leader is the "intellectual" one, then how the hell did the US get so screwed up over the last 20 years?
If your criteria in evaluating Sarah Palin is that her down to earth common sense thinking towards complex problems is not going to work, then please explain how all the genius minds in the government over the last 20 years have messed up most of the American system?
And finally, who is your personal choice to lead the Conservative movement over the next 4 - 10 years? How about sticking your neck out and naming someone?
Maybe they won't hold up to the same scrutiny that you put Sarah Palin under... is that possible?
Waitimg for the name to be posted here... on your site.... SOON.
P.S. If you don't have one, then shut up.
a) While her childish critics continue to yap at her heels using a special brand of the double standard, Sarah Palin had astronomical approval ratings by the people who counted and knew her best, Alaskans.
b) Sarah's book sales now exceed a million. I wonder how many books Rod Dreher and John Mark Reynolds have sold.
c) I wonder if anyone would wait in line to get their autographs. Not gonna happen, sorry:-))
First, I live in Alaska and it's true that Sarah Palin HAD very high approval ratings. Since quitting as governor halfway through her first term, most Alaskans do not think highly of her, especially as we have come to realize that she didn't really accomplish anything as governor.
Today on radio, it was reported that she spent more time away from the state capital than any other governor in our history. (and that was BEFORE the VP campaign began).
I enjoyed reading the articulate and thoughtful posts - too bad that James had to revert to the old name-calling, boilerplate conservative blogness. Intelligent debate and mutual respect benefits us all, regardless of political stance.
If selling books and having an signature desired by many were a test of leadership ability, Stephen King would have been President years ago.
(or Tom Clancy or John Grisham, etc.)
And quantity of books sold is no measure of intelligence either.
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