two scenarios
Today, Jason Zengerle writes about Ross Douthat’s column on Sarah Palin. According to Zengerle, “after briefly acknowledging that Palin made mistakes, Ross goes on to blame her plight on elites' mistreatment of her.” Actually, Ross says that “last Friday’s bizarre, rambling resignation speech should take her off the political map for the duration of the Obama era.” And then he says that, while a resignation for personal reasons elicits sympathy, “A Sarah Palin who resigned in the delusional belief that it would give her a better shot at the presidency in 2012 warrants no such kindness.” And then he goes on to write, “With her missteps, scandals, dreadful interviews and self-pitying monologues, she’s botched an essential democratic role — the ordinary citizen who takes on the elites.” Maybe Zengerle didn't read that far. He also thinks that Ross says that hostility to Palin is hostility to the “democratic ideal,” but Ross doesn't say that.
Ross’s actual argument is — and this should be obvious to anyone who’s not as binary as Zengerle — a both/and: Palin “botched” her chance and the “elites” were going to mock her no matter what, just because of the world she came from.
Radley Balko makes a very similar point this morning: “It is possible that Sarah Palin was both unfairly mistreated and personally attacked by the media and many on the left, and that her family was rather ruthlessly and mercilessly run through the ringer . . . and that she’s a not particularly bright, not particularly curious, once libertarian-leaning governor who sadly devolved into a predictable, buzzword spouting culture warrior when she was prematurely picked for national office by John McCain.
“These two scenarios can coexist.”
Indeed they can, and they’re both right.
Nope.
Shorter Douthat— can’t fake the substrate forever.
This is wild justice, Jacobs.
Conservatives have scammed their base with stealth elites pretending to be NYFs (noble yeoman farmers) since Nixon at least.
The storm crows have come home to roost is all.
— matoko_chan · Jul 6, 04:08 PM · #
So what’s with copying my posts, Alan? ;)
— John Schwenkler · Jul 6, 04:10 PM · #
Synchronicity!
— Alan Jacobs · Jul 6, 04:24 PM · #
Well, probably, but not because “elites” hate working-class people – indeed our elites fall all over themselves to identify with the working class, to idolize them, to praise every example of their ignorance and parochialism – but because Palin exemplifies every way that conservativism has failed the average American, yet she became its most prominent mouthpiece.
That’s pretty mock-worthy, it seems to me.
— Chet · Jul 6, 04:24 PM · #
Jacobs, Palin would have been America’s darling if she had had the chops to really be cinderella-at-the-ball.
She didn’t.
Instead of Elle Woods she turned out to be Veruka Salt.
Admit it.
— matoko_chan · Jul 6, 04:31 PM · #
Palin is to “conservative” pundits as onset transmissions of STDs is to “sex-positive” pundits.
— Tony Comstock · Jul 6, 04:32 PM · #
You’re right.
I just wish the press had left the babies alone.
— Julana · Jul 6, 04:39 PM · #
Since in this saga the media became a primary story, here’s something we might want to take away: the one-on-one, friend-and-foe, primetime interview format is a useful corrective for one of democracy’s most natural and potentially-catastrophic malfunctions.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Jul 6, 05:17 PM · #
Thanks to the magic of RSS, I read your post before Ross’s column, and your take was really persuasive. Then I clicked over to Ross’s column, and thought that you’re getting all the emphasis wrong. Summary: There’s no echo of Radley’s “not particularly bright, not particularly curious” in Ross’s post.
To read Ross’ post, the greatest criticism of Palin that you get is that her resignation speech was horrible, and that she botched her chance to do something important. Those are unmistakable criticisms, but they’re gentle compared to Radley’s. Even saying she botched her chance says she had one—that she was up to the task. And who were the elites that she was going to take on, anyway?
Here’s why I think it matters. When someone spends time talking about Bristol Palin, my reaction is that it’s inappropriate. When they speculate about Trig’s parentage, I think that they have no sense of decency. When they mock Trig, as some people actually did…well, I know it’s not strictly a good thing to think “you should burn in hell.” However, there’s a question of whether that’s the tabloid wringer, and a kind of sideshow, or whether they were the most important part of the story of Sarah Palin. And reading Ross’s column, the emphasis clearly is on the criticism that she received from the media—and the basest part of that criticism.
Reading his column, you’d get the impression of a flawed politician subjected to an extremely unfair process. In reality, what we have is an extremely incompetent politician subjected to a combination of withering criticism and unfair and shameful attacks. Radley’s got the emphasis right, Ross doesn’t.
— Justin · Jul 6, 06:58 PM · #
Well, the 411 is that the conservos simply have to scrape her off their shoe and move-on! (hehe) at this point.
When you have lost Krauthammer, Goldberg, Ace and AllahP it’s game ovah.
Time to fold your tent Sarah and silently slip away.
— matoko_chan · Jul 6, 10:12 PM · #
Births are a matter of public record, and not every parent is the biological beget-er of their child. This claim that it’s inherently disgraceful to wonder if a parent is really the genetic ancestor of their child is mystifying. Is this like how it’s “rude” to wonder out loud if the myths of various religions have any basis in historical fact, even though it’s really not rude in any way?
— Chet · Jul 6, 10:29 PM · #
Yes, Chet is exactly right!
Why is it disgraceful to ask for the facts about Trig? I just don’t understand that.
— just some guy with an opinion · Jul 6, 11:11 PM · #
Chet,
How ‘bout we ask for proof of parentage of all the candidates’ children then, just to be fair? I don’t see any reason they should mind, do you? Is it disgraceful or rude, for instance, to ask for the facts about John McCain’s adopted daughter? Maybe she really is his love child.
For that matter, Chet, I’d like proof that you really are the biological issue of your legal parents and not, for instance, the product of your older sister’s incestuous affair with your grandfather. Just a matter of idle curiosity, really. Nothing rude about it, eh?
I’m waiting, Chet. Show me the birth records.
— Kate Marie · Jul 6, 11:18 PM · #
Obviously it’s possible that a politician faked her pregnancy in order to claim that her daughter’s child was her own, then publicly announced her daughter giving birth to a second child a short time later.
What made it disgraceful is the fact that people felt the need to jump in on speculating that Sarah Palin done so without taking the time to investigate fully or even give any prima facie reason for suspicion. I understand that journalists have professional incentives to rush stories, but what that tells me is that they often have professional incentives to behave disgracefully.
— Justin · Jul 6, 11:20 PM · #
Speaking of waiting and rude, EmKay, I’m still waiting for you to get back to me with your response to the Catholic Church’s position on oral sex within the sacrament of marriage I thought it sponsor new thoughts with regard to your position on same sex marriage.
— Tony Comstock · Jul 6, 11:51 PM · #
“What made it disgraceful is the fact that people felt the need to jump in on speculating that Sarah Palin done so without taking the time to investigate fully or even give any prima facie reason for suspicion. I understand that journalists have professional incentives to rush stories, but what that tells me is that they often have professional incentives to behave disgracefully.”
I blame Oakshott.
— Tony Comstock · Jul 6, 11:59 PM · #
Sorry, Tony. I’ve actually been feeling guilty about that. Very Catholic of me, I suppose. :)
As I recall, though, your question to me about the Catholic Church’s position was in reference to a thread which had to do with ideas about whether liberty is necessarily prior to virtue — that is, whether virtue can exist absent the liberty to choose vice? I didn’t quite understand what the paper on oral sex had to do with that — or with my position on SSM, which I’m not sure I’ve ever made clear on this blog.
Could you ask me a leading question or two, to help me understand what you’re gettting at?
— Kate Marie · Jul 7, 12:01 AM · #
What’s disgraceful is not asking for facts, but rather refusing to take “I’m his mother” for an answer and then going on to spread a series of absurd rumors. Try it out on one of your co-workers, and tell me how it goes.
— John Schwenkler · Jul 7, 12:21 AM · #
Schwenkler……Palin volunteered the fantasy delivery story to the media.
It wouldn’t be anyones bidness except she put it out there.
She vomited forth a bunch of patently unbelieveable detail…..now she can plausibly explain it, or just go away.
The story isn’t going away.
It is public record.
Which is it schwenkler?
Is she crazy or a liar?
lol
— matoko_chan · Jul 7, 01:10 AM · #
What’s disgraceful about not taking the word of a liar?
— Chet · Jul 7, 01:16 AM · #
Top Three Conservative Responses to Palin’s speech:
3. It was brilliant, she is Cinncinatus, Washington, and Andy Jackson rolled into one.
2. I don’t personally like her BUT IT IS SOOOOOO UNFAIR to actually hold her accountable for things she said in the public record.
1. Beam me up Scotty these people are fuckin’ crazy.
— matoko_chan · Jul 7, 02:29 AM · #
Can we forget about Palin for a second and talk about Ross Douchat? His father is a law partner in New Haven. He went to a private high school and then Harvard. He actually wrote a magazine piece asserting that Harvard was “too easy” academically. And yet it is the “liberal east coast” bogeyman who each week must be found to be looking down his nose at the everyman Republican.
Maybe if Ross wasn’t a complete partisan hack, he could acknowledge that Palin is a complete fraud and she should not be running anything in America.
— Mark · Jul 7, 05:29 AM · #
No one would likely have ever questioned Trig’s parentage if Sarah Palin had not publicly volunteered an extremely strange story about hiding her pregnancy for 7 months and then further revealing that she defied common sense and the most elementary medical precautions by taking a 17 hour trip back to Alaska from Texas after she had gone into labor — simply so her baby could claim to have been born Alaskan.
Then, when a very small part of the media questioned the circumstances of Trig’s birth, she refused to release both his birth certificate and her medical records, thus compounding the initial oddity of the Trig story.
So, Ms. Palin is the only one responsible for inciting media interest in Trig’s birth. She is also the only one with access to the evidence to disprove rumors about his parentage, but she refuses to release it. Why?
— Justina · Jul 7, 05:49 AM · #