Palin: it’s the education, stupid
Back in September I wrote that some of the Palin-hatred we’ve seen represents a class war. What I’m going to write about today is somewhat related to that, but not completely.
Yes, class is part of Palin-hatred for sure, but (especially in America) class can be mitigated by education. Look no further than Presidents Clinton and Obama for evidence of this; neither were aristocrats to begin with, but they became the equivalent of American aristocrats (or at least earned respect for their intellectual capacities) through their Ivy League degrees and their adoption of that all-important manner of aristocrats here: the speech patterns of the highly educated.
It’s true that Sarah Palin has been to college. But these days so much of the population goes to college that the mere fact of a college degree is nothing special in most peoples’ minds. And Palin most definitely went to the wrong school—or schools plural, which is even worse. What’s more, in her speech patterns, her cadence and rhythm and accent, she has stubbornly refused to adopt the bland and homogenized manner of the educated elite.
This is part of the reason for the idea that Palin is dumb—even though it’s clear she’s not. But she “reads” dumb to many people, because she’s working and/or middle class and doesn’t cover that fact up with erudite academic-speak. If she doesn’t, it must mean she can’t, in many people’s eyes; it can’t possibly be a proud and strategic choice, right? It’s as though Eliza Doolittle tried to go to Ascot without the benefit of Henry Higgins’s tutoring: how dare she! And why would she?
It’s exactly the sort of thing I believe that commenter “nyomythus” was referring to when he wrote yesterday (except for the fact that he doesn’t blame her; most people who say this sort of thing fully blame her):
…[I]t’s not [Sarah Palin’s] fault it’s the people that put faith in her and give her a false confidence. Her ilk is not fit to govern—stew potatos and pluck chickens ya, have a position of governance in the USA na.
Note the injection of the “ya…na” speech patterns, reminiscent of Palin and those odd folks in the movie “Fargo,” the kind of proletarian of the north country accent for which Palin has been mocked.
Liberals like to think of themselves as friends of the downtrodden masses, the uneducated and the working classes. But they prefer this to be a form of noblesse oblige—they are the enlightened ones reaching down in their great magnanimity to help the unfortunates, who will then be ever-grateful for the largesse. It’s okay, too, if a minority person pulls him or herself up from squalor and becomes a leader—preferably with the help of a nice Ivy League education, but even without it if the minority in question is seen as having being oppressed enough.
Sarah Palin shatters those rules. Her true bottom-up (as opposed to fake top-down) populist appeal, her whiteness, and her rejection of the veneer of academic elitism that she could take on if only she changed her speech patterns, have driven them wild from the start. It’s only been compounded by the fact that she is a member of a certain group usually seen as oppressed: women. But this small point in her favor has been easily overcome by all the other points against her: she not their kind of woman, and maybe not even a woman at all.
I experienced this phenomenon first hand, the very day after the Palin nomination was announced by John McCain, when I happened to be attending a party where most of the guests were highly educated ultra liberal women. They were discussing Palin, and even then—not twenty-four hours after she had first burst on the scene—-their attitude towards her was set and unanimous, and they hadn’t gotten it from the media or checked it out with each other yet; it was developing as I watched (silently).
To sum up their reaction: they were laughing at her. They didn’t bother to disguise their contempt; they thought her a stupid joke. It was something akin to the attitude they might have had back in high school if the head of the pom-pom girls (who also happened to be the class slut) wanted to apply to Radcliffe and be designated valedictorian as well.
Even back when I was a liberal I didn’t share this attitude towards the value of an Ivy League degree (or even a degree at all). I’ve never confused erudition with smartness, or the trappings of an Ivy League education with intelligence, or either of them with something as unrelated as an accent or speech patterns or even fluidity of speech (this was one of the reasons that I didn’t turn on Bush as stupid even when I was a Democratic and disagreed with his policies).
Of course, education and intelligence are hardly mutually exclusive; they sometimes coincide. But I know full well that they don’t invariably do so, and I knew that from early in life. I grew up as the child of highly educated professionals but we lived in a blue-collar community, and my parents had a varied group of friends. Some had graduate degrees (my father was both a lawyer and CPA) and yet some had never finished high school. Some were rich, and some lived in small apartments above stores; some spoke with the accents of the educated and some did not.
Because both my parents had grown up in the same community in which I was also being raised, and had known most of these people their whole lives, they knew the back-story, as it were. My mother, who loved to talk, would tell me the history of this person and that person: he had wanted to be a gym teacher, but had to drop out of high school during the Depression to support his parents and ended up pushing racks though the streets of the garment district and then driving a truck. She had been pulled out of school after eighth grade by a tyrant father who insisted she earn her keep, and then married her off to a man she didn’t love. She spoke of them with sympathy rather than condescension.
My parents loved to entertain, and they would invite these people over often. Everyone would sit around a large table with cake and coffee, talking and talking and talking about everything under the sun, including politics. I was an observer and a sometime participant, and I never remember thinking that the ones with the big degrees had anything more or less worthwhile to say than those without them.
Later on I got my own big degrees, several of them, from a few highfalutin schools to boot. But I encountered a surprisingly wide variety there in terms of brainpower. There was book learning and then there was smart, and the one didn’t always have that much to do with the other, although sometimes it did. I also found myself thinking that the highly educated could be dangerous in their hubris if their schooling wasn’t accompanied by a deep thoughtfulness, because it could instead be accompanied by arrogance and the idea that because they had that elite education they knew far more than they really did.
Perhaps that’s why I was predisposed to listen to politicians in a different way, to not be swayed by a surface glibness or academic-speak. Palin is not my favorite candidate, and I never was at all sure that she could run and win in 2012, but I have always seen her as intelligent and courageous, and I’m awaiting her next move, which I imagine will be interesting. She’s been consistent in showing a remarkable ability to surprise people—whether they be her supporters or her enemies. And she’s doing so now.
Thank you for your insightful depiction of Sarah Palin and what the difference between “degreed” and “smart” is.
One more comment about Governor Palin. I have met her personally and on top of everything else she is extremely attractive in person, slight of bone to the point of near petite, and doesn’t have to shave daily nor pick out her nose hairs like many of her criticizers.
There is a certain artificialness in our society of controlled indoor climate, running water, electricity, refrigerated food, only a small percentage of the country actually being involved in food and energy production,..etc. I have to wonder if that was taken away…..how quickly much of the pretensiveness would go away?
Let me say this:
Sarah is an amazing woman that just became more amazing.
SHe made a noble decision that people who are lacking just do not understand.
WHen you are spending 80% of your time and your staff are spending the same amount of time fighting against idiots you move aside and DO WHAT IS RIGHT for Alaska.
THe state spent millions.
The idiots spent nothing but hot air and make baseless charges.
Guess what? Nothing has changed for the idiots. Everything has changed for Alaska.
Good for Alaska. Thank you Sarah for doing the right thing.
Nyom. You are an idiot. You’ve made baseless charges from the beginning. You continue. You know nothing in my mind. You have a lot of reflection to do. A lot of growing up and evolving. A lot of learning. Do it.
I once worked with a brilliant financial officer who occasionally lapsed into the dialect of his immigrant Italian parents. I’ll confess, it was a bit like being cast in a Jimmie Cagnie movie. But most people who relied on him for his insight, expertise and unflinching ethics ignored it. The only people on the executive staff who were put off by it were – you guessed it – the Ivy Leaguers who found the behavior unbecoming a gentleman. But they mostly didn’t know crap about what they were doing beyond correcting everyone’s grammer.
You just couldn’t be more right.
Great post, Neo. As you have noted, Marxists claim to love the “masses,” but they don’t like them in person or as individuals.
Classless is Maureen Dowd
http://www.drudgereport.com/flashmdp.htm
I have to say, my comment from 4:04 is not entirely my own observation. I have seen others make similiar comments, probably on this site. Though they were probably more articulate than I. There are some really good writers on this site. FredHjr having been one of them.
Camille Paglia, in her Salon column:
I have to wonder if that was taken away…..how quickly much of the pretensiveness would go away?
Civilization is but a thin veneer.
Case in point: a friend of my father’s was held as a POW by the Nazis. When things got tough, and rations short, it was the higher ranking officers who forgot their position and adopted a “every man for himself” attitude.
And so shall it be with the city dwellers, should food shortages come to pass.
“the highly educated could be dangerous in their hubris if their schooling wasn’t accompanied by a deep thoughtfulness, because it could instead be accompanied by arrogance and the idea that because they had that elite education they knew far more than they really did.”
These highly educated thoughtless types have already demonstrated they are very dangerous indeed. People exactly like this have been maurauding through DC and Wall Street for the past couple of decades, and their unholy alliance is what has caused this economic catastrophe. They thought, and still think, that they can outwit human nature.
“We are all just three missed meals away from barbarism”
-attributed to Eric Sevareid
I grew up in a small college town in New Mexico. We had professors with world-class reputations and farmers and dirt-poor sharecroppers, and their children all went to the same schools. It taught me a lot about equality. None of us felt superior to any of the others, and everyone got along. It was a great place to grow up. I think everyone should work in a service capacity sometime in their lives; it gives you a marvelous glimpse into human nature. And it teaches you that “education” is not synonymous with “class.”
And… are you better off than you were two years ago?
http://wizbangblog.com/content/2009/07/03/are-you-better-off-than-you-were-two-years-ago.php
Nyom?
W.F.Buckley famously said he would rather be governed by the first hundred people of the Boston telephonebook than by Harvard-professors.
That says it all.
And Dennis Prager says that we live in the ‘age of stupidity’ and that one of the main reasons of that is that so many went to college and graduate school. From what I read and hear about US universities that seems perhaps not too far-fetched.
Anyway you have to be stupid to be impressed by outwardly polished speech, esspecially by a politician. In fact that is what scares me about Obama. It’s a shiny outside but after hours and hours listening to him I still not feel like I know the man. After listening to Sarah Palin one time for half an hour, I felt I knew her, I knew who she was.
I know who Sarah is, I don’t know who Barry or Barack or… is.
It is this kind of ‘wisdom of the street’ that you can lose by going to college as I know from my own experience.
I studied the humanities for more than three decades; it took me a long time to figure out how to become more ‘wise and perceptive on human nature’ by them. At first they only made me more arrogant and foolish.
But… I don’t know. Perhaps you simply can no longer function in US politics without becoming a souldead pretender like Hillary Clinton. I noticed Sarah gradually got worn-out
by the ugly, miserable business of national politics.
I don’t wan’t her once again thrown out to the wolves of the libmedia. I wan’t her to be happy with her family, friends and local community.
Let’s face it: the US, the world, we don’t deserve her. We deserve the coldfish voice of Hillary Clinton,
and all the other Great Pretenders.
If you want some high brow and hog wash try listening to NPR… National Propaganda Radio, and some of their public interest story’s.
First off their BBC, and in house British commentators would make you think we are still a colony.
Then the other day right after a news broadcast redressing the killings in Darfur which included an interview describing the rape and genocide of innocent women and children they broadcast a little ditty as if it were a soliloquy.
It was on the finesses’ of how to pick the best squash blossoms, and saute’ them in very expensive olive oil to appeal to the gouter of someone who was trying to evoke an aire’ of uppercrustness. (I know that is not a word).
It was surreal listening to it as I almost drove over the curb in astonishment.
I thought Nancy Cordes was going to wet herself with excitement on CBS news last night reporting Palin’s resignation. Katie Couric had the day off or else she would have been sticking to her chair as well. Look for the MSM to continue their attacks on Palin because that’s how much they fear her.
highly educated ultra liberal women
Let me correct that: highly certified ultra liberal women
Gary: NPR is Middle Brow at best–it really is a menace to culture altogether.
That is the sad thing about “high culture” it has been taken over by these posturing mediocrities.
There is such a thing as “high culture”, and that is altogether a good thing, but having these buffoons run it is the absolute worse thing for culture, high, middle or low.
As a matter a fact they stole this position, starting in the interwar period, and, in this coutry at least, they stole it from people who actually might have deserved to guide that culture. They have been chipping at it ever since. It has become a dodge whereby they can conceal their (mostly) middle class origins and pretend to be aristocrats.
That is what animates them this hatred of were they come form and their loony notion that they are aristocrats.
But the great culture of the past was created by real aristocrats, aristocrat of the Spirit, and paid for patrons who were actually titled and cultivated political and social nobility, and no matter how ignoble their regimes may have been there is no doubt of the power, the truth, the beauty of the greand culture and civlization that they produced.
The political, moral and economic culture of that evolved here in America–the ultimate expression of the historcal lessons of Europe–surely form us, but that great culture of Europe has assuredly deeply formed us as well. We forget this at our peril and would be wise to cherish, nurture and maintain it.
But these people? It is like handing a oboe to an orangutan. Monkeys swinging through the Louvre pitching their dung at the displays.
I should add: The great creators of that high culture would have no part of these people.
Newton, Brahms, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Vermeer, and Ambrose would all run, not walk, away from them fast as feet can go. The list is practically inexhaustible.
Oh, and good for you, Sarah Palin!
I hope she organizes the resistance, but if she wishes to just take care of her own, more power to her.
She is wonderful woman, a real woman, and she is more of a man than the rest of the the GOP leadership put together too.
Would that they had a tenth of her courage and decency.
Wherever she is bound, I wish her all the luck in the world.
Vanity Fair has released a humongous hit-piece that must’ve taken weeks to amass…
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/08/sarah-palin200908?currentPage=1
Wandriaan
Your opinion is one that I and many others share. Obama reminds me of that famous Gertrude Stein quote about Oakland: “there’s no there there.” ( Though in Oakland’s defense, she was referring to not being able to find her childhood home when she returned decades later for a visit.)
What some people forget about the Ivy League pedigree is that the Ivy League rejects many more well-qualified applicants than it accepts. An Ivy League school could probably get as well a qualified freshman class as it already has by simply throwing darts or dice to decide, after certain cutoff points. IOW, there are plenty of very bright folks that never make it into the Ivy League. What is also neglected is that while it is much harder to get into an Ivy League school compard to a state school, it is harder to flunk out of an Ivy League school than a state school. Once you are admitted, the Ivy League school wants to keep you, while the state school is indifferent: perform or leave.
Methinks that the Ivy League pedigree is most important as a ticket of admission to certain jobs, such as in the federal government.
Last year many people put down Sarah Palin for having attended a number of schools before graduating, as if attending many school were a sign of her lack of intellectual prowess. I attended four schools in the process of getting my engineering degree, so I am not in agreement with those people.
Many Ivy Leaguers, including BHO, remind me of the “Mythbusters” episode, where Jamie and Adam proved you could polish a turd and give it a nice shiny surface. But surface gloss notwithstanding, it remains what it is on the inside. Same with the self-elected elitists of the Ivies. The Haahvahd Yahd accent may only be the shine on what is essentially B.S.
Here’s my take on why Sarah Palin is hated so much by the elitists: Because she so completely lacks pretensions, lacks the Ivy League sheepskin, and, most unforgivable of all, is a conservative who neglects to pay homage in any aspect of her life to her “betters” in the elitist establishment, she reminds the elitists of what they have run from, and how little their fancy book-learnin’ is actually worth. That she has real accomplishments of her own in no way mitigates the fearful hatred that the elitists direct towards her, and probably amplifies it. If she were an incompetent putz, they wouldn’t care.
If you are impressed with an Ivy League degree, then you are too easily impressed. If Barack Obama does not disabuse you of your childlike belief in an Ivy education, there is no hope for you.
Sarah Palin is a competent, confident woman. She understands the sleaze and incipient corruption that Obama is bringing to the country. She means to stop it, if she can. She is positioning herself as well as she can to do that.
It is unfortunate that Sarah’s singular courage will put her even farther out on the firing line than she has already been. If you think the media went full court press to find dirt on her before, just wait. Now the media investigators will be working side by side with the feds. It’s gonna get crowded in those dumpsters and sewers.
It would be better not to put so much on one person’s shoulders. Can others not help out as well?
Keep in mind that Palin isnt just the target of the Democrats and their attack minions of the mainstream press. The press doesnt lable John McCain “the Maverick” for nothing.
Palin is not my favorite candidate either for 2012, but the more people tear her and her family to pieces the more strongly I feel cause to support her. The left better be careful about over-the-top demonization of Sarah Palin lest they attract the sympathies of those who would otherwise ridicule. The fact is now that Sarah Palin is out of elected office, I think she’s going to be way more influential in her ability to galvanize the masses. Whether she runs for president or not, as a political influence, she is still a force to be reckoned with. That said, I think if people took all the trash spewed by Obama supporters and edited it into a short video to be aired on TV and the internet, I think more people would have second thoughts about which side they’re on.
Hello neo,
Lovely article and interesting hypothesis urrh.. diagnosis of the liberal mind and its reaction to Sarah Palin. I don’t know if “class” completely explains the phenomenon – as there are many blue collar libs that also have a exaggerated and unreasoned disdain for the woman. Classism is, after all, a type of anti-Americanism…and for an American to be anti-American there must also be a fair measure of self-loathing. Pardon my transitive reasoning, but I believe that it is the catalyst of American classism, self-loathing, that seems to best explain the left’s hateful obsession with Sarah Palin.
btw, I took more of the Sarah Palin education route – and I appreciate your humble attitude as much as I respect your academic achievement.
Happy Fourth!
Wonderful insight. Love reading your take on things, neocon.
Did anyone notice that jab that Sarah gave lame duck governors who “milk” their last days in office? THAT is one major reason why the Country Club Republicans want her OUT. Their comfort level is threatened by a “hick” from Wasilla. How terrible for them.
Go, Sarah, go!
…[I]t’s not [Sarah Palin’s] fault it’s the people that put faith in her and give her a false confidence. Her ilk is not fit to govern–stew potatos and pluck chickens ya, have a position of governance in the USA na.
Her resignation proved Nyomythus’ was right.
By quitting, she certainly didn’t make things easier for the non-elite, non-ivy-league.
So much for that….
Did anyone notice that jab that Sarah gave lame duck governors who “milk” their last days in office?
I don’t thing anyone has ever considered the second half of your FIRST TERM as being “lame duck”.
This beggars belief.
There is no “Go Sarah Go” anymore. It is “Gone Sarah Gone”.
She’s political roadkill. We were wrong. They were right.
Welcome to The Political Wilderness….
Gray the psycho wrote, “Her resignation proved Nyomythus’ was right.”
Straight from the DSM IV a diagnosis for Gray.
Her resignation gray showed how noble she is to give Alaskans a government that is working for them instead of fighting 80% of the time against idiots like you
Her resignation should be an example that Obama observes and executes. For he really should resign. But alas, he isn’t noble.
Gray is negligent. He didn’t read Sarah’s statement nor did he watch her speech. Why? Because he’s lazy.
Gray the psycho wrote
Perhaps you have me confused with someone else.
I can’t think of anything I’ve disagreed with you on. Our views are sympathetic and we are like-minded.
In politics, as in chess, resignation means:
“my position is untenable. I don’t want to drag this farce out any longer.”
It’s a courtesy to your opponent to allow them to resign instead of just pounding their asses into the ground, as they’ve done to Sarah Palin.
If the dirty, dirty lefties wanted to be really crappy, they should make her serve out her first term.
I read her statement, it was meaningless and disjointed. Where is her “big announcement” she was going to make today?
Our trust and faith was obviously misplaced in her: by her resignation she affirmed the ideas of her worst critics.
Political roadkill. Don’t bark at me. Howl at the cruel Political Wilderness of the Republicans.
was obviously misplaced “were” obviously misplaced.
Too much Sierra Nevada ale and Black Cat fireworks concussion.
It was a wonderful 4th with grilled sausage, margaritas, beer, chips and sauerkraut with drunk ol’ dad (me) launching illegal fireworks with Loud Report.
Still have all my fingers and the family smells like charcoal smoke and burnt gunpowder. Victory.
If she was spending 80% of her time working on personal legal matters, and this is why she stepped aside, then good for everyone. I don’t think I could have done what she’s done … it’s just Palin is a move in the wrong direction for conservatism, conservatism needs to broaden the tent, brand personal freedom and defense of liberalism, and shake hands with the center. To bad Rightist talking heads have branded ‘liberalism’ as a bad word — and unfortunately this is probably unrepairable, but if we can storm Normandy and drive on to Berlin we can do anything is the sort of think we should have on that point. Palin falls more towards the Buchanan wing of the Right; provincial, isolationist, anti-intellectual, incurious — whose only strength is to disengage, de-fund, and appeal to wish-thinking (something of an Obama opposite) — We don’t need this back and forth reactionism, we need to be reaching for the Lieberman wing of the Right and actually … winning elections … dancing around the high bonfire hooting and hollering to the gods ain’t gonna get it.
We don’t need this back and forth reactionism, we need to be reaching for the Lieberman wing of the Right and actually … winning elections … dancing around the high bonfire hooting and hollering to the gods ain’t gonna get it
Pricisely, Nyo. That’s why a true moderate and maverick like McCain won the election instead of that idealogue Obama.
We have to make the Republicans understand that there is no place in politics for a principled opposition, only a half-caf version of Venti Socialism.
Really, what is the good of opposing a terrible idea when you can just adopt part of it and keep people happy?
The best ideas have a little bad idea in them.
Furthermore, this Tea Party stuff is nonsense: You cannot defeat the dirty, dirty left by adopting their tactics.
“There is no “Go Sarah Go” anymore. It is “Gone Sarah Gone”.
She’s political roadkill. We were wrong. They were right.
Welcome to The Political Wilderness….”
Sadly, this is true.
If anyone ever wants to know why I think our country is heading towards a bloody revolution this is it – where does one go?
Currently we have *no one* out there, *no side*, *nothing*. That’s it – game over. I think that with repect to some of those that support Obama now that is part of it – the R’s failed and that leaves the “d’s” – when thier failure is as undeniable as the R’s what to do?
Really, I guess it is something I have been struggling with to some degree. I generally prefer the lesser of two evils but it has become do I want to die in a horrid method or an really horrid method – I do not want either. I still retain that old R=Conservative thing (and I have a number of friedns that retain that D=classic Liberal thing too), but it is so weak as to be just a knee jerk reaction to the Dems being a horrid way of dieing.
It may be under the Dem’s watch, it may be under the Repub’s – but it is coming. I hope a truly viable third party or two shows up and it ends up being a non-violent revolution, but I do not think that either the R’s or the D’s will give it up that easy.
Someone like what we thought Palin was will have to head it, I can’t say I blame her (who wants that type of attack day in and day out) but whomever it is will have to take that and make them stronger and increase their will to fight, not resign. I do not think it will even need to be conservative – indeed a classic liberal party that *meant what they said* would sweep elections.
The fact that out govt has less than single digit approval rating and out military has over a 90% one is, well, bad. We have talked here about unique circumstances to do with the cult of personality of Obama, I say that is irrelevant as he has nearly the same “hatred” stats. That the govt/military ratio is universally true across the political spectrum *is* both unique in our history *and* scary (and, well, a little bit hopeful I guess too – I suspect that the Revolutionary war saw something similar – bad time to live and good came from it).
Personally were I betting man I would guess we will splinter into three or four countries in the next 50 years after some basic breakdown in our federal government (states will be a case by case scenario). Basically the Northeast, Southeast, and Western US – not sure what the Midwest will do (merge with the one of the other three or go their own way). After that, dunno – I hope we can retain some cohesiveness as a group but I do not really think so – some are going to have to fail miserably (California for instance) to learn.
strcpy. Oh nonsense.
What about Hillary and Obama? They left office mid term, nobody is grousing about that.
Has it occurred to you that she can do more good rousing the resistance as a free agent.
One wonder how sincere you are. Your moniker is all too apt, seems to me. Sound to me like you need an alloc() or two and then some brisk memcpy()’s.
I think Sarah Palin reminds the elites too much of how many self congratulatory notches they have to be taken down before they too can experience a spontaneous and vibrant human life.
Running into narrow minded intellectuals living a life out of their heads always brings me pause to wonder just how much life education they unavoidably missed out on.
I may have said this before in a different way.
Talking about how dumb Palin is is the speaker talking about how smart he is.
I couldn’t agree more, “Neo.”
I do not think many of you have thought out the positives this gives Palin. Mark my works Palin is not done, but some of her detractors soon will be.
Palin reminds me of the uncouth frontier politicians Mrs Trollope describes in her classic Domestic Manners of the Americans. they spat, lounged, swore, spoke in funny dialects and absolutely horrified the lady who was used to the suave and impeccable British Parliament. Nevertheless they composed what we used to call citizen legislatures, which all in all didn’t do that terrible a job. Nowadays politics is a pretty tight guild, and ordinary people shouldn’t aspire beyond the local school board. The big jobs are for the professionals, who in both parties united against the interloper from Alaska.
Who’ of us knows her plans? She has plenty of reason to go home and slam her door after the way she’s been treated, but my hope and prayer is that she incite us to roll up our sleeves and bulldoze the whole rotted system and take our country back.
I read her statement, it was meaningless and disjointed. Where is her “big announcement” she was going to make today?
Our trust and faith was obviously misplaced in her: by her resignation she affirmed the ideas of her worst critics.
Political roadkill. Don’t bark at me. Howl at the cruel Political Wilderness of the Republicans.
What utter rubbish. It could not hae been a clearer speech, nothing disjointed about it. And what is this “our business” about? Speak for your self. You one “speak” for yourself, if that is what you call it, and your “speech” reflect badly upon you.
You sound like moby to me.
Nyom wrote, “I don’t think I could have done what she’s done …”
Because you couldn’t ever do what is right for the country or the state. You don’t have an ounce of noble or courage.
Nyom wrote, “To bad Rightist talking heads have branded ‘liberalism’ as a bad word ”
Being in the belly of th beast here in Sacramento, I see that liberalism is a mental disease. Liberals have the following going on:
1) Pulling $60 – $80 per month from people’s paychecks to run commercials lying about Republicans – how do you work with that?
2) Every year looking for taxes and fees to raise – driving business out of this once wonderful state. Amazon.com even said – how do I work with that?
This is not just a ‘few’ liberals. It’s 99% of them that are in power. I could make a list of 10 with examples like the ones above. Liberals are sick. They can’t listen to reason. They are hurting this nation and this state and hurting good people.
Nyom, this is what you do. You hurt good people. You are negligent in finding out the facts. You can’t listen to save your own self. You keep doing it even in this thread. You have shut your brain off and keep making the stupidest statements ever on the Palin topic. You should hold up a mirror and figure out how to change yourself.
Nyom wrote, “We don’t need this back and forth reactionism”
Then stop making inaccurate accusations wife beater.
My parents loved to entertain, and they would invite these people over often. Everyone would sit around a large table with cake and coffee, talking and talking and talking about everything under the sun, including politics. I was an observer and a sometime participant, and I never remember thinking that the ones with the big degrees had anything more or less worthwhile to say than those without them.
Sounds wonderful … and a relic of a bygone age.
One of my liberal friends recommended a book, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart. Bill Clinton, among others, is promoting this book. My impression is that Democrats believe that the Karl Rove and Republicans have exploited this development of American society and blah, blah, blah.
Nonetheless, the point is true and well-taken. More Americans than ever before live in enclaves, physical and online, with other Americans that think like them. It’s not healthy and it is part of the reason the culture wars and national elections are so nasty these days.
“Education without values only serves to make Man a more clever Devil” C.S Lewis.
Huxley: I agree. One of the things different in my parents’ time is that very few people moved in their community, so it was a large and fairly stable group of people most of whom who had known each other throughout their lives. They knew each others’ histories and families, and had been to school together (even spouses, in many cases). In some ways it was a homogeneous group, in that it certainly was mostly middle class, but there were people who were lower middle class and/or working class and a couple of people who were mega-rich. Quite a spectrum, one I think you don’t see much nowadays.
Grew up in a similar neighborhood with kids whose parents had a wide variety of educational backgrounds. On my street alone we had a pharmacist and a postman. Had pretty much the same experience.
Then years later I graduated from Northwestern. Yes, the same school that fed Andrew Butz, the father of Naziism in the US, and continues to feed Bernardine Dohrn.
Phooey.
nyomsomething:
“If she was spending 80% of her time working on personal legal matters, and this is why she stepped aside, then good for everyone.”
Crap. Liberals & “progressives” would make John MCCain spend 80% of his time dodging legal and ethical allegations if they thought he posed a threat. Instead he was that “big tent” “Republican” you wish for; A weakling that offered mediocracy instead of reminding people what made this country great.
We stormed Normandy because we were a bold people with real stregnth and conviction that few of our politicians have anymore. (We also did not “drive on to Berlin”. The Russians did that.
My god man, the press went after a plumber! Where’s that same examination of Obama?
Nyomsothing, if you’re the center, I dont want no part of it. Your idea of reaching out requires me to abandon my convictions for the sake of empty populism. I am neither provincial, isolationist, anti-intellectual, incurious, or any other of the leftist talking points you’ve adopted, so you can shove that where the sun dont shine.
I will continue to vote for my candidates and my positions. I hope that pisses you off.
To continue on, nyomsomething, the guy we are currently saddled with as president isnt middle of the road. He’s decidedly left. No one is making him dodge legal and ethical bullets, because the poeple who make you dodge these allegations are all on the same side. Again, these are not middle of the road people, these guys are committed to their ideology. You dont realize that because you’re to buisy labeling people here as “incurious”, which is a hell of an irony.
The education of a liberal is more NPR than PhD. (Not original to me, BTW.) Bush went to the right colleges. It is a social signaling learned more easily at the right colleges, but available to many who want to adopt the disguise. Bush was hated because he refused to wear that verbal uniform, though he easily could have. Palin is hated because she does not acknowledge that it is the uniform of her betters.
It seems to me that Governor Palin has embodied two great American traits with her resignation; first, the tendencey of free people to tell other free people to piss up a rope; second, utter confidence that I’ll get mine despite the SOBs.
I find both wholly admirable. I think it’s a very good thing that the American Dream is alive and well in Alaska. It appears to be deader than hell in lefty America. I, quite vulgarly, invite them to go eff themselves. In Wassila, and much of America, the expletives would be followed by a thorough ass beating, one way or the other.
Diagnosing the media is easy–the vast majority are jealous and afraid. How could a hellhole like Wasilla produce a beautiful, accomplished, mother of five, happily married, patriotic, and more. After all, their meme is that America sucks, especially the great unwashed, or, perhaps, because of them.
My guess is that there is much laughter and cheer in a certain Wassilla household today. Good on’em. You betcha. And for the media elite, a hearty piss up a rope from Old Dad.
On the neighborhood thing, i recall the wonderful days of my childhood in the south with lots of ladies chatting and shelling peas on somebodys front porch. And the men folk sitting under a shade tree having lively conversations that included lots of belly laughs.
I think it was actually air conditioning that brought about the demise of so much of this neighborhood interaction.
Nuts
Yes you are.
Wife beater.,
http://www.conservatives4palin.com/2009/07/statement-from-gov-palins-legal-counsel.html
Love the last paragraph. Serious stuff.
People should due their due diligence before writing crap.
Nyom.
“What about Hillary and Obama? They left office mid term, nobody is grousing about that.”
Were she being elected for something else then true, were she doing so to run for a higher office then true. She just left. I doubt many are would *ever* call leaving office midterm to be President or SecDef to be running from anything. I would have thought that was kinda obvious.
“Has it occurred to you that she can do more good rousing the resistance as a free agent.”
As you have deduced with an amazing degree of observation along with critical thinking skills I am actually a plant from the Democrats side. So, no it hadn’t occurred to me, or rather I do not think she resigned for that reason nor do I think she will do well if that was truly her intent – too many (myself included, though I’m obviously a shill or plant) see her leaving as a sign of weakness and will not trust her.
“One wonder how sincere you are. Your moniker is all too apt, seems to me. Sound to me like you need an alloc() or two and then some brisk memcpy()’s.”
Or, being the self reliant conservative I am (though obviously lacking your amazing deduction abilities) I’ll just bounds check. Either that or use strncpy, alloc + memcpy to copy a string – really? You *really* want to run with that for an insult? Not only is it a poor attack/joke but it is poor coding standards too. But then – why not just use the built in function that is optimized around doing that for your platform instead of something made for general purpose?
I find it amusing having my “conservative” status questioned, always have and always will, especially from someone who deduces that from a single posts about a politician they like. For whatever reason many also trot out the old strcpy isn’t safe thing too (and it’s the same replies every time too – though the alloc/memcpy thing was new). Never really figured out that one either. One of these days I’m going to pick scanf instead and *really* blow their minds.
Sarah also has the power that many in the trades and other skilled jobs have to just “take this job and shove it”. A skilled welder or mechanic can just leave a situtation that’s not working and take a job somewhere else. The “highly educated” often have success that is tied to their position on the corporate or political ladder. If they leave the will fall far. Sarah and her husband can always do what they did before politics or any thing else they want! I think many people in the high paid power positions are envious of that freedom.
Sarah is one of those people who others instantly either love or hate, there is no middle ground. There is also no position because of what party one belongs to. I don’t want to say she transcends party, rather, the love or hatred one feels is not primarily driven by political issues. It has to do more with her attitudes. Although intelligent she is not an ivory-tower intellectual. She is more action-oriented and does not feel the need to sit around all day talking about what the right and wrong is. She already knows what they are and talks about how to do stuff and making it happen. This is why some conservatives like Peggy Noonan (whom I used to respect a lot more than I do now) can’t stand her. She does not worship at the altar of do-nothing intellectualism.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazon-faces-little-risk-from-taxation-analysts?dist=dist_smartbrief?dist=dist_smartbrief?link=kiosk?dist=dist_smartbrief?dist=dist_smartbrief&dist=dist_smartbrief&dist=dist_smartbrief
This is the amazon stuff going on. CA legislature pretty much are incurious Nyom’s… Or.. They want business to go elsewhere.
Hi neo-
This was a remarkably sensible and well-argued post on a person who seems to drive everyone to extremes. I can’t understand why the observations you made aren’t discussed more openly: I’ve seen similar reactions to Palin myself, and I’d bet most people who talk politics or follow it have as well.
I’d really enjoy seeing your take on the blog-driven “Palin is a narcissist” theme that recently came into the spotlight via Vanity Fair.
Thanks for one of the better responses to Palin’s resignation.
Your comment that Palin is “intelligent and couragous” is downright funny. Have you missed practically every time she said something that wasn’t memorized or on a tele-prompter? The 0-Man is brilliant compared to Palin, and he is waaaaay overated.
In this case she was shaken and very close to coming unhinged.
I wonder what McCrazy thinks about this?
Do you think he feels like giving Cheney a free shot at his face?
If not for his incredibly egotistically niave view of the VP selection process, this probably slightly unbalanced person would not have had a sniff at a ticket and would have eventually just faded and floated away on some ice flow….
I still can’t get over the fact that McCrazy had KBH available and (even better) CTW possibly available, and he picked Palin.
That will go down as one of the worst political moves… ever.
Why Geerbel Haamster, now I see the light! I never understood before, but of course, she can’t possibly be intelligent—if you say so.
Interesting that you also repeat the anti-Palin meme of the day (or is is the week?): that in Palin’s speech she was shaken and close to coming unhinged. Yes, you got your talking points, all right. Funny thing, though, that’s not what I observed in her speech.
Then you don’t observe well. You let YOUR talking points (elitists bla bla, elitists bla bla, elitists…) get in the way.
I want my leaders (on a national level) to be obviously intelligent, well-versed in every possible facet of policy and ready to stand on the world stage and command respect if not fear.
Who qualifies? The 0-Man doesn’t, Joe Plugs surely doesn’t, McCrazy probably doesn’t… and yet you are glorifying Palin when she is obviously proven to be unqualified and unready for any kind of national exposure or pressure.
I actually agree with you on a lot of things, but Palin is a huge mistake and you (and other neo-cons) continue to try to defend it instead of calling it what it is: McCrazy’s foolish conceit.
Gerbeel Haamster: Stating your point of view as though it’s a tautology, in addition to ad hominem attacks on me, is not really the way to go.
Saying Palin is intelligent is not the same as “glorifying” her, or even wanting her to be president. I’ve said before she’s not my preferred candidate and that I also think her negatives are too high for her to win election. That doesn’t stop me from observing that she is also intellligent.
Gerbil wrote, “Then you don’t observe well.”
Who should we believe. You or our lying eyes.
He he.
I don’t know what you are seeing except a human being who is smart Gerbil. I’ve watched and read Sarah. As with most intelligent people she makes very good reasoned arguments. She had the PRESCRIPTION for America (lowering capital gains, income, corporate taxes) while Obama had the ideas on how to make the economy worse.
Yet while I saw hours of footage. You saw loops of moments where the human being made mistakes. They have those loops for Obama also…
It seems people mistake polished speaker for intelligent.
Neither Obama nor Clinton were really polished speakers….
There ARE a bunch of polished speakers who can really do a crowd well, never go off point, never stutter and …
well… none of them were ever governor or a Senator and just because they can act good on stage or camera doesn’t mean they have the right political ideas – like cutting corporate and capital gains tax rates. Yes – I’m a broken record for a reason. Because Obama is a dunce on this very issue and it’s black and whtie (no pun intended).
This may be the result of the video age.
It’s gotten worse – It used to be Reagan would have a speech every once in a while. Now we have to see our leaders daily on the tube making some awesome speech. All the while the American public really never learned what got us to where we are and the politician is proposing things that make us worse off.
And gerbils watch tv never assessing things very well.. and then lobbing insults..
It is said that Lincoln was preceded at Gettysburg by an orator–Edward Everett, iirc–who spoke magnificently for two hours.
Nobody recalls a thing he said. Not the next morning and not now.
Horton is quoted as saying something to the effect that Lincoln came closer to the spirit of the thing in a few lines than he had in two hours.
This is such a hair splitter — we all probably agree that ‘yes’ she is intelligent, and ‘no’ she is not ready for the national/international stage. This topic is a non-issue, Palin is history — but on the topic of history, I liked Palin when I heard her first speech — my first thought was, ”way to go McCain!” But from that night onward she has given little if only diminishing returns. Of all the better female candidates McCain could have choosen, and I was all for him, his little Ms. Unknown Variable disappointed me more and more — it demonstrated poor judgment on McCain’s part and created a notion that perhaps he’s borderline senile, I didn’t want to vote for Obama but I was determined to vote in this election cycle. Conservatives! Get better canadidates!!
Nyom wrote, “and ‘no’ she is not ready for the national/international stage.”
More ready than Obama.
Nyom wrote, “But from that night onward she has given little if only diminishing returns.”
She had the prescription america needed. In contrast to Obama’s virus for America.
She was attacked from every angle. In contrast to Obama’s parade/chorus/symphony/breathtaking reporting/Messiah treatment. Obama knew less and had less experience.
Nyom wrote, “disappointed me more and more”
You disappoint me. You know less and less the more I read from you.
Nyom wrote, “t demonstrated poor judgment on McCain’s part and created a notion that perhaps he’s borderline senile”
You are an unhinged wife beater. What does this comment do? It shows you that yes I too can make false accusations. Fun thought huh? You keep it up and I keep it up.
Nyom,
If you truly did vote for Obama. You are an idiot.
I’m just one little person with one little vote … allow me to deploy it as I wish.
canadidates!! … lol … that sounds like an amalgam of the words “Canadian” and “candidate” — funny!! and semi-ironic.
Yep. I’m hard on you for a reason Nyom.
You need to understand that you had a candidate on the ticket who had the prescription and you voted against it for absolutely NO reason.
Your reasons are not based in fact – thus my wife beater comments. Can’t you see you have been saying things with no basis in fact?
Nyom the incurious 😉 How can you stand in judgment of Sarah and call her incurious when she has gone farther in life than you (to my knowledge).
You give zero respect in fact you give the opposite. You give vitriol to somebody who doesn’t deserve it.
I have hear nonsense answer after nonsense answer from Obama. He gives strawman after strawman – never actually addresses what the conservative point of view is – has the virus for America. You voted for that and sit there and bash Palin as incurious…..
This horse, much like Palin’s political career, is still dead.
Color me unconvinced, Gray. Palin’s action was surely extraordinary, but everything about her and her symbolic opposite, Mr. Obama, seem extraordinary to me.
We have seen how sensitive Mr. Obama is to criticism from his opponents of last fall. If Palin takes up a speaking tour attacking cap’n’trade, she might do him a lot of damage and herself a whole lot of good.
For what it’s worth, I’m still for her. Perhaps I feel a certain personal sympathy, having come from the hills with an accent that my Boston-, Darien-, and New York-reared prep school classmates treated as the badge of ignorance. I lost that accent as fast as I could. I got my own Ivy League degree, and have lived these many years in Indigo Country. I have even been a Volvo-driving NPR contributor.
But now I’m going off to hear Bob Solow lecture on the economy at the Whaling Church in Edgartown, MA. I expect I will have a question or two for him.
The worst thing that the Left can do for their own side is to dismiss Sarah Palin out of hand. Mrs. Palin has distinguished herself as a charismatic and fearless politician. As someone from a state often dismissed as a backwater she’s made a connection with people who feel downtrodden by the urban elite. By dismissing her as a threat, CNN and the New York Times have done themselves a disservice. Sarah Palin is dangerous – she embodies the union of evangelical Christians (George W. Bush’s base) and fiscal Conservatives (people who George W. Bush alienated through his morally Conservative policies). If Sarah Palin can continue to make both of these factions happy with the Republican Party, then she will be a powerful adversary for the Democratic majority in 2012.
– G
If Palin takes up a speaking tour attacking cap’n’trade, she might do him a lot of damage and herself a whole lot of good.
If she transformed into a giant robot, she could do him a lot of damage and herself a whole lot of good.
The Right is using this to project on her all the things they want just like the dirty left projected on her all the things they hate.
All her resignation really means is that she won’t finish her first term as governor.
Gray, I disagreed civilly. You should do the same.
I think we can agree that Palin knows something about the energy industry and that she can speak to the directly to the simple folk in flyover country who don’t want to foot the bill so that folks in San Francisco and New York can feel better about themselves. Geez, I didn’t suggest that Palin would have anything to say about healthcare or Iran or even Honduras.
If you think this is a silly as the idea of her turning into a giant robot, you should say why.
Geez, I didn’t suggest that Palin would have anything to say about healthcare or Iran or even Honduras.
No, of course not. Not such presidential stuff….
What would a senator have to say about healthcare or Honduras?
oh yeah! Bullcrap to its highest degree!
gray is the biggest idiot. And incurious
Presidential stuff?
She had sense and the CORRECT economic prescription.
Gray is a sexist wife beater