by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n The putative Caroline Kennedy candidacy for senator has had the odd effect of reopening the media can of worms treatment of Gov. Palin. Compared to Sarah Palin’s almost immediate immersion into crowds and public speaking, Kennedy seems like a deer in the headlights before the media that is either ignored or asked to submit written questions. Palin was a natural; Kennedy can’t finish a single sentence without “You know” or “I mean.” Palin’s family saga and daily grind were populist to the core; Kennedy is a creature of a few blocks’ radius in Manhattan and Martha’s Vineyard.<\/p>\n Outsider and lower-middle-class Palin toughed it out in Wasilla for years of politicking on a 16-year slog through Alaskan old-boy politics; Caroline Kennedy in regal fashion apparently skipped voting in about half of New York elections, and has never run for anything.<\/p>\n Reporters swarmed over Palin’s pregnancies, and her wardrobe, but apparently took on face value that Caroline’s fluff books were really a sign of either erudition or scholarship.<\/p>\n Conservative Palin endured liberal Charlie Gibson’s glasses-on-the nose pretentiousness, and Katie Couric’s attack-dog questions; insider Kennedy I doubt will meet with either, much less sit down with a hostile questioner like a Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly. Her friendly\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0“interview” proved an embarrassment \u2014 rarely have so many words been spoken with so little content.<\/p>\n But, no, the real embarrassment proves to be the media itself that apparently can’t see this weird unfolding self-incriminating morality tale: It is not just that Palin is conservative, Kennedy politically-correct (e.g., pro-abortion, gun control, gay marriage, etc), or Palin a newcomer to public attention, Kennedy a celebrity since childhood. Rather it is the aristocratic value system of most NY-DC journalists themselves who apparently still assume that old money, status, and an Ivy-League pedigree are reliable barometers of talent and sobriety, suggesting that the upper-East Side Kennedy’s public ineptness is an aberration, a bad day, a minor distraction, while Palin’s charisma and ease are superficial and a natural reflection of her Idaho sports journalism degree.<\/p>\n A few generations ago, Democrats would have opposed Palin but appreciated her blue-collar story, and applauded a working mom who out-politicked entrenched and richer male elites. But now the new aristocratic liberalism has adopted the values of the old silk-stocking Republicans of the 1950s \u2014 and so zombie-like worship rather than question entitlement.<\/p>\n \u00a92009 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s\u00a0The Corner The putative Caroline Kennedy candidacy for senator has had the odd effect of reopening the media can of worms treatment of Gov. Palin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[725],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-MW","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2607,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/what-is-wisdom-sarah-palin-and-her-critics\/","url_meta":{"origin":3034,"position":0},"title":"What Is Wisdom?: Sarah Palin and Her Critics","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 8, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media They Say\/We Say The debate over Palin is sort of ossified. The Left continues to ridicule her accent, family, and middling roots. The Right enjoys such authenticity \u2014 but enjoys even more the hysteria it incurs in liberals. Will It Be Politics or Money?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "July 2009"","block_context":{"text":"July 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/july-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3258,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/an-instructive-candidacy\/","url_meta":{"origin":3034,"position":1},"title":"An Instructive Candidacy","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"What Sarah Palin taught us about ourselves. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Soon this depressing campaign will be over, and we can reflect on what we learned from our two-month introduction to Sarah Palin. Clearly, it is more than we would have ever wished to know about ourselves.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2008"","block_context":{"text":"October 2008","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2008\/october-2008\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2145,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/palin-odes\/","url_meta":{"origin":3034,"position":2},"title":"Palin-odes?","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media The Furor The AP supposedly hired 11 fact-checkers to discredit Ms. Palin\u2019s memoir (Did Fox News hire 11 to question the very questionable things found in the two Obama memoirs?) Bloggers post on Palin\u2019s live interviews minute by minute; few, if any, opponents of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "November 2009"","block_context":{"text":"November 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/november-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4082,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-war-against-palin-goes-on-and-on-and\/","url_meta":{"origin":3034,"position":3},"title":"The War Against Palin Goes On and On and . . .","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media We Are Civil Now In emulation of Jonathan Chait\u2019s now infamous 2004\u00a0New Republic\u00a0essay, \u201cThe Case for Bush Hatred\u201d (\u201cI hate George Bush \u2014 there, I said it\u201d),\u00a0Slate\u00a0just published an op-ed, \u201cWhy I Loathe My Connecticut Senator\u201d by one Emily Bazelon, with a detailed description\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Punditry"","block_context":{"text":"Punditry","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/punditry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2661,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/davis-letterman-rev-wright-and-thoughts-on-a-creepy-culture\/","url_meta":{"origin":3034,"position":4},"title":"David Letterman, Rev. Wright, and Thoughts on a Creepy Culture","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media The Demise of David Letterman I had a number of exchanges on the Palin-Letterman controversy (see below). Where to start on David Letterman\u2019s attack on Palin on her visit to New York to do charitable work, accompanied by her 14-year-old daughter Willow? The hypocrisy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "June 2009"","block_context":{"text":"June 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/june-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4098,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/political-vultures\/","url_meta":{"origin":3034,"position":5},"title":"Political Vultures","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 13, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The sick are of turning insanity into politics by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Very few Americans are fans of both\u00a0The Communist Manifesto\u00a0and\u00a0Mein Kampf, as the Tucson killer, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, apparently was. Fewer still post on the Internet fears about \u201cbrainwashing,\u201d \u201cmind control,\u201d and \u201cconscience dreaming\u201d; have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Political Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Political Culture","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/political-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3034"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3034"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3035,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3034\/revisions\/3035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}