Stacy McCain on the sneering Charles Krauthammer

"There is... a very real possibility of Palin winning the 2012 presidential nomination"
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Stacy McCain reminds us that it is not Charles Krauthammer’s fault that the media are obsessed not only with with presidential politics, but with what they see as their mission from Gawd, The Obamamessiah, to destroy Sarah Palin:

However, it is Krauthammer’s fault that he can’t speak of Palin except to dismiss her with a sneer. (Am I the only one who noticed his significant pause between “glorious” and “woman”?)

Allahpundit isn’t as openly sneering as Krauthammer: “While no one would claim that conservatism begins and ends with Palin, some of her more devoted supporters do seem to regard her as an avatar of the movement.”

Here’s my problem with such dismissive attitudes toward Palin from conservatives: It sets up the 2012 primary contest as a battle between Smart Republicans (who are presumed to oppose Palin) and Dumb Republicans (who presumably support Palin). This message — which is being shouted from the rooftops by Krauthammer, Rove and many others — will tend to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Which is to say, most of the Smart Republicans who take their political cues from the conservative intelligentsia will in fact oppose Palin. But the influence of Rove, Krauthammer et al. is not so great as they wish and, in a multi-candidate field, the irreducible hard core of Palin supporters among GOP primary voters is still large enough to win pluralities in every state where the primary electorate is limited to registered Republicans. (Seriously: Comparing the average Romney supporter to the average Palin supporter, which is more likely to trudge through the snow to attend an Iowa caucus meeting?)

There is therefore a very real possibility of Palin winning the 2012 presidential nomination, at which point all the sneering condescension of the Krauthammer/Rove class will justify the MSM in declaring, “The Dumb Republicans have won!”

And that’s not going to help beat Barack Obama, is it?

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Stacy makes a good point, and we agree. However, we don't share his presumption that Rove, Krauthammer, Frum and their ilk would prefer to see a first Sarah Palin term in the White House to a second Obama term. He argues that the conservative intelligentsia should "start acting as if a Palin presidency were both possible and preferable to Obama’s re-election," but we're not optimistic that will come to pass. After all, how many of those supposed conservatives voted for Obama? Most probably won't admit which lever they pulled when behind the curtains, but many of the Conservative Lite^® elites, including Amanda Carpenter, Joe Scarborough, Bill Bennett, Peggy Noonan were in high song of the freshman Senator's praises in the run up to the 2008 election.

Our biggest problem with Karauthammer is that he seems more offended that the press is obsessed with Gov. Palin, when he should be offended that it is obsessed with her destruction. But Krauthammer and the other right of center elites love the media. They are of the media part and parcel. Media elitism is the hand that has fed them lo these many years, and they dare not bite it. Unlike Sarah Palin, they have shown not the slightest interest in even reforming it.

- JP