CSM on the Snark and Pettiness of Geoffrey Dunn

Dunn's book is "400-plus pages of unsubstantial but toxic prose."
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It's so rare to see a defense of Sarah Pain in such a "progressive" publication as The Christian Science Monitor, that we had to double check the masthead to convince ourselves that we weren't reading a Jedediah Bila op-ed at The Daily Caller or a John Hayward opinion piece at Human Events. But, no, it was indeed the usually anti-Palin CSM displayed on the monitor right before our very eyes. We were even more surprised to learn that the article's author, Kelly Nuxoll, is a frequent contributor ("citizen journalist") to the very anti-Palin Huffington Post. Nevertheless, it's a resounding refutation of Geoffrey Dunn's book, The Lies of Sarah Palin. The fact that Dunn is also a HuffPo contributor probably accounts for the Nuxoll piece landing at CSM rather than at Arianna's place.

Some excerpts:

It seems that everyone has something to say about Palin, not least Geoffrey Dunn, an investigative reporter and Huffington Post contributor who has regurgitated the political bile of the last two election cycles in 400-plus pages of unsubstantial but toxic prose. “The Lies of Sarah Palin” is an extended ad hominem attack with little fresh information, analysis, or insight. Readers sympathetic to Palin will likely find that Dunn’s dismissive tone confirms the worst characterizations of left-leaning media. Readers not sympathetic to Palin may find that Dunn’s argument misses the mark. Many voters have real objections to Palin. That she waves like a beauty pageant contestant is not one of them.

The book’s central thesis is that Palin is ambitious and deceitful. The first accusation seems irrelevant. Unless we alter our political process so as to foist public office on resisting citizens as punishment, we must accept that our representatives will be ambitious. Let it go.

Dunn’s second point – that Palin habitually plays fast and loose with the truth – has more significant implications for a public official. Though, again – really? A politician fudged? This merits a book? Dunn’s argument is made particularly thin by the examples he provides.

[...]

His indignation might be more persuasive if he offered new or compelling information for his charges; however, the bulk of his case against Palin is built out of conversations with people who don’t like her. The result doesn’t feel so much like rigorous reporting as a transcript of the seventh grade.

[More]

Somehow it seems fitting that Dunn, who so often has used the web pages of Huffington Post as a battleground to prosecute the left's War on Sarah Palin, should have his book exposed as just another collection of unsubstantiated ad hominem attacks at the seventh-grade level by one of his own HuffPo co-contributors.

We wonder if there are more liberal authors who will, when reviewing Dunn's book, show the same intellectual honesty as did Kelly Nuxoll. Or will they pander to the salivating left and simply join in his gratuitous and unsubstantiated Palin-bashing?

- JP

SFChron: Palin's 'Paranoid Politics'

-By Warner Todd Huston

Once again the extreme left goes into a conservative-bashing theory without the slightest knowledge of human nature, not to mention owning even a tiny bit of introspection. This time it is one Geoffery Dunn of the San Francisco Chronicle who told his readers that Palin exemplifies America's ages-old "paranoid-style politics."

The piece is interesting for the fact that it is apparent that as the left-wing Dunn talks about "American paranoid-style politics" he offers examples from only the conservative side of the aisle. Apparently Mr. Dunn imagines "paranoia" only resides on the right in that "American" politics of which he assumes to be an expert.

Dunn amusingly praises the long-ago work of leftist professor Richard Hofstadter, whose fame came from his 1964 book "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." Dunn was a Marxist in an era when Marxists infested American politics as Russian archives proved years ago. Hofstadter was an avowed communist who associated with the anti-capitalist, anti-American "historian" Charles Beard, whose hackneyed work tearing down America’s founders was well debunked decades ago by Forrest McDonald. But whatever Hofstadter was, he wasn't an unbiased observer of American politics. He wrote from an extreme left-wing point of view and castigated conservative politics from that ideological vantage point.

Still, Dunn uses Hofstadter as if he were an unimpeachable source. Worse, Dunn does not inform his readers of just how biased Hofstadter was, calling him merely a "widely celebrated professor." He was celebrated, alright. By Kruschev, the Soviets and their sold-out American sycophants in academia. Dunn slyly leaves his readership ignorant of this history.

Strike one for Dunn's veracity. After all, using Hofstadter as a source to assess American conservatism is like asking Michael Vick's dogs if humans make good caretakers!

After his love-fest for the communist professor, Dunn goes on to attack Governor Palin as a "paranoid" politician implying her style is hyperbolic.

In many ways, Hofstadter's prescient essay anticipated the entree of Sarah Palin into contemporary American politics, that last month marked the one-year anniversary of her failed candidacy as the Republican vice presidential nominee. During the past year, the former governor of Alaska has tapped into a narrow, albeit tenacious, strain in the national polity that stretches back to the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692.

Seriously? The Salem witch trials are somehow just like Palin? Now who is hyperbolic?

Dunn goes on to tick off one by one all the "paranoid" and "restrictive" politics that he feels Palin indulges, interspersing these accusations with more quotes from the anti-American professor he finds so favorable. But one thing becomes clear. Dunn doesn't seem to see any examples of "paranoid politics" on the left.

He doesn't seem to have noticed, for instance, Nancy Pelosi calling anyone that opposes her healthcare bill "un-American." It slipped right by him that Obama's "green czar" said that 9/11 was committed by the government. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., William Ayers, Cynthia McKinney, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jacksson, or for that matter just about every leftist politician and activist from 1967 to the present day seems to have escaped Dunn's notice. Dunn can't seem to remember the many lefties during the 1990s that claimed that all Republicans wanted to "starve children," the many lefty 9/11 truthers, the parade of TV personalities that have made wild accusations against the right, the wild-eyed fear promulgated by the left over the PATRIOT act, the left’s accusation that all whites are anti-black racists (despite that millions of them voted for Obama), the… well, I could go on for hours like this. The point is, Dunn sees no "paranoid-style politics" on the left.

Let's face it, people. Wild accusations and over-the-top vitriol is not "American paranoid-style politics" but politics. In fact, it isn't even politics, but human nature. For this leftist writer and his ancient communist professor to imagine it is somehow unique to America -- and the American right more specifically -- is, well, idiotic. But, Dunn’s piece does serve as a perfect example of the very same sort of attack style of politics that he castigates.

And there we have that lack of introspection writ large. As Dunn and his hero Hofstadter look down their noses and name-call those they tut-tut for name calling, they reveal such a dearth of philosophical introspection that would almost be comical were it not so common from those on their far left side of the aisle.

Instead of comical, it is just sad, really.

So, one can only react to this piece in what is a quintessentially American way. After seeing the total lack of self knowledge exhibited by Dunn and his dusty commie professor all I can say is…

I know you are, but what am I?

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the extent of the serious consideration that Dunn deserves for this blather.

- WTH