Crunchy Con

Stanley Fish argues the public statements and actions of Sarah Palin and Mark Sanford are so puzzling and unusual that maybe, just maybe, they are exactly what they seem to be. Here's Fish:

Maybe he should look at the video and pay attention this time to the reasons she gives. It is true that her statement was not constructed in a straightforward, logical manner, but the main theme was sounded often and plainly: This is not what I signed up for. I'm spending all my time and the state's money responding to attack after attack and they aren't going to let up because, "It doesn't cost the people who make these silly accusations a dime."

The accusations had been coming from all sides, from investigators of her ethics, from Alaska Democrats and fellow Republicans, from officials in the McCain campaign, from scathing magazine articles, from what she termed the mockery and humiliation directed at her son Trig, from late-night comedians taking potshots at her daughters.

She dated the beginning of her trials and tribulations from the moment in August, 2008, when "political operatives descended on Alaska digging for dirt." She complained that "millions of dollars go down the drain in this new political environment." She signaled repeatedly her weariness with the "superficial political blood-sport" politics has become. She returned to her own sport, basketball, to explain that because she had become a distraction she was going to do what a good point guard always does, pass the ball to someone (her lieutenant governor) in a better position to make the shot. And in the end she earned the declaration that "I have given my reasons plainly and candidly."

But the pundits didn't want to hear them or, rather, they were committed to believing that the real reasons lay elsewhere, and were strategic. They couldn't fathom the possibility that she was just giving voice to her feelings. It must, they assumed, be a calculation, and having decided that, they happily went on to describe how bad a calculation it was.

They did this even when reporting on something that might have given them pause. It was generally agreed that because the statement was structurally chaotic, even formless, Palin had written it herself. No self-respecting political operative would have produced something so badly crafted. One would have thought that this would be seen as evidence of the absence of calculation, but instead it was received as evidence of her Alaska-limited understanding of politics. (Doesn't she know, they asked, that resigning is no way to run for president?) Rather than reasoning from what they took to be the political ineptitude of her performance to the possibility that it wasn't political, they just continued on their merry, muckraking way.

Fish goes o

n to deconstruct the Sanford affair, concluding:

So what's the bottom line story? Simple. Sanford is in love. Palin is in pain. Sometimes what it seems to be is what it is.

Sanford, I don't know. The less I say about him the better. But think about this: if you were Sarah Palin, and you didn't have an ambition to become president of the United States, no matter what it did to your family, why would you stick around and keep taking this crap? I know I wouldn't. There's not enough money and power in the world for me to take on a job that would open my children up to filthy jokes by late-night comedians -- and I bet that's true for most of you, too. If that's what it takes to be involved in national politics these days, what normal family person would bother?

Maybe by stepping down from the governor's office -- if that means she's leaving politics forever -- Palin proves she is exactly what her supporters say she is: a normal human being. It's worth thinking about. If any of my children said he or she wanted to become an entertainer or a politician, I would actively discourage them, saying that those worlds would likely chew them up and make mincemeat of family life. That's not to say that one cannot be a good family man or woman and be an effective entertainer (actor, pop musician, etc.) or politician, but it is to say that the odds against it in this culture are pretty high.

A reader from Alaska sends in the following, which I post with permission:

Hi Rod,

Thought you'd like to know that all the talking guys on the local radio up here in AK are saying that the cost to the State of defending Palin against the multitude of ethics complaints has risen into the millions of dollars. And the ethics complaints are still coming. One woman in particular has filed 14 separate complaints and is obviously on a vendetta against Palin. But this woman has the "right" to file the complaints and the state must pay out to defend Palin. Incidentally, 12 of the 14 ethics violations filed by this woman have been dismissed. Never the less, it has cost our state plenty.

It seems the general consensus up here is that Sarah may be just sick of the whole thing, and honestly tired of racking up a legal bill that the State of Alaska has to pay. I read the comments on your thread and everyone seems to think she is just sooooo ambitious. Maybe. But really this opportunity to serve as McCain's VP fell into her lap. She didn't seek it. Perhaps the better word would be "opportunistic". Still not a pretty word, but more accurate. In looking at her history, her rise in the State, she started out motivated to serve. She really did.

Of course she will be making money in the future with her story. But she really truly is a normal person. There isn't anybody up here who would qualify as an "elite" in either the media or in politics. We are just too far away and too culturally isolated and too small in population to make it into that group.

I would not be surprised if there is some scandal brewing. But then again, I would not be surprised if she is simply sick of this and is going to pursue a quieter life (more money from books and less stress). And incidentally, Sean Parnell, our new Governor, is a man of deep faith and good man. We are glad to have him.

This story shows how small and "normal" our state is. Our 10 year old daughter is involved in the first ever American Heritage Girls Troop to start up in Alaska. This scouting organization is the Christian answer to the liberal agenda and changes in Girls Scouts of America. This past year was the first year for the troop. At the Joining Award ceremony, where each girl was welcomed and given her Joining patch, Sarah Palin was supposed to come and present the awards, give a speech and greet each girl. But 10 days before this, she was tapped for VP by McCain. So Sean Parnell came. He talked about his faith, his own 2 daughters, age 10 and 12, and how Sarah is an example of a woman of faith and integrity and that each little girl there could do what she did. Lt. Gov. Parnell is a very mild mannered man, unassuming, kind, your age, my age. Normal. And he was handing out joining awards to 30 little girls in a small town, part of a small startup group, in a small church building. I can honestly say that growing up in AZ, things like this NEVER happened to most of us "normal" citizens. No one in leadership in the troop is especially connected politically or rich. And this was a government official supporting a VERY faith based organization. I think maybe one newspaper guy was there.

I think the lower 48 it is just so completely different than Alaska that the actions of our politicians make no sense to the people who don't live here. My husband has learned about the basic cultural impulses and thought patterns of various people in various parts of the US as part of his Master's degree, and Alaska has it's own subset within the grouping. Fiercely independent, favor-based politics, generous and mutually dependent. Exhibit A is the trial of Sen. Ted Stevens. Most of us believed he was innocent. We thought the timing of the trial was politically motivated to get Begich elected. We believed he would be acquitted. We were outraged that he was convicted. Most of the people I talked to and the radio personalities believed that evidence had been at best mishandled and at worst, withheld. We nearly voted him back into office despite his conviction...that is how strongly we believed in him. And indeed he WAS wrongfully convicted and evidence was withheld. And he has been cleared!

I apologize for the length of this. I just am so amused by the non-Alaskan response to the Palin resignation compared the to the Alaska response. Most of us up here still like her and believe in her innate goodness. We are also puzzled and suspect some other cause for the resignation. But we are quicker to believe that the cause is a positive one, rather than a negative one.

Terry Mattingly has some shocking information (if true) about the icon of the ongoing Iranian unrest.

The best thing you can do to mark the death of Robert S. McNamara, who passed away today at 93, is to rent Errol Morris's 2003 documentary "The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara." McNamara is depicted in the film as a tragic figure, as emblematic of the folly of JFK's "Best and Brightest," and the foolishness of thinking that life is something that can be made sense of or controlled through logic and force. Above all, it is a meditation on the insanity of war. Here's an excerpt from the full transcript:

Errol Morris: The choice of incendiary bombs, where did that come from?

McNamara: I think the issue is not so much incendiary bombs. I think the issue is: in order to win a war should you kill 100,000 people in one night, by firebombing or any other way? LeMay's answer would be clearly "Yes."

"McNamara, do you mean to say that instead of killing 100,000, burning to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in that one night, we should have burned to death a lesser number or none? And then had our soldiers cross the beaches in Tokyo and been slaughtered in the tens of thousands? Is that what you're proposing? Is that moral? Is that wise?"

Why was it necessary to drop the nuclear bomb if LeMay was burning up Japan? And he went on from Tokyo to firebomb other cities. 58% of Yokohama. Yokohama is roughly the size of Cleveland. 58% of Cleveland destroyed. Tokyo is roughly the size of New York. 51% percent of New York destroyed. 99% of the equivalent of Chattanooga, which was Toyama. 40% of the equivalent of Los Angeles, which was Nagoya. This was all done before the dropping of the nuclear bomb, which by the way was dropped by LeMay's command.

Proportionality should be a guideline in war. Killing 50% to 90% of the people of 67 Japanese cities and then bombing them with two nuclear bombs is not proportional, in the minds of some people, to the objectives we were trying to achieve.

I don't fault Truman for dropping the nuclear bomb. The U.S.--Japanese War was one of the most brutal wars in all of human history ? kamikaze pilots, suicide, unbelievable. What one can criticize is that the human race prior to that time ? and today ? has not really grappled with what are, I'll call it, "the rules of war." Was there a rule then that said you shouldn't bomb, shouldn't kill, shouldn't burn to death 100,000 civilians in one night?

LeMay said, "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals." And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?

Again, see the film if you can. It's remarkable -- and remarkably relevant to contemporary events. If you watch that film and don't discern something profound about the human condition, and the American circumstance, you haven't been paying attention. Read the transcript if you can't see the movie. But please, try to see the movie.

In his best Times column yet, Ross Douthat -- who, like me, was an early Palin enthusiast, but was later disillusioned and disappointed -- reflects on how Palin ruined her national political career by accepting John McCain's bid to join his ticket. Excerpt:

Sarah Palin represents the democratic ideal -- that anyone can grow up to be a great success story without graduating from Columbia and Harvard.

This ideal has had a tough 10 months. It's been tarnished by Palin herself, obviously. With her missteps, scandals, dreadful interviews and self-pitying monologues, she's botched an essential democratic role -- the ordinary citizen who takes on the elites, the up-by-your-bootstraps role embodied by politicians from Andrew Jackson down to Harry Truman.

But it's also been tarnished by the elites themselves, in the way that the media and political establishments have treated her.

Here are lessons of the Sarah Palin experience, for any aspiring politician who shares her background and her sex. 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. (And no, gentle reader, Palin did not insist on abstinence-only sex education, slash funds for special-needs children or inject creationism into public schools.)

Male commentators will attack you for parading your children. Female commentators will attack you for not staying home with them. You'll be sneered at for how you talk and how many colleges you attended. You'll endure gibes about your "slutty" looks and your "white trash concupiscence," while a prominent female academic declares that your "greatest hypocrisy" is the "pretense" that you're a woman. And eight months after the election, the professionals who pressed you into the service of a gimmicky, dreary, idea-free campaign will still be blaming you for their defeat.

All of this had something to do with ordinary partisan politics. But it had everything to do with Palin's gender and her social class.

Someone -- maybe Booker T. Washington, I can't recall -- once said that because of prejudice, black Americans who wanted to get ahead in America would have to be better than good enough to withstand the things thrown at them in their ascent to the top. The Palin experience suggests the same thing for a woman politician of Palin's background and beliefs.

UPDATE: Radley Balko, sympathizing with Ross. Excerpt:

Here's all I want to say: It is possible that Sarah Palin was both unfairly mistreated and personally attacked by the media and many on the left, and that her family was rather ruthlessly and mercilessly run through the ringer . . . and that she's a not particularly bright, not particularly curious, once libertarian-leaning governor who sadly devolved into a predictable, buzzword spouting culture warrior when she was prematurely picked for national office by John McCain.

These two scenarios can coexist.