by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
PJ Media<\/em><\/p>\n We Are Civil Now<\/strong><\/p>\n In emulation of Jonathan Chait\u2019s now infamous 2004\u00a0New Republic<\/em>\u00a0essay, \u201cThe Case for Bush Hatred\u201d (\u201cI hate George Bush \u2014 there, I said it\u201d),\u00a0Slate\u00a0<\/em>just published an op-ed, \u201cWhy I Loathe My Connecticut Senator\u201d by one Emily Bazelon, with a detailed description of why she \u201cdespises\u201d and \u201chates\u201d Sen. Joe Lieberman (again, the same reason as Chait\u2019s Bush hatred: too conservative and too in power).<\/p>\n So much for the new Obama age of civility.<\/p>\n Palin This, Palin That<\/strong><\/p>\n In this context, since the moment of the Tucson shootings we have witnessed not just a campaign to smear Sarah Palin with the charge that she, or what she supposedly represents, is responsible for the mayhem, but that her rebuttals themselves are more proof that she is culpable.<\/p>\n Op-ed writers all the time employ the metaphor \u201ccrosshairs.\u201d Democrats use targets to highlight their plans to unseat congressional Republicans. \u201cBlood libel\u201d long ago became a generic charge far more than a specific one reflecting its anti-Semitic roots. No matter \u2014 if Palin can be tied to any of that, then she alone is guilty of all that. So what is it that so bugs the media elite about Sarah Palin?<\/p>\n Didn\u2019t She Say All That?<\/strong><\/p>\n Is the problem with Palin that she uses inflammatory language far too loosely given her position of responsibility? Of course, evocation of \u201cenemies, punishing, kicking ass, relegation to backseat, knives, guns, getting angry, getting in their face, hostage takers, trigger fingers, and tearing up\u201d does not suit a national public figure and former vice presidential candidate. Oops, those allusions were Barack Obama\u2019s, not Sarah Palin\u2019s.<\/p>\n Well, then, confess it \u2014 Palin has a disturbing tendency to blurt out dumb, even wacky things \u2014 a sort of window into her Wasilla vacuity that daily reminds us why she simply is unfit for higher office. Remember when she claimed that the images of Berlin\u2019s Victory Column were photo-shopped phallic symbols? Didn\u2019t she muse about a radio talk show host being blown up \u201cMr. Big\u201d-style with a CO2 pellet to the head? Sorry again, that was the New York Times\u2019 esteemed columnist Bob Herbert and CNN\u2019s Chris Matthews.<\/p>\n Fine, but she thought people in Austria speak some weird language called \u201cAustrian\u201d and she pronounces \u201ccorpsmen\u201d \u201ccorpse-men\u201d as if soldiers were some sort of walking dead, and she thinks there are 57 states, and she \u2026 sorry, all that and much more was Barack Obama\u2019s, and they were slips after a weary day\u2019s work, not \u201cdeep\u201d reflections of reality.<\/p>\n The Great Divider<\/strong><\/p>\n OK, I think what many people don\u2019t like about Sarah Palin is her tendency to oh so subtly emphasize race \u2014 as in her celebration of a largely white anti-government Alaskan culture. That isolation makes her especially inept anytime she must deal with the multicultural, multiracial reality of the lower 48 states. Do we remember in the campaign when she said of Obama \u2014 \u201cI mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that\u2019s a storybook, man\u201d? Excuse me, that gem was from Senate veteran, eastern-seaboarder, and now Vice President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n Well, what I meant to quote was Palin\u2019s ridiculous description of Obama as a \u201clight-skinned African American,\u201d one \u201cwith no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.\u201d OK, sorry again, that was the work of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.<\/p>\n But maybe the rub is Palin\u2019s complete lack of bipartisanship. Did she not as an Alaskan politician have the most partisan voting record in her various offices, or duck issues by serially voting present? Got me again \u2014 that was Barack Obama in the state legislature and as a US senator.<\/p>\n Scary Stuff?<\/strong><\/p>\n But at least admit her political extremism is deleterious to the commonwealth, especially her tendency to go over the top in demonizing enemies with inappropriate and hurtful language. Don\u2019t we remember how she tarred the incumbent administration with the loony charge of \u201cNazis\u201d or \u201cdigital brownshirts\u201d? I apologize again \u2014 that stuff came out of the mouths of former US Senators Robert Byrd, Al Gore, and John Glenn.<\/p>\n Well, then, there\u2019s Todd and his strange Alaskan paranoia and his anti-government excess that almost sounds anti-American. Remember when he not long ago just lost it and shouted out that our America \u201cwas downright mean\u201d and that America was always \u201craising the bar\u201d on the Palins? And remember Todd\u2019s unfortunate boast that his Sarah \u201cis one of the smartest people you will ever encounter who will deign to enter this messy thing called politics.\u201d Then, to top that braggadocio off, ol\u2019 Todd blurted out: \u201cFor the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country.\u201d Scary, militia stuff no doubt.<\/p>\n Sorry again, that was First Lady Michelle Obama.<\/strong><\/p>\n We could go on, but you get the uncivil picture. The popular hatred of a self-described elite culture toward Sarah Palin is almost inexplicable \u2014 whether expressed in Andrew Sullivan\u2019s unhinged efforts to suggest Palin faked her fifth pregnancy, or David Letterman\u2019s slur that she seemed a \u201cslutty flight attendant\u201d and her 14-year-old daughter \u201cwas knocked up by Alex Rodriguez,\u201d or CNN guest host Kathy Griffin\u2019s crudity that her next target was the teenaged Palin daughter: \u201cBut I think it\u2019s Willow\u2019s year to go down.\u201d<\/p>\n Who Does this Woman Think She Is?<\/strong><\/p>\n So why the war against Palin, when Palinisms are not demonstrably different from Bidenisms, Obamaisms, or Goreisms? Uppity-ness I suppose is the short answer. In the binary world of a Sullivan, Letterman, or Griffin, or in the larger culture of network news, NPR, PBS, the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0and their columnists, and the weekly magazines like\u00a0Time<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>, Sarah Palin is apparently all that they are not.<\/p>\n In such a metro, hip, in-with-it culture, one is supposed to have a thinking-man\u2019s or artiste\u2019s billet of some sort in Washington or New York (that it often comes from nepotism, insider networking, or marriage matters little). Being a mom of five children flies in the face of the demography of yuppie careerism, abortion, and the gay world. Cross-country skiing is okay; snowmobiles polluting the atmosphere and gashing the Earth are not. Credentials matter much: University of Idaho and sports journalism are not polar, but planetary, opposites of Yale and law. Wasilla is to the Upper West Side or Chevy Chase as Uranus is to planet Earth. And how can it be fair that Sarah Palin seems stunning after five children when so many in the DC-NY corridor after millennia on the exercise machine and gallons of Botox are, well, \u201cinteresting looking\u201d?<\/p>\n If one is going to drop one\u2019s \u201cg\u2019\u201d and talk to the folks, then do that with Barack Obama\u2019s \u201cNegro dialect\u201d when he \u201cwants to,\u201d not her 24\/7 authentic NASCAR\/Fargo patois. The former is fake and ephemeral and for liberal purposes and so okay, the latter is real and permanent and often Tea-Partyish \u2014 and so scary.<\/p>\n Around Too Long?<\/strong><\/p>\n But Palin represents more than superficial antitheses. Most polls, and the November election, suggest that the public has had it with deficits, big government, more stimulus and takeovers, and ObamaCare, whether delivered by Democrats or Republicans.<\/p>\n The problem with such an unfocused Tea Party anger is said to be the lack of leadership, which to many is itself somewhat at odds with the grassroots, prairie-fire imprimatur of the movement. But for now, Palin, almost alone, has the star power, the ability to draw enormous crowds, garner attention, raise controversy, to be emblematic of that \u201cdon\u2019t tread on me\u201d unease \u2014 largely in her mysterious ability to connect with millions in the middle class.<\/p>\n Her liability is that as a mother of five, happily married, and former city-council member, small town mayor, Alaskan regulator, and governor, she has not had a lot of internships at\u00a0The New Republic<\/em>, or Gore-like graduate experiences, or tenure among the writers and thinkers in New York. To these few she seems as grotesque as she appears authentic to millions. And to be fair, in Obama-like fashion, she has not had the financial experience of a Romney, the executive experience of a Daniels, or the legislative experience of a Gingrich. Someone like a President Palin could really blow it with a hickish bow to a Saudi Arabian autocrat or a rambling apology about American sins in Turkey of all places, or nominate some nut who would have a Truther past or resort to racism or a yokel who would brag about her hero Mao.<\/p>\n But more germanely, Palin need not run for the presidency in 2012 in the manner commentator and newly elected governor Reagan did not until 1968, and did not successfully until 1980 \u2014 all the while establishing a populist conservative persona as hated \u2014 and successful \u2014 during his near two-decade pre-presidential career as a younger Palin might be in the two decades ahead.<\/p>\n Palin is scary not so much in 2012, but that she could be around \u2014 and be around in an evolving way \u2014 for a long time to come.<\/p>\n \u00a92011 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 of why she \u201cdespises\u201d and […]<\/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":[146,508],"tags":[334,12,165,726,1044,371,460],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-13Q","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3258,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/an-instructive-candidacy\/","url_meta":{"origin":4082,"position":0},"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":2661,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/davis-letterman-rev-wright-and-thoughts-on-a-creepy-culture\/","url_meta":{"origin":4082,"position":1},"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":4088,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/rhetoric-and-perceives-status\/","url_meta":{"origin":4082,"position":2},"title":"Rhetoric and Perceives Status","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 16, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner The Left in the last 48 hours has tried to make the argument that the Tucson shootings were the result of Tea Party angst, healthcare furor, talk radio, opposition to illegal immigration \u2014 almost any contemporary hot-button\u00a0hoi polloi\u00a0issue or any populist forum. And the\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":[]},{"id":2736,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/reelecting-obama\/","url_meta":{"origin":4082,"position":3},"title":"Reelecting Obama","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online We are beginning to see the contours of the upcoming 2012 reelection campaign of Barack Obama. Whether always officially sanctioned or not, Obama\u2019s campaign will focus on three general themes: a) the 2008 meltdown of the economy on Bush\u2019s watch; b) conservative heartlessness\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Campaign 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Campaign 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/campaign-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3267,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/jumping-ship\/","url_meta":{"origin":4082,"position":4},"title":"Jumping Ship","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media This is becoming a very strange campaign. On CNN recently both David Gergen and Ed Rollins echoed the current mantra that the \u201cold\u201d noble McCain is gone \u2014 and a \u201cnew\u201d nastier one has emerged, largely because of his attacks on Ayers, perhaps his\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":3277,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/what-is-wisdom\/","url_meta":{"origin":4082,"position":5},"title":"What Is Wisdom?","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 10, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online There is a report today (I think first offered in the Huffington Post) that David Brooks, the gifted New York Times columnist, has described Sarah Palin as a \"fatal cancer\" and part of a larger pernicious conservative trend: But there has been a\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4082"}],"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=4082"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4083,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4082\/revisions\/4083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nBut could she ever win a presidency? The conventional wisdom is no. I say conventional wisdom in the sense of sober and judicious conservative thinkers who raise eyebrows at her exuberance and suspect in an hour meeting they could stump her, in Couric-like fashion, on everything from Balkan fault lines to the work of Edmund Burke.<\/p>\n