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?

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."

In that regard, some of the stuff Michelle Goldberg says in this video debate with Ann Althouse that Glenn Reynolds linked the other day is priceless.

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?"

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...."

They especially hate her for having a degree from the University of Idaho (as opposed to a nice Ivy League school).

This reaction is typical.

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.

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).