Sarah Palin, Provocateur

In his latest from The Greenroom at Hot Air, Doctor Zero says that Sarah Palin fascinates people because she’s provocative:

Every movement needs its scholars, the engineers of its philosophy. It also requires representatives, people who can get elected to office and implement its ideas. To get those representatives elected, there must be people who can master the scholarship, make it understandable to people who aren’t political junkies… and add a little extra zing, a jolt of electricity to capture the imagination of those non-political people.

There are many ways to be provocative. Some of those methods are rude, or confrontational. The only memorable moment in President Obama’s address to Congress on health care reform came when a previously obscure Republican representative couldn’t stomach any more mendacity, and called him a liar. It was an ill-mannered outburst, for which the Congressman apologized… but it was also devastatingly effective. It got people buzzing, and because the Congressman was correct, his outburst prompted furious last-minute adjustments to the President’s legislative proposals, along with weakening the already soft public opinion of those proposals.

The most aggressive provocateurs walk a tightrope across a canyon of bad taste and controversy. Glenn Beck says some wild, hilarious, and outrageous things, in his desperate struggle to awaken rubber-frog voters before the waters of mega-state socialism boil them alive. He’s also been spectacularly right about some very important things, like the Van Jones scandal. Even as Beck reaches new heights of popularity, and drags sleazy characters like Jones out of an administration that major media outlets worship as flawless, a couple of soft-spoken young people with a video camera shock America into action against ACORN, an organization they should have become enraged about long ago. Sometimes you don’t have to say anything to be provocative – you just have to show Americans something their media gatekeepers didn’t want them to see.

Sarah Palin is provocative by her very existence, having followed none of the scripts prepared by the media, or the bitter vampires of McCain’s campaign staff. She electrifies people by speaking with confidence and cheer, to convey ideas that strike the average listener as simple common sense… and which make them realize how radical and deranged the world outside their window has become. Palin’s recent speech in Hong Kong was upbeat and plain-spoken, describing an America of liberty and opportunity, and frankly addressing the murderous evil of our terrorist enemies. The speech becomes electrifying when you realize these ideas would be as incomprehensible to the current Administration as Quaddafi’s lunatic rant before the United Nations.

Palin’s famous “death panel” commentary was powerful because it brought the midnight whispers of an unpleasant truth into the public consciousness. The provocations of someone who used to carry the ancient banner of a great political party must be delivered with elegance and wit… especially if they contemplate taking up that banner again.

Read the unabridged version at Hot Air.