If you have noticed, I am very intolerant of cheap shots and snide comments directed at Sarah Palin, particularly when those cheap shots and snide comments come from conservative bloggers and Republican politicians.
Perhaps I react this way because when Palin Derangement Syndrome first struck this blog was not yet established, and I just stewed. In many ways, PDS — along with Obamamania — was the motivating factor in my creating this blog in October 2008.
This account of the first days of PDS by Kay Hymowitz in Sarah Palin and the Battle for Feminism (h/t @SissyWillis), brings back the memories:
When Sarah Palin took the podium in St. Paul to accept her nomination for the vice presidency in September 2008, calm and collected feminists might have recalled the old saw: Be careful what you wish for. Here she was, an ambitious political woman with the sort of egalitarian marriage that would put the Swedes to shame. Here she was, a charismatic, working-class heroine who oozed folksy provincialism with the naturalness of Lyndon Johnson in the same breath as she cheered her Hillary Clintonesque assault on the “glass ceiling.” Yes, here she was—clinging to her guns, her religion, and her babies, and saying, and apparently believing, all the wrong things.
But “calm and collected” are not the words that come to mind to describe the feminist response to the governor from Alaska. The young feminist Jessica Grose, writing on the popular website Jezebel just after the Republican convention, was—well, we’ll let her describe it: “When Palin spoke on Wednesday night, my head almost exploded from the incandescent anger boiling in my skull. . . . What I feel for her privately could be described as violent, nay, murderous, rage.” Grose’s readers left more than 700 comments, according to the late New York Sun, including one from a reader who wanted to “vomit with rage.” Other haters damned Palin as a traitor to her sex or an “insult to women,” as Judith Warner spat in the New York Times. “Turncoat bitch!” the comedian Sandra Bernhard railed in a performance caught on YouTube. “You whore in your cheap fucking . . . cheap-ass plastic glasses and your hair up!” Writing on a Washington Post blog, Wendy Doniger, a Hinduism specialist at the University of Chicago Divinity School, topped them all: Palin’s “greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman.”
No one on our side has an obligation to support Palin just because Palin has been a target of almost unbelievable hatred merely for being. Support whomever you want, and make the case for other Republican candidates, but don’t join the mob as some people did in the wake of the Tucson shooting.
Palin is not just another potential Republican candidate. Palin is someone who has endured attacks by the mainstream media, entertainment establishment, and left-blogosphere second to no one currently active in Republican politics.
Palin’s political and economic survival under this assault is why Palin’s supporters in the Republican Party are more motivated than those of any other potential candidate.
And it is why people like me, who currently are open-minded as to the field of potential candidates in the absence of knowing who will run, will not support any Republican candidate during the primaries who attacks Palin. (Yes, the Lombardi Rule still takes effect after the primaries are over.)
Palin may not run, and if she runs, she may not win the nomination. But any other Republican candidate who thinks the way to win is to softly mimic the Palin haters does so at his political peril.
Update: I’m also becoming intolerant of trolls.
Update 1-24-2011: Palin in USA Today, on how an inspirational leader is not enough, we need someone who lifts us up rather than puts us down, America’s Lifeguard (h/t HotAir):
I had the privilege of coming of age during the era of Ronald Reagan. I like to think of him as America’s lifeguard. As a teenager, Ronald Reagan saved 77 lives as a lifeguard on the Rock River, which ran through his hometown of Dixon, Ill. The day he was inaugurated in 1981, a local radio announcer famously declared, “The Rock River flows for you tonight, Mr. President.”
The image of the lifeguard seems to represent what Reagan was to America and to the freedom-loving people of the world. He lifted our country up at a time when we were in the depths of economic, cultural and spiritual malaise. We were told that we must accept that the era of American greatness was over; but with his optimism and common sense, President Reagan held up a mirror to the American soul to remind us of our exceptionalism.
And as we all remember, Reagan was the media’s first choice for Republican nominee, and the media did everything it could to see that he was electable.
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Related Posts:
If “She Can’t Win,” Then Neither Can We
It Sounds So Much Better Read Out Loud
Operation Demoralize Is Working
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Comments
I have nothing but absolute disgust for the "Romney" RINO vote. Absolute contempt. It's time to stop voting in the next rich white guy in line.
Three thumbs up!
I have a personal reflex: Any time a candidate/organization/group call to keep somebody out of the Primary process, I mentally move them over to the 'black list' side of my mind.
Primaries aren't just for determining who will get the Big Blue R after their name; Primaries are also where the public gets to get vocal about which debates we want our Party to enter, and which sides of those debates we want them to take. We accept that our final preferred candidate may not use our 'Big Passion' debate point as a springboard to election, but we DO expect them not to actively side against us when the Presidential Debates begin. Take DADT for example: If the majority of the Republican Primary voters don't like DADT, they may still nominate a Candidate who DOES like it… but we expect that his/her preference does not become something he/she campaigns on. Vote your conscience, but don't PROMOTE against our desires.
Candidates have little ability to learn what is important to us as a whole, polls and anecdotal stories notwithstanding. The Primary process is where this all comes out; loudly, publicly, and where it matters: At the ballot.
People who wish to keep Sarah Palin (or any other candidate) out of the Primary process are not trying to keep HER out, they are trying to keep her side of the DEBATE out of the picture. They, too, are afraid of how she will change the political battleground.
So, yeah, I don't think she would make a good President right now. But Lord I want her to be in the Primaries to move the debate her way. No matter WHO we elect, they will have to address her and her issues, on the record.
Wusses need not apply.
Indeed, Professor!
To quote Rush: "Right on, right on, right on!" I will support whoever is nominated and vote for whoever is put up by the Republicans against Obama. However, I completely agree with you – I "will not support any Republican candidate during the primaries who attacks Palin." Well said. May all the usual suspects take notice (we know who you are – RINOs).
Bless you, Professor! Gov. Palin has done nothing to deserve the rancor of anyone, let alone those in her own party.
I don't know what the future holds for her but I admire her pluck, her femininity, her love of family and friends, and her smart-girl politics. She does it all and she does it all in high heels!
Sarah is my hero!
Excellent article Professor! Well said. I like Sarah Palin as a person, for sure. I'm kinda hoping that Pawlenty or Ron Paul or Rand Paul will run, but that's just me. TEA party all the way. 🙂
I do pray that RINO Romney won't be nominated by the Republicans but I fear that they will run him. The Repub higher ups seem hell bent for failure [again], you know?
Exactly! Rinos need not apply and feminists be damned. I get so tired of watching the elites with their lips curled with disdain as they speak about Sarah Palin. Is there anyone else that consistently takes on the progressives and their overreaching party? She speaks and they listen whether they want to or not. They can not help themselves. I will not support anyone that attacks her. It's time for the good ol' beltway boys to be retired and the progs thrown out of our government.
The problem is that for too many conservative pundits the goal is not to win. The goal is to express themselves and the consequences be damned.
Not good politics, citizenship or helpful to healthy interpersonal relationships.
That they are clueless (or uncaring) about the impact on elections and the lives of others shows a deep flaw in understanding the responsibility that comes with position.
Well said Perfessor. For repubs to pile on the democrap anti Palin express is deplorable. Do they think in their wildest imagination that this would give them immunity should they become the front runner or nominee? Just ask McCain how much his kow towing to democrap policies over Republican principles won him adoration from the libtard media after his nomination. And since these republicans didn't defend Palin from scurrilous attacks, they can hardly call for defense from other republicans once they are subjected to the same scathing comments in the future.
One more thing. We need to give a bit of leeway to the other candidates. Their words, some innocuous and some dumb, will be edited and spun. That's what happens when you are in the talk business and are a target of the media.
So, just as it's important to look at full context in the biased and untruthful reporting that Gov. Palin gets, it's important to look at the full context (and give some extra grace) to the other candidates whenever media reports come out on their comments. I'm thinking of poor Gov. Pawlenty's rather innocuous comments on crosshairs after quite nice Palin comments in his book.
“It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.” (Othello)
My female instincts tell me that jealousy underpins the hatred which the Regressive Left feels for Sarah Palin, although they will vehemently deny this suggestion. Nevertheless, I believe this to be true whether the leftist is Jessica Grose or Markos Moulitos, because their remarks about Palin are always catty, hateful, and vulgar. These people intend to get even with Palin for some imaginary wrong-doing.
Superficially, I think these Regressive Leftists resent the fact that Palin is a very beautiful woman. Subliminally, they feel like lovers spurned. How dare this beautiful, charming woman cheat on the left by turning to conservatism!
In a similar vein, leftist ideology also attracts little wanna-be dictators like cats chasing mice, so it is no surprise that people of this ilk verbally abuse Palin, and anyone else who fails to please them. In fact, someone once compared the left’s abusive tendencies to wife beating. Considering the left’s attacks on Palin, and other conservative women, this idea seems more accurate with every passing newsday.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/06/republicans_and_battered_spous.html
Thank you, Professor. I agree with you 100%. Governor Palin has an excellent record of accomplishment in executive office. She has the right character, the grit and the fortitude, the bedrock deep American values — she has what it takes for the Presidency. The only reason her unfavorables are so high is the incessant "two minutes of hate" that the drive-by media continue to spew. If conservative bloggers are so sure the new media can overpower the old, now is the time. Let's see your stuff.
I guess what you are saying to certain potential GOP candidates, professor, is that if the only reason they are running is to attack Palin, don't bother running.
The problem is that the anointed GOP favorite can stay above that fray and get all of the benefit which is, after all, the very point of that strategy. There is absolutely no reason why Giuliani should be running and for him to utter the comment that he would run especially if Palin runs is exactly what I'm talking about. It's not a direct attack on Palin but it reveals exactly why he is running. It's thuggery of a sort that rises above the usual horse race politics.
To return the very same candidates we thrashed in 2006, 2008 and 2010, particularly after the Tea Party movement has made it clear that we want new candidates and a new process is just another insultingly arrogant rebuke to conservatives such as we saw in 2006 where the Bush/McCain/Kennedy amnesty effort cost the GOP big in the elections only to see them put that bill right back on the docket as priority #1. It's the same people with the same agenda doing the same old crap.
It's different this time and I have no confidence that the "Lombardi Rule" will be respected. And more and more people are immune from the contrived "Buckley Rule" for the same reason that I am… I am no longer a Republican. I have been an unaffiliated conservative independent since November 2006. I gave up on the GOP long ago and am now looking for conservatives to either take over the GOP in 2011 or I am voting 3rd party. That is where I believe all conservatives should be.
I've noticed that every woman that feels a need to bash Sarah Palin has accomplished less with their own life.
I was just saying this on another blog. I am not sure about Palin but I am sure I've had it with attacks on her.
Here is what I said on my blog about Gloria Borger's articl on CNN.com declaring people were tired of her:
"Gloria, remember this: Sarah is a quick study. She knows how to drop out of sight, recoup and recuperate and reinvent herself. She will take note of the fact that she is seen as divisive and polarizing and she will ace it. We’ve seen it all before. It’s her pattern.
Meanwhile, you need to base your articles on more research than a poll or two, your sense that “there is a feeling,” what Newt thinks and what “some Republicans” are saying. This is the least of the “evidence” you presented:
As Erick Erickson, the editor of the conservative RedState.com and a CNN contributor, told me, it’s not really about what Palin has achieved. “By 2012,” he says, “people are going to be so tired of her they’re going to want to avoid eye contact. It’s not fair, but it’s reality.”
Really? This guy knows how I and many others will feel by 2012? No mood swings? What a country. Everyone’s a prophet. Gloria, pay attention and stop crossing the line between fortune-telling and reportage."
How Palin has been treated says a lot about us these days and less about her.
I can't blame you, Professor. Remember, they don't call the Establishment the Stupid Party for nothing.
In the 1964 Campaign, Rockefeller worked overtime to help the press destroy Goldwater. Nixon, on the other hand, worked overtime trying to get Barry elected. The activist Republicans remembered in 1968.
Mark this down: the Establishment has made a Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with the Obama Democrats to try and destroy Palin AND the TEA Party movement. It's all about the Pork and keeping the Ponzi going. If you actually believe that that Establishment actually cares about unseating Obama in 2012, then that is your first mistake. They don't give a damn. The last Republicans who cared about conservative principles were the Reagan people who left town when Ron and Nancy left town in1988.
Well, except for Peggy Noonan, who is trying to make us forget about how she became a cheerleader for Obama. I find these days that the less I hear about Peggy, the better.
Those who walk point should receive support from those who follow, not additional fire.
As you've pointed out many times, how can it be so easy for lefty bloggers and MSM to lure so many into this trap?
Sarah Palin is out there, in the limelight or the gunsight or whatever. She's not 'waiting her turn' the way some of her colleagues are. She is what she is and has been made into a national symbol of someone who is not 'the beloved president'. Well, unless those who want a different president in 2012 wake up, the forces poisioning the water will have their way with the airwaves and newspapers throughout the land and any candidate opposing the president will be sunk.
These folks waiting in line hoping for Sarah and the Tea Partiers to just go away will see their own hopes go with them if they keep it up. You're doing all you can (sigh).
Thank you for this, Professor Jacobson.
I am convinced that the Presidency was within the grasp of the McCain-Palin ticket at the moment Governor Palin finished her acceptance speech, and was lost primarily as a result of the shabby treatment she received from her own team.
Senator McCain's selection of Governor Palin to be his running mate was an act of political genius. What followed St. Paul was an act of political surrender. The team that wanted to win the Presidency won the Presidency. I'm not sure that our team even knew what it wanted.
When Governor Palin decides what she wants, she and her supporters will have my support, and her detractors, as you say, will not.
"And it is why people like me, who currently are open-minded as to the field of potential candidates in the absence of knowing who will run, will not support any Republican candidate during the primaries who attacks Palin. (Yes, the Lombardi Rule still takes effect after the primaries are over.)"
Yes, and I stand among those "people like me!"
The failure of the Republican national establishment visibly and audibly to command colleagues and associates to belay the Palin trash talk, and worse, to compliment blood poison for the sacrilegious election rally harangue at Tucson, has made me consider that the effects of drugs, promiscuity and step parents in this country has consigned its strength to paralysis and its heart to darkness. I cannot yet bring myself to that conclusion but neither can I not consider its necessity.
Your attitude in this particular lightens my heart. With luck, others of your profession are following the same or a parallel course. Besides myself, none other in my profession is of whom I aware.
@ pasadenaphil: it's not, in the first instance and fundamentally, a party thing, a political thing, its a moral thing and a spiritual thing. Elsewhere today someone commented that if gas goes to $5/gallon blood poison will lose in 2012. That is so superficial as to be suspect of a troll's mission, specifically a moby. If Americans are so selfish and so lazy that their destiny turns on the price of gasoline, they deserve a dictator and I wish this current one on them, who include myself.
No, if moral courage cannot prevail, nothing can overthrow a dictatorship, because only a moral/spiritual principle (of liberty, justice, honor, duty, self-reliance, self-sacrifice, etc.) inspires power sufficient to overthrow a dictatorship, or prevent one. Napoleon: "The moral is to the material as three is to one." The greatest power of all is the power of self-sacrifice. cf. aetiology of recent events in Tunisia.
As I see it, Professor Jacobson in this post is saying that the moral/spiritual principle governs: trash Sarah Palin and you lose me in the primary. Whether or not I have read the Professor accurately, that is how *I* feel and will act, certainly. Ultimately, I don't give a damn about parties or politics. I care about treating a person (Sarah Palin or any lady or gentleman, an unborn or birthed child, etc.) as a person and not a thing.
Get the morals straight and the politics will follow, there will be the indomitable crew of workers to carry an election. Dharma protects those who protect Dharma.
I love Sarah. She's the only one with any cajones in the current crop that is willing and able to take on Obama. All the repubics, as "the great one" calls them are utterly and completely spineless…If they'd treat the dems as hard as they always turn on their own, maybe their approval rating wouldn't be in the toilet too. I think Sarah and Col West would be a fabulous ticket.
"Those who walk point should receive support from those who follow, not additional fire."
Roger that, and thank you for your service to our country! Palin and Bachmann have been on point from the start of operations.
I neglected to mention that, like the Professor, I, too, affirm that the Lombardi Rule applies after the primaries.
Prof. Jacobson, you're a dear and brilliant mensch.
As a woman, and no one here is bringing up the gender perspective which is strictly non-PC, I only will respect a male Republican nominee who has vociferously defended a fellow (female) Republican from gratuitous, nasty, cheap attacks.
Is my stance sexist? I. don't. care. Sarah can fend for herself, yes. But men who don't rally to the cause of batting down scurrilous innuendo and lies, especially those against a woman, seem to be less than principled and manly, and that's just how it is to me and others who grew up thinking men are supposed to be gallant and strong, or why vote for them or marry them. Something like that. If men are not chivalrous or defenders by nature, then why not select a strong and principled woman to lead this country, instead?
Palin can handle herself, no doubt, better than most men, but it's how the men who claim to be worthy of defending this country and on her side ideologically handle themselves in the face of unfounded, opportunistic attacks against somebody, especially a woman, that will define their worthiness for holding office, at least for me.
So far, I only see Sarah as worthy– the field of potential Republican male nominees took advantage of Palin being unfairly and heinously attacked and didn't do the RIGHT thing. Damn disappointing to some of us. Right now, all the male Republican contenders look like adolescent girls to me, given their tepid to self-serving responses.
There's something about the Presidency and defense of this country and values that should resonate viscerally, and our GOP guys are failing the gut check. Sarah's mostly on her own and showing more moxie and substance, despite.
She still has my vote, so far.
With Sarah against Barry, it will be the most vetted candidate ever against the least vetted candidate ever.
For all that they have thrown at her, Palin stands in the clearing smoke, strong, proud and unscathed. There is a reason for this vetting process. It hones the steel and makes it stronger. Once elected the new President will have the weight of the world on her shoulders. The hardened steel will be able to take it. Unlike Obama and his thin-skinned attacks on his perceived enemies.
A woman has to be three times as good to get one-third the votes. as a neophyte she almost brought McCain even with Obama – this next time she will be unbeatable, even with the screeching harpies of the left against her.
Nice piece of efficient clarity, Professor. Bravo Zulu!
I have heard Sarah Palin pronounced politically dead before. They were wrong then and they are wrong now. As for Erick Erickson's comment, I'm not going to let the media decide whom I will support. As Bob Marley said, "How long shall they kill our prophets, while we stand around and look?"
If Palin's negatives are higher than Romney's or Pawlenty's, it is because the media hasn't gone after Romney or Pawlenty yet. Make no mistake. They will go after whoever gets the nomination. The difference is they already used up all their ammo on Sarah.
Robert is right: it will not matter who gets the nomination, they will be a de facto idiot in the eyes of the MonoMedia.
Why we still heart Sarah Palin
“She’s not a Harvard lawyer but she knew what the Founders meant…”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100072431/why-we-still-heart-sarah-palin/
10-04 professor.
Professor: as usual, a fine post. Re modern feminism: I give you the fruits of their labors (no pun intended)–Dr Kermit Gosney of Philadelphia. That is the face of modern of modern feminism. As long as abortion is the only issue they have, they have reaped the whirlwind. Coupled of course with hate for someone who doesnt fit into their world view, eg, Ms Palin.
As to republican candidates–I thought your post on the dem playbook was prescient–Mr Romney may become the first target of the MSM–they will pick off each contender as they emerge. That said, my fervent wish is for the republicans to take the senate (and it looks good) and let Mr Obama win relection–at least we will have have gridlock which imo is a good thing. Having Mr Obama win relection takes the racism meme off the table.
Continue to fight the good fight professor.
"sympathy vote"? file under: Nikki Haley
If Sarah were to win (and I will vote for her if she does) the events here in SC are foretelling of what she would recieve but only thirtyfold.
The State, the McClatchy rag here, has published nonstop hit pieces since she was elected
The artsy crowd is up in the air over her comments regarding SC ETV.
God help us all, but I can say…WE are in the majority. don't fall for the media ruse of controlling the narrative. Ignore and boycott….turn the tables on them. I wrote The State and informed them that I had cancelled my subscription, would not put 75 cents in a paper rack for an issue and was encouraging my friends to do the same….I got a snarky reply from the online editor explaining to me how I was wrong. To hell with the MSM.
Yes, I too am astonished at the snide directed toward Palin. I can understand those who favor another candidate, but I simply do not understand people like the powerline boys who consistently promulgate the mantra that "Palin can't win". What are these people going to do if Palin were to win the primary and we then have a Palin-Obama election. Are they going to still claim Palin can't win and hence, by default, support Obama?
A lot of the Palin bashing is an attempt to establish credentials. Most of those offering the bashing give little reason for their objections.
I lost a lot of respect for Rove when he started trashing O"Donnell. It just was not necessary except maybe as a way to bolster his credentials. Meh.
It's good to hear your perspective here Professor. Back in 2008 I wrote the following concerning the reaction to Palin:
'Here is a question: There are four people running for the top political jobs in the country, none of whom write their own speeches, why is it the media only says of the lone female candidate, "She doesn't write her own speeches you know"? The implication being if you have a penis, well you could have written your own speech if you felt like it. But, what? You have a vagina?? Well, then it's questionable.
'There is a reason that this sort of thing still goes on I believe. It has to do with the transition of feminism away from the liberal tradition of people like Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill, which was built around a belief in the innate potentialities of all people regardless of their sex, and towards a view that sees women as perpetual victims who require "liberation" (in a neo-Marxian sense usually) from the "patriarchal hegemony." People who follow this second way of viewing feminism refuse to look at women as individuals. For them women are not individuals, but members of an oppressed class. This allows practitioners of this particular ideology, of which there are many in the media, to denigrate the accomplishment of women who fail to have the proper "gender consciousness" (modelled on the idea of "class consciousness" of course.) The storyline is hidden, but far from subtle: "If Sarah Palin were really a strong woman," so they argue," she wouldn't be a Republican." Therefore they feel the need to undo the reality of her actual person hood by claiming she is some sort of living, breathing Potemkin Village; for many in the MSM Sarah Palin has to be a fraud or a Rovian plot… anything but what she actually is….'
So, I do sympathize with your general point here, particularly since there are so called Republicans who have "objections" to Palin which are less than principled.
For myself, I have trouble not seeing her leaving the Governorship of Alaska early as anything but a liability.
Dana Milbank (formerly of Journplist) is calling for a Palin free month of February. I plan to make up for it, and am inviting other bloggers to do the same.
http://rabidsanity.blogspot.com/2011/01/i-can-quit-anytime-i-want-to.html
STEVE–dana milbank is a montebank whose whole claim to fame came when he donned a blaze orange hunting vest to pick at dick cheney–Milbank hasnt got a brain nor does he have the credibility chops to achieve a palin free month-
Aint going to happen–
never make a threat you cant back up–Milbank will look even stupider than usual after Feb
I agree with the Professor, I may not vote for Palin, there is a long ways to go, but by God you really have to wonder why so many people hate her. It's as if the Devil himself is afraid of her, and will enlist all his tricks and lies, and useful idiots to get her off the field before the last battle starts. That gives me pause to think, perhaps there is more to her than I realize. And I don't want the Devil to win.
Anyone who'd like to understand what's going on here should get a copy of Arnold Mitchell's (1982?) The Nine American Lifestyles. He portrays the antagonism the more affluent left has for the middle class.
The last forty years have seen the steady supplanting of middle-class leadership by the Democrats, by both parties really, in favor of elites. When Palin walked out on the stage to accept the nomination, she represented the reemergence of the middle class as a factor in American politics (and a particularly appealing, unambiguous and unapologetic representative to boot).
Elites on the left (and their Beltway chums on the right) could hardly have imagined a more unwelcome development. Without a cowed middle class, elite social control does not go forward.
Never bring a lap dog to a grizzly fight.
Rinos, pundits, and members of the ruling classes need to remember that.
http://alfin2100.blogspot.com/2011/01/never-bring-lap-dog-to-grizzly-fight.html
"And it is why people like me, who currently are open-minded as to the field of potential candidates in the absence of knowing who will run, will not support any Republican candidate during the primaries who attacks Palin."
I assume you mean here personal attacks of the nasty sort. There are certainly legitimate issues with her personally. Her early resignation from the Alaska governorship is a legitimate personal issue, for example.
Personally, I am a fan. She is smart and accomplished. I like what I see about her character. I agree with her on almost all issues.
I don't know about a candidacy for president for reasons of electability.
As a lefty populist who voted for Hillary in the primary and McCain/Palin the the general, what I see happening to Palin is very similar to what happened to Hillary. The media was instructed to take her out, make her quit, no lie too stupid or vile would be spared.
I really hope that Palin wins your primary because I really want a chance to vote for her. Anyone the media hates that much cannot be all bad.
(And for the love of all that's holy, please don't nominate whoever the media anoints.)
When the feminist movement was finally into full swing, it was all about "equality". Equal pay for equal work, having it all; family and career, and being about to do it in a pant's suit. Women walked around in t-shirts with "A Woman Needs A Man Like A Fish Needs A Bicycle" slogan on them. It was "equality", boys and girls.
But as the movement went on, its real purpose became clear to some of us, like Tammy Bruce. It wasn't about "equality", it was about free love and abortion. Gloria Steinham didn't give a damn if women with Ph.D.s were stuck in stock rooms as mail clerks as long as they could abort the results of their free loving ways.
Enter Sarah Palin: a "homemaker" who worked alongside her husband in a dirty job (a man's job), who joined the PTA and didn't like what she saw and decided to run for office (mayor of Wasilla not a big deal) but then, she had the audacity to think she could be governor of a large state. So Sarah Palin put all those feminists slogans into play that she too, could have it all. She took on the "good ole boy" establishment and beat them at their own game.
And when the time came for her right to "choose", she chose life for her handicapped child.
But the feminists never meant for the right to choose to mean choosing life over abortion. So they verbally flogged her and haven't stopped.
Sarah Palin did it all; she had a truely equal marriage, she had children AND a career, she didn't deny her own femininity or whine how she could not acheive because she was being held back by her male peers, and she understood the "right to choose" as being able to choose life as well as abortion.
She took the rhetoric that was the original feminist movement and put them into practical application. But they, the TRUE feminists, who had never managed to do that, could not stand that so they set out to destroy her.
As to why the rest of the Establishment pols (especially those on the GOP side) must destroy her, if they can, look no further than what was said about Lincoln. Not an Eastern elite but a child of the prairie, not educated in a tony university but a self taught lawyer, not an overly handsome man with a electric personality but a man too tall for his times and deeply serious and not a man who seemed to be qualified for president of the fractured United States. He was vilified, demonized and slandered. Yet, Lincoln prevailed, and the rest is history.
I read all the "Palin's not qualified to be President" mantra, yet, according to the U.S. Constitution, she meets the requirements. And perhaps more so that what not sits in the leather chair in the Oval Office today. And perhaps it IS time we have someone who is not an elite, who was not educated at a tony university, who doesn't elude charisma with every word (from a teleprompter, no less) and can speak from the heart because they, like Lincoln, are one of us common people.
I too live on the Rock River, about 45 miles upstream from Dixon.
My fave (for now) is Gary Johnson. But I like Palin too.
And I just love the way she strikes fear into the heart of the establishment.
BTW I don't give a durn about electability. I love the way she makes heads explode. A year's worth of exploding heads is worth a LOT to me.
The media has a long history of defining conservatives as idiots, and their favored candidates as brainiacs. Author Jack Cashill has just written a great article on this topic.
Sarah Palin and The Legacy of Republican 'Idiocy'
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/01/sarah_palin_and_the_legacy_of.html
Conservatives who embrace the media's meme about Palin deserve to be called idiots.
Speaking of the media, university journalism schools are the birthplace of bad journalists, yet those schools seem to escape public scrutiny. Seems to me it's time to put the microscope on their training methods, expose them in the blogosphere, and go out of our way to reward schools that actually produce fair and balanced reporters.
Not an easy task, but considering the damage the major networks have done to conservatives for decades, and especially the way they now attack Palin, I say it's time we consider new strategies that will either speed up the lamestream media's demise, or change it for the better.
It's my impression that most Palin bashing on the right has come from opinion writers, not presidential contenders (with the exception of a comment from Romney?) and rarely from GOP Congressional politicians. Candidates always "attack" each other during the primaries — and we learn a lot about them that way, from both the nature of the attack and the response. Every candidate tries to make the case that he would be a better President than another. Would arguing that Palin is inexperienced or quit the only executive job she's ever had, for example, be an attack? One could phrase it in the positive, I suppose, but is phraseology the new non-negotiable standard? There's certainly room for improvement, but I have almost no idea what you mean by "softly mimic the Palin haters," which sounds like it could cover an awful lot of ill-defined political ground.
There's a flip side to phenom you're addressing. I know I feel compelled to all list the things I love about Palin, before voicing the least bit of considered criticism or reservations about a Palin presidency, in order to avoid — often unsuccessfully — being attacked by Palin's own supporters for being all manner of things. Most of us who have done so, now largely avoid talking about Palin at all. I have reservations about all the other current presidential contenders too, which I can express in far stronger terms without eliciting any particular ire at all.
I certainly recognize and despise the unending viciousness which Palin has withstood with uncommon grace, and have also risen to her defense. But in your call for a general ceasefire, I'd also appreciate a call for an end to the ceaseless, deliberately offensive, attacks in the rightwing blogosphere on so-called RINOs, by those who apparently consider themselves the only true conservatives. Suggestions that anyone who doesn't toe a similar line should be drummed out of the Republican party as a traitor to the cause are legion. Unfortunately, it takes remarkably little to be consigned to that putatively enemy camp.
has made me consider that the effects of drugs, promiscuity and step parents in this country has consigned its strength to paralysis and its heart to darkness.
Watch out bub. I support the right of people to use any substance they can afford. I'm a champion of promiscuous sex (for those so inclined). I'm still married to the same woman after 38 years of going together and marriage. I still wouldn't do anything about divorce.
Oh yeah.
From 2008:
Window Stickers – Hippies For McCain Palin
In that election I voted for the Woman. As a Navy man I was partial to McCain (not his politics). Palin closed the deal for me.
My first mate is comfortable packing heat. Oh yeah she is the mother of my four children. One of whom is teaching American Culture to Russians – My revenge for the Cold War.
Conservatarian: WRONG. I would here like to formulate another rule for the mix:
Reagan's Rule: Thou shalt not vote for a Republican who attacks or belittles other Republicans.
Do you want to say Gingrich is wrong? Cool, so do I. And if you want to say Sarah is wrong on some point or other, go for it. But any belittlement, any personal sniping, so much as a dirty look: no votes for you.
You can point out how you think your position is right, but no attacking some other Republican's position.
"Tolerance" is the intellectual equivalent of morphine, that idiots (i.e., "liberals") shoot into their veins because they lack the moral fortitude to take any stand that is not "given from above" (i.e., purveyors of leftist talking points).
@strunked! well said, and I could not agree more. And this is why I think that the other potential candidates had better not be whining about being attacked from the right unless they are willing to 'walk point' for a while and take the fire she has been taking for them. Why aren't we seeing those men standing up in front of her and DEFENDING her, instead of ducking behind her skirts? Let the rabid media vet you, let them heave their best ammunition at you now. Then I'll know I can safely vote for you, as I know I can vote for Sarah.
Sarah Palin, although not perfect, is easily my first choice for President. My own personal slogan is, "A Vote For Sarah Palin Is A Vote For Mass SUicide"! The idea of potentially tens of thousands of leftists and RINOs jumping off bridges and buildings blowing their brains out and slitting their wrists brings almost as big a smile to my face as my most favorite rock group name-The Dead Kennedys.
At this point, I don't care about "electability". Not in the slightest. I (and, I suspect, a large fraction of the American electorate) am sick to death of politicians afraid to take a stand.
Sarah Palin has demonstrated that she is not afraid of ANYTHING. She has walked through the fire and come out with her principles stronger than ever. As others here have pointed out, she's not afraid to stick her neck out and defend those she feels deserve defending. How many of her Republican colleagues would do the same for her?
As I've commented elsewhere: in 2012, the Republican nominee will either be a Sara Palin – backed candidate, or will be Sarah Palin. The Democrats are correct to be scared to death of her; she wields more raw political power than just about anyone else today.
To me, that's the reason why they attack her; bring her down, and the Republican "fire in the belly" goes away. They have no choice but to attack her with everything they've got. That she continues to stand tall, in spite of all she's been through, is a testament to her and an indictment of her critics.
Will I vote for Sarah Palin in 2012 if she runs? Damn straight I will.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
As a woman, and no one here is bringing up the gender perspective which is strictly non-PC, I only will respect a male Republican nominee who has vociferously defended a fellow (female) Republican from gratuitous, nasty, cheap attacks.
There is so much truth in that statement and yet 30 years of hardcore feminism has given some, perhaps most, men the excuse to not defend women. Shameful…simply shameful.
That Republican men have NOT stood up and defended her says a lot about the morality they think we cannot see.
Sarah Palin, although not perfect, is easily my first choice for President. My own personal slogan is, "A Vote For Sarah Palin Is A Vote For Mass SUicide"! The idea of potentially tens of thousands of leftists and RINOs jumping off bridges and buildings blowing their brains out and slitting their wrists brings almost as big a smile to my face as my most favorite rock group name-The Dead Kennedys.
+1,000,000
Another problem that needs to be addressed is the "open primary," where Democrats and other non-Republicans get to have a say in who should be the Republican nominee. Given the outsized influence of New Hampshire on the primary process, this state in particular should not hold an open primary. This phenomenon, I believe, is largely responsible for giving us the McCain candidacy in 2008, and very nearly did so in 2000.
@ JM Hanes: It's not RINOs, it's ethics. When a man doesn't defend a woman under attack, at the cost of his life if necessary, he is despicable and deserves shunning until such time as he demonstrates character. You know why? Because he is a coward. The same is true, BTW, for a woman seeing a man under attack, especially if he is her husband, but also generally for any man. The human obligation is mutual and absolute.
It's not politics (many tics), it's character. RINOs don't have it. They are neither men nor women, they are cowards. That's the issue: cowardice or courage.
Sarah Palin is not only a woman, i.e., a feminine personality saturated in courage, she is a lady, a human being of character, and I will stand by her and any lady or gentleman in any way I am allowed regardless of cost to myself. That is how I feel. That's what is at issue here. It's not politics, Hanes, it's character.
If Palin runs, anyone whose expectation is that other GOP contenders and leaders, politicians and pundits who support other candidates should not attack Palin had better start preparing for a huge disappointment. Beginning with the contending for Iowa caucus goers votes, knocking Palin out of serious contention will be Job One for a half dozen other candidates, and the acrimony will make the inter-party "incivility" of recent days look like quiet time in a kindergarten.
God bless you. i don't understand PDS, and have debated/argued Palin's strengths – AND her weaknesses – with hundreds of people who are otherwise entirely reasonable; when it comes to Sarah Palin, they become LUNATICS.
she's my candidate of choice, but as a realist i understand the obstacles she's facing should she decide to run. for "conservatives" to join in the type of vicious attacks advanced by the left is unforgivable.
At this point, I don't care about "electability". Not in the slightest. I (and, I suspect, a large fraction of the American electorate) am sick to death of politicians afraid to take a stand.
Dang straight, Daniel … focusing on "electability" means focusing upon the conventional-wisdom-driven status quo that put us in the fine-kettle-of-fish we're in today.
Forget "gravitas", forget flowery erudition, forget the now-traditional definition of "Presidential" that so many seem to be fixated upon … as I have said before, Ms. Palin, or someone like her who is just as willing to emphasize the 800-lb gorillas of fundamental truth that the "nuanced" are missing, may be just what we need to CTL-ALT-DEL our political system.
The Re-, er Progressives fear and loathe her, for basically the same reason that the professional/political complex that stretches across both major parties fear and loathe her … if one who refuses to be groomed and gatekept by such as these gains credibility with the American people, the influence of these self-appointed groomers and gatekeepers will be reduced to insignificance, if not outright obsolescence … especially when such an "upstart" espouses principles of individual liberty and restrained governance that will reach well beyond their tenure in office, if adopted (again) by We the People.
That is why they are focusing their fire upon her, and will do so to anyone like her.
That is why we need to stand with her, and anyone like her … from someone who leaves a comment supporting such principles on a blog in the face of the sneers of "smart" people, to someone with a vast public voice (and therefore becomes a big target) like Ms. Palin.
All these give voice, not necessarily to something "new", but to principles that MILLIONS of Americans have already REASONED OUT for themselves to be sound … but are pooh-poohed by those who consider themselves "thinking people" because their application might not make things "fair" in their eyes, or might harsh their mellow by allowing credible criticism of their recreational and lifestyle choices.
They strain at gnats … and swallow camels of dysfunction, and destruction, whole in their highly-credentialed ignorance.
We can no longer afford to defer to them, if we want to sustain a functional nation. That is why we need those like Sarah Palin.
"… because their application might not make things "fair" in their eyes, or might harsh their mellow by allowing credible criticism of their recreational and lifestyle choices."
"They strain at gnats … and swallow camels of dysfunction, and destruction, whole in their highly-credentialed ignorance."
There is the voice of Hebrew Prophetism and the Protestant Principle: glorious, pungent, pellucid, vigilant, leonine. I do love it so!
@ J. E. Burke: It's not politics, Burke, it's character.
Well I'm just a pore dumb redneck and can only believe the evidence before me. Palin ended the careers of many crooked Republican Pols up there in Alaska. Now other Republican Pols attack her. I can only assume they are afraid she will end their crooked careers as she has already done.
There may be another reason, I will require proof. I contend the proper answer to any Republican Pol attacking (not disagreeing) Palin should be "oh, you're crooked too?"
THANK YOU, I couldn't have said it better myself.
Rock on professor!
Like I said before, I'm NOT a big fan of Sarah Palin, but I hate the Left even more.
I won't defend her reality show or her decision to quit as Alaska's governor, but I will defend her from unfair and libelous attacks coming from the Left and the Frum RINOs.
I want her to know that I got her back. We rightwingers need to do this for the sake of party unity. i don't want Palin's followers to do a PUMA.
but i tell you bill, if she gets nominated for the GOP presidency, the Tea Party ceases to become relevant after november 2012.
simply put, you nominate her, you destroy the tea party. Christine o'Witch was the early warning sign.