Something fishy about Sarah Palin

"DC gays to blackmail closeted priests"

I love the irony of such activists who go about destroying the lives of anyone in their way, bleeting and braying about what it's like to be a victim. Then they assure us that once they have parity, they'll be model neighbors. By their fruits shall ye know them.

Boy, these school girl taunts are fun. Does this make Shea and Dreher the mean girls in this slap fight, obsessed with Andrew's sex life? Does Andrew need to now get to get Freudian about Shea/Dreher's obsession with homosexuality as a product of sexual latency?

I can see a middle or high school jock who relished harrassing bookish academic achievers whom he secretly envied or feared posting something like this. A guy like that largely depends on othering to maintain his sense of self. I doubt Rod was like that as a kid so I have to wonder why he found this so funny.

Tactically it's a bad move. Although he had some good qualities, the last Republican President sometimes came across as an immature, towel snapping kid in the locker room in some of his humor. Does the right need more of that? Why give people such as Paul Krugman additional verbal ammuition (“the modern conservative movement, which dominates the modern Republican Party, has the emotional maturity of a bratty 13-year-old" - Krugman, "The Politics of Spite," Octboer 4, 2009)?

More self confident examples of conservative thinking, please, less silly schoolyard stuff of this nature.

Crustacean,

To me, the difference between Beck and Sullivan is that Sullivan largely writes thoughtfully and knowledgeably about a range of issues related to government, politics, and his personal struggles with various issues. He displays a pretty solid understanding of how U.S. political and governmental processes work, despite his background. And he can be pretty brave about some things, beyond the conventional courage of praising people who think like oneself. Sullivan overdoes some of his coverage of Palin but it seems largely focused on the issue of the veracity of her public statements. It strikes me that his animosity largely derives from his frustration with why people flock to support her primarily for her personal characteristics (a mother with 5 children) than her professional qualifications and policy positions. The same thing that made some people shake their heads when they heard people say they were going to vote for W because he seemed like a nice guy with whom to have a beer. Even there, I don’t see in his writing anything that would lead people to rise up and do something very dangerous.

Since it’s a mistake to define all Sullivan’s readers as single issue voters, many of us (including those who like me are not gay) appreciate what he writes and actually are motivated in voting more by some of the other subjects he writes about that than the issue related to his orientation. All in all, Sullivan comes across to me as just one voice among the unaffiliated, someone who with a few exceptions, largely tries sincerely to work his way through the issues. Depending on the subjects each posts about, there are some weeks when I think he wins the week when compared to Rod.

Beck, on the other hand, comes across to me as much as someone who reads about issues but demagogues issues unncessarily. He may have good intentions on some things but loses me with his hyperbole and exaggerations. That makes him a very poor tactician, in my book. Sullivan criticized Bush pretty harshly on some issues while he was in office but never ranted about his fears for the republic or oncoming fascism. Beck often moans about socialism and communism and fascism, -isms we never have had in our government and in my opinion never will.

The biggest difference between Beck and Sullivan is in the fact that this past summer Beck had to admonish his viewers:

“. . . let me give the warning to you. If anybody thinks it would be a good idea to turn violent, think again. It would be destroy the republic. I feel it with everything in me." He also said, "There is no excuse for violence. Only a ‘crazy person’ picks up a gun to register political protest.” He added, "If you ever hear someone talking about, or thinking about, turning violent, it is your patriotic duty to stop them. The only way to save our republic is to remain peaceful. Forceful, but peaceful."

It’s good that he said that, but why did he feel the need to do so in the first place? It wasn’t because of anything Sullivan was writing on his blog.

Actually, being very close to more than one woman who has been physically and not merely verbally raped, I know about as much as most men can know about the horror of rape.

So how much time did you serve for each offense?

Any emotionally mature man who has had someone close to them be the victim of rape would never trivialize the term "gang-rape" the way you do. You're either a liar or a sociopath. (Or both.)

Spambalaya,

“And then, as usual, those here will call Rod on such tactics and he in turn will wail about his being victimized because everyone else can't ‘lighten up’ at his ‘humor.’”

Dunno, haven’t been reading the blog long enough to know that. Maybe it is true, as you suggest, that Rod is not reachable or educable on these tactical issues. Maybe he is. I’ll wait and see how he responds. Probably being too optimistic.

As for jocks bullying academic achievers because they could, I think that they could is a part of it. (And like you I doubt Rod was a bullying jock.) I’ve always thought people who engage in pack behavior involving bullying did it because it they thought that type of conformity was the only way to validate themselves. Secure people don’t need to validate themselves, they mostly engage confidently with the world in a way that is appealing and attractive. I know plenty of very confident achievers who never bully anyone. It’s their serenity and innate confidence (as opposed to arrogance) that makes them so attractive as human beings. Bullies seem to lack a sense of serenity. Bullying jocks seem to lack the inherent confidence to say, this is what I am, you are what you are, cool. So I still think there is some type of envy or fear or something negative that fundamentally lies behind bullying. Some people outgrow it, some never do.

I do agree that Rod and Andrew both are worth reading but both are far from perfect.

Liam, I agree that Democrats probably aren’t afraid of Palin, although I am not a Dem. I’m not sure where that line of reasoning comes from. But then, I’m not afraid of much of anything in U.S. politics. As a moderate and centrist, I live comfortably under Republican and Democratic administrations alike. I generally don’t know what it is like to live within a fear framework. That’s one of the reasons Beck doesn’t appeal to me. Michael Moore doesn’t, either. Brooks, Noonan, Wehner, Gerson, Frum, Sullivan, Dreher, yes, always at least considering. Limbaugh and his ilk, no.

For Anglican and Crustacean and anyone concerned about criticism of Palin.

There are any number of ways to look at criticism of Palin. One is constructive feedback. The best way to hurt the Republican party is for us to pretend she’s perfect, doesn’t need to change anything, and to let her stumble along and never expand her appeal beyond what she now has. On another thread, I posted what I would have said about the campaign, if I were she. My comments had nothing to do with her being “lower class” and everything to do with the concept of learning and self-improvement.

My parents were very poor when I was born. I think my Dad briefly was unemployed or very underemployed beyond his capabilities then. I worked some part time jobs while in college (although I was lucky to receive some scholarships) and was employed full time while in grad school. I quickly paid off such college loans as I had had to take out. I’ve been working full time since I was 22 with no support from my parents and no handouts from anyone else. Everything I have – and I am comfortably well off now -- is the result first of my academic abilities, of the result of acquiring useful skills that employers needed, and of working hard in such a way as to benefit my employers. I point that out because I believe to equate criticism of Palin with classism or people who don’t believe in the value of hard work hurts her unnecessarily. Sealing off criticism of her as invalid based on over generalization closes the door to her for improvement. If you want her to suceed, then you have to help open that door, not close it.

We all can use improvement, recognizing that and working on our shortcomings is one of that the American workforce depends on. America didn’t become great because people decided they only needed to try so hard. I’ve done worked on my skills all my life; there’s no reason Palin can’t, either. To argue that she need not just helps give her critics unnecessary verbal ammunition. Kevin Drum wrote yesterday at Mother Jones of Palin that

“Lots of politicians have mastered the art of speaking in talking points and never going off message, but mostly they at least try to sound like they know what they're talking about. Palin doesn't. She just spouts the sixth grade version of the talking points with an apparently total unawareness that she sounds like a child.

Virtually every political commenter — even the ones who like her! — concluded after the presidential campaign that she needed to study up on the issues, maybe pick one to make into her signature, and use that to increase her gravitas. But obviously she hasn't.”

Discussions about Sarah Palin have a preternaturally powerful attraction for trolls, as witnessed by the some of the comments here.