Nearly everyone has been talking or writing about Sarah Palin, and while that makes me feel that I should write another post about her, the notion of "should" acts as a deterrent, and makes me want not to.
But thanks to an email from a friend, finally my neurosis has waned a bit.
I have long found myself fascinated by the amount of hatred she seems to generate without having to do much of anything. As Glenn Reynolds said in the LA Times the other day,
Palin managed to dominate the airwaves and political chatter even amid all the Michael Jackson bathos. What other Republican figure could have made such a splash?
None I can think of. (Unless maybe Larry Craig were caught tapping his foot in the direction of Barack Obama, I suppose....)
Explaining the reaction to Sarah Palin is not easy. Certainly it is not grounded in her conservative politics, for plenty of people (male and female) share similar politics, and they do not generate such extreme, visceral reactions. Seriously, it's almost as if Sarah Palin provides a lightning rod for now-homeless sufferers of Bush Dementia Syndrome with no place to go. Perhaps BDS represents more an addiction than a disease, and Palin offers them a perverse "fix."
Palin, says Goldberg, is "delusional to the point of being clinical" if she thinks she can be president. (Similar things were probably said about Reagan. And Thatcher.) Goldberg goes on to explain that "the idea that Sarah Palin looks at the work that Barack Obama has done or for that matter any president has done, and thinks 'I could do that,' is delusional."
The work Barack Obama has done? What on earth can that mean? Does Goldberg think that Sarah Palin is incapable of wrecking the economy too?
Godberg also hated the way Sarah Palin "kept winking" and was offended by what she called her "little folkisms." Well how come it was fine when Hillary winked? Or when she "talked Southern"? (Can it be that a Wellesley degree conveys a special license to wink, and to talk Southuhn?)
After listening patiently to this tirade, Althouse finally asked this:
"Why is she bugging you so much?"
Citing what she called Palin's "vulgar and mindless ambition" and chiding the Republicans for selecting what she called a "pitiful imitation of the real thing," Goldbern went on to explain that "part of the reason I hate her" (yes, at least this liberal was honest enough to publicly admit hating) the following:
probably part of the same reason I hated George Bush....she's you know the apotheosis of a kind of proudly ignorant, incredibly smug, incredibly anti-cosmopolitan...."
I guess it is BDS after all. Lefties need a "proudly ignorant, incredibly smug, incredibly anti-cosmopolitan" to hate, and Palin fills the bill.
They especially hate her for having a degree from the University of Idaho (as opposed to a nice Ivy League school).
This can't get any better. The Republican pick for VP went to community college before transferring to a university.
Palin attended North Idaho College for the 1983-1984 school year before she transferred to the University of Idaho. The college takes pride in its "open-door" admissions policy.
For the record, Barack Obama got his B.A. from Columbia University in New York and his J.D. from Harvard. While at Harvard he was president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review.
Sarah Palin only has a bachelor's degree in Journalism/Communication from the University of Idaho. Not to belittle the University of Idaho, but it's not exactly a tough school to get into. I don't want to say Palin is completely uneducated, but she's not exactly one of the brightest people our country has to offer. Well, that's what happens when you want a "regular" person to be VP/President.
Imagine. A regular person with a degree from a school other than Harvard having pretensions of belonging to the ruling class!
Why, that's our class we're talking about here. (Goldberg, BTW, is a journalism professor with a Masters degree from Berkeley, so no one is better qualified to be president than she.)
I think it is Sarah Palin's complete and total negation of the snob appeal factor that really excites those who used to froth at the mouth over poor old Dubya. In that regard, she leaves Dubya in the dust (for he was, after all, educated at Harvard and Yale).
Presidents of the United States simply are not the common man. They do not go to places like the University of Idaho.
Well, except Ronald Reagan, who got his degree from Eureka College.
Or LBJ, who went to Southwest Texas State Teachers' College.
Or Harry Truman, who never graduated from college at all....
MORE: My thanks to Sean Kinsell for the link. Sean (a Palin supporter in the last election, BTW) shares his concerns that some of the Palin mania has taken on a decidedly anti-intellectual flavor (and Sean has another post about excessive Palin groupieism here).
posted by Eric on 07.10.09 at 02:50 PM
Comments
They hate what they fear. She turns all progressive thinking upside down. She invalidates all their lives. And she seems happy and enjoying her life. What nerve. No one can put into words what IT is, but Palin has it, and the Democrat is right to fear it.
dr kill · July 10, 2009 3:06 PM
Excellent article. The "one of us" viewpoint can be one of the most bigoted and biased viewpoints in the world. I still remember Brooks' article on how Obama could discuss Niebuhr with him... Funny, you'd think that Brooks would have learned that it isn't a particularly unique skill to be able to read and remember the talking points from any number of philosophers and thinkers when he was at the U of Chicago. I went there as well and probably ran across 100's of people who could do that -- and didn't meet thousands more I am sure. Most of those people I wouldn't trust to work the counter at the local McDonalds, much less run our country...
But that is the way these people think. I take it as a compliment to Palin that they hate her so much.
Community Colleges: trade schools for the little people.
People that matter go to Harvard or U. Chicago.
Say I went to U Chicago. And fought in the Vietnam war. (as a UC alum who writes for the Columbia Journal Review said "that makes us rather unique" - he was a 'Nam veteran too).
That said: I ♥ Sarah'cudda
I guess that makes me a traitor to my class. And it is true. I am. And now with a son who is a UC alum I'm propagating traitors. Heh.
I went to UC Berkeley -- the same school as Michelle Goldberg. Why I'm not more horrified by Sarah Palin I don't know. Perhaps I like the idea of a candidate who might actually do what she says she wants to do.
As to the video, I only linked nine minutes' worth; poor Ann Althouse had to sit and debate her for nearly an hour!
(Simon, at last we know the torment that awaits you in Hell....)
Meritocracy gone bad. Seems the merit stops when you're accepted to college. Of course, it stopped for those of us like Sarah Palin before that. When we didn't go to the right prep school but rather have "public" education.
If Sarah Palin can make good, what were all their sacrifices for? Did they sell their souls for nothing?
Just before Palin's resignation speech as Fox cut in live, she walks up to the podium, waves and says "Hiya." to the press and cameras. I tell you a lot of lattes were spewed over that or would have if those people watched Fox. I on the other hand loved as I'm sure a lot of other Fox viewers did.
In the end, I think they hate her because she is so darn happy. Palin has five kids, one handicapped, a daughter who go pregnant and isn't wealthy. Yet she is happy. Even when all the world seemed against her, she was happy. Yet the Libs and elite Reps can't seem to get happy. For all their abortions to keep their plan on track, for all their connections with the powerful, for all the elite education, for all their vacation getaways, they just can't seem to find happiness. Yet, Palin seems so happy.
JKB · July 10, 2009 6:14 PM
Seems the merit stops when you're accepted to college.
There is a t-shit often worn by UC undergrads that says: "If I Had Wanted an A I'd Have Gone To Harvard"
I'm sure it was worse at UCB when I went there in the 70s than it is now. There were a lot of professors who not only routinely handed out Cs and Ds, they seemed to enjoy it. The Rhetoric Department was especially ferocious in those days; my first paper got a D+. (The goal was to learn how to write persuasively, and they would rip poor writing to shreds in the most humiliating manner. If they did that today, they might face a lawsuit.)
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
They hate what they fear. She turns all progressive thinking upside down. She invalidates all their lives. And she seems happy and enjoying her life. What nerve. No one can put into words what IT is, but Palin has it, and the Democrat is right to fear it.