What's Your Problem With Sarah Palin?

Indulge me for a moment. Some of you may recall that I commented here the night of the Republican National Convention last September that Sarah Palin, even without John McCain, is a "formidable" political opponent. I offered this only a few moments after hearing Gov. Palin speak for my very first time. Among other things, I described her as

"...country-girl feisty with a smile; she carries the faintest hint of redneck incredulity about her that is squarely aimed at the temerity and presumptuousness of Ivy League and Beltway elitism. She looked quite stunning as she easily and deftly delivered lines that will be iconic by morning. And she created a metaphor that sticks: She's a pitbull with lipstick."

But my praise did not stop there. I also said:

"...Gov. Palin's speech was filled with criticisms of Sen. Obama (many of which were quite clever, I must say). And while she delivered her blows with a sort of wink-wink playfulness, I know that she infuriated countless pro-Obama supporters; she flirted with being incendiary. I saw it, heard it, felt it; and I swear I could hear countless folks around the country screaming at their TVs. But what she did tonight is at least part of the political game, and it is quite clear that senators Obama and Biden have their work cut out for them. Gov. Palin, even without John McCain, is a formidable opponent."

And at the end of my post-convention essay, I played the augur:

"Prediction: After tonight, Democrats everywhere will be arguing that the next Democratic Convention in 2012 should follow rather than precede the Republican Convention. Surely they see how easy it was for Gov. Palin to playfully but effectively mock the "styrofoam Greek pillars" of the Democratic National Convention, no?"

Please take note of the theme that connects these passages: Gov. Palin is funny. Not over-the-top funny, but funny in an effective, even disarming way. And a charming way.

And it is precisely this quality that has drawn the ire of those Democrats and liberals in press and politics who quite clearly despise her. Let me return to what I wrote just four days after the GOP convention. In "The Cardinal Sin: Laughter In The GOP," I wrote:

"One would have to be disengaged not to notice that the Democratic Party, and the party's scribes in the press, are really quite angry about the ascension of Sarah Palin. But it is not Sarah Palin that has them upset; it is not John McCain or George W. Bush or Mitt Romney or Rudy Guiliani that has the left in high dudgeon. It is not any one person or defined group that has given them fits. What has them so agitated is that the very visible Republican National Convention showed Republicans doing the worst of all possible things: It showed Republicans laughing at the Democratic Party and its candidate. And there really can be no greater sin." [emphasis added]

Indeed, in American politics, there can be no greater sin.

Democrats, especially those who would consider themselves members of the intelligentsia, or the truly cultured set, perceive themselves to be the party that excels at parody, satire; at scoffing and mocking and, among the truly bright, clever badinage. Democrats have some reason to believe this of themselves, as their own conceit in all matters funny is daily reinforced in print, in political cartoons, and in such places as "The Daily Show." But it is, at least to me, an empty conceit.

The other day, John Kerry, the junior senator from Massachusetts who aspired to the White House, joked about Sarah Palin in the wake of the sudden absence of Gov. John Sanford (South Carolina). Mr. Kerry said, in what strikes me as a mean-spirited way, that it was "[t]oo bad if a governor had to go missing, it couldn't have been the governor of Alaska. You know, Sarah Palin." (Guffaw!)

If one just pauses a moment to note not only the utter comedic vacuity of Mr. Kerry's quip but also its political implication -- that Mr. Kerry and his peers must be awfully afraid of Ms. Palin to wish for her disappearance -- one can't help but be somewhat stunned. Why all this vitriol and sarcasm directed at Gov. Palin? Is it because she is laughing at Democrats? One can only wonder how they will react to her response (given in Kosovo while visiting US troops) to Mr. Kerry's pathetic joke-telling:

“[John Kerry] looked quite frustrated and he looked so sad [when he told his joke]. I just wanted to reach out to the TV and say: ‘John Kerry, why the long face?’” [see YouTube clip below]

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Governor Sarah Palin is laughing, and she gets others to laugh, too. This is what makes her such a threat. She is, in this one sense, Reagan-esque, as Ronald Reagan, too, got people to laugh -- playfully and lightly -- at the absurdities of the other party. I am not suggesting here that Ms. Palin has the chops to be president, but she has thus far out-performed many of her peers who claim superiority in both ability and experience. And humor. She is a formidable foe. There can be no doubt about it. And the Democrats, through fear and loathing, and by attacking her every day, are drawing attention, and sympathy, toward someone they actually wish went missing.

There's something ironic here, but I doubt my leftist peers can see it.

Peace.

©Contratimes/2009. All Rights Reserved.

Denigrating Mediocrity Denigrates Democracy? Dismissing The Palin Candidacy

In 2004, on the eve of the general election, I wrote a letter to my local newspaper in which I explored a brilliant comment by the well-known Republican satirist, P. J. O'Rourke. I had heard Mr. O'Rourke, who lives nearby in this part of New Hampshire, speaking earlier in the year on New Hampshire Public Radio. Concerning what he said during that broadcast, I wrote, in part:

‘Let us stipulate that George Bush is a mediocrity, that he’s not particularly bright,’ said Mr. O’Rourke (and I paraphrase). ‘OK, fine. But to say that a mediocrity is unfit for the Oval Office is essentially antidemocratic, going against the very ideals of the American Dream. For if Mr. Bush is unfit for office because he isn’t brilliant, then the alternative is that only smart people can hold that office. If that’s the case, we’ve become a meritocracy, even an aristocracy of the mind.’

I would like readers for a moment to simply insert any name into Mr. O'Rourke's unarguably astute observation. Just add Barack Obama's name, or Joe Biden's. But maybe you should put Sarah Palin's name in the whole of O'Rourke's equation -- in bold letters.

Let us indeed concede, at least for the sake of argument, that Sarah Palin is the most mediocre person in the world, at least the Republican world. Considered it so conceded.

But are we not at worst conceited if we insist that a mediocre person -- and surely none of us here is one whit tepid, bland, or insipid -- is unfit for the vice presidency of the United States?

I recall arguing with a liberal Democrat friend during the 2000 election cycle. He had worked himself into quite a fury; I swear there were flecks of foam gathered in the corners of his mouth. You see, he could not comprehend that anyone could consider George W. Bush a viable candidate; my friend denounced the man as an idiot, a dolt, a veritable ingrate.

As you should all know by now, I've never been a big fan of Mr. Bush's. And I can assure you that in 2000, the man was nowhere to be found on my political radar screen. But I was at the very least somewhat taken aback that my friend would call George W. Bush stupid and incompetent. To counter this, I recall making this foolish statement:

"I don't quite know how you can call him 'stupid.' That man can't be all that stupid who earn degrees from two Ivy League schools (Yale and Harvard's Business School)."

I cannot tell you how counter-effective my statement instantly became. My friend became even more irate, denouncing me as stupid for not realizing that Bush was a "mere legacy" child of Yale and Harvard, that he was an "affirmative action" placement for the stupid but obscenely rich.

It struck me as odd how quickly my liberal friend had turned against such an esteemed credential as an Ivy League diploma; I noted a paradox. For only years earlier, America had been told that the "men of the people," the good old southern boy Bill Clinton and his sidekick Al Gore, were proud holders of Ivy League degrees (Clinton, a Georgetown undergrad, earned his JD at Yale). These added to their bona fides; they could not possibly be typical dopes. But amazingly, George W. Bush in 2000 was dismissed for being nothing but a privileged white kid whose daddy bribed Yale to serve as his son's reform school.

And then, of course, 2008 came along and we find ourselves constantly reminded that Barack Obama is qualified to be president because he holds degrees from two Ivy League schools.

(Did you know that George W. Bush actually performed better at Yale than his contemporary, Sen. John Kerry? You probably didn't, but, oh, how we heard about that C-student in the White House!)

Now comes Sarah Palin. Note that the Democrats, the leftist media, and even some of her own Republican colleagues have turned the American Dream upside down: Not everyone can be what they want to become, Sarah, and you should just cease aspiring to America's highest echelons. As I wrote in 2004 in my letter, such language does destroy the American Dream:

[Mr.] O’Rourke’s comments are quasi-revolutionary. For he affirms nearly every high school and university commencement address given over the last 30 years (‘Believe in yourself and you can be anything’), and yet subverts the popular paradigm. To oppose Bush or any president on grounds of intellectual inferiority is tantamount to declaring that some people - the mediocre - should not be allowed to fulfill their dreams. Only the brilliant should be in high places.

In other words, a democracy such as ours is only open up to a certain point. There are some places the mediocre cannot go, at least when it comes to participating in the governance of what is, or so it is said in theory, a nation governed by its own people.

I've already spotted, like you have, extremely damning commentary about Sarah Palin's lack of academic credentials. Writers have mocked her for attending the obscure North Idaho College and less-obscure University of Idaho. Curiously, nary a word is said about Joe Biden's self-described profoundly mediocre academic ventures at both Delaware and Syracuse (and we all know that neither school can ever pretend to be Ivy League). Sen. Biden's Wikipedia is rather telling (if true):

Biden attended the Archmere Academy in Claymont, where he was athletically, not academically, oriented and a natural leader among the students. He graduated in 1961.

Biden attended the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware, where by his own later description he was a lazy student. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in history and political science in 1965, ranked 506th of 688 in his class.

He went on to receive his JD from Syracuse University College of Law in 1968, where by his own description he again underperformed and ranked 76th of 85 students.

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Thursday night is the "big debate" between Gov. Palin and Sen. Biden. It is a one-shot deal for both of them. Here's hoping they both do well. But we can expect a billion words printed, published and voiced about "mediocrity" in the coming days. In anticipation of those words, I would like to conclude here the same way I concluded my letter in 2004 (with slight modifications):

One must consider carefully: We’ve all known smooth talkers who chat themselves into great jobs, only to drive co-workers and employers batty. Often the less stellar interviewee for a job turns out to be a winner. No doubt Bush has milked the diamond-in-the-rough image effectively, while oleaginous Kerry has become all-things-to-all-men so completely, he is nearly no one. All to say that – and please forgive the doggerel – a master of oration may be a disaster for a nation.

If we are truly committed to diversity and tolerance, if we are to dance about celebrating our grand differences, then ousting [or rejecting] a president [or candidate] because he [or she] is intellectually mediocre is philosophically repugnant.

©2008. All Rights Reserved.