Victor Davis Hanson: The War Against Palin Goes On and On and...

So much for the new Obama age of civility
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Some of the injured in the Tucson shootings had not even reached the hospital before the Democrat/Media Complex launched the latest of its many smear campaigns against Sarah Palin, accusing her initially of being responsible for the carnage, and then claiming that her defense in the wake of their accusations were somehow "proof" that she is "thin skinned."

Political essayist, former classics professor and scholar of ancient warfare victor Davis Hanson poses the question, So what is it that so bugs the media elite about Sarah Palin?

The popular hatred of a self-described elite culture toward Sarah Palin is almost inexplicable — whether expressed in Andrew Sullivan’s unhinged efforts to suggest Palin faked her fifth pregnancy, or David Letterman’s slur that she seemed a “slutty flight attendant” and her 14-year-old daughter “was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez,” or CNN guest host Kathy Griffin’s crudity that her next target was the teenaged Palin daughter: “But I think it’s Willow’s year to go down.”

So why the war against Palin, when Palinisms are not demonstrably different from Bidenisms, Obamaisms, or Goreisms? Uppity-ness I suppose is the short answer. In the binary world of a Sullivan, Letterman, or Griffin, or in the larger culture of network news, NPR, PBS, the New York Times and Washington Post and their columnists, and the weekly newspapers like Time and Newsweek, Sarah Palin is apparently all that they are not.

In such a metro, hip, in-with-it culture, one is supposed to have a thinking-man’s or artiste’s billet of some sort in Washington or New York (that it often comes from nepotism, insider networking, or marriage matters little). Being a mom of five children flies in the face of the demography of yuppie careerism, abortion, and the gay world. Cross-country skiing is OK; snowmobiles polluting the atmosphere and gashing the Earth are not. Credentials matter much: University of Idaho and sports journalism are not polar, but planetary, opposites of Yale and law. Wasilla is to the Upper West Side or Chevy Chase as Uranus is to planet Earth. And how can it be fair that Sarah Palin seems stunning after five children when so many in the DC-NY corridor after millennia on the exercise machine and gallons of Botox are, well, “interesting looking”?

[...]

Most polls, and the November election, suggest that the public has had it with deficits, big government, more stimulus and takeovers, and ObamaCare, whether delivered by Democrats or Republicans.

The problem with such an unfocused Tea Party anger is said to be the lack of leadership, which to many is itself somewhat at odds with the grassroots, prairie-fire imprimatur of the movement. But for now, Palin, almost alone, has the star power, the ability to draw enormous crowds, garner attention, raise controversy, to be emblematic of that “don’t tread on me” unease — largely in her mysterious ability to connect with millions in the middle class.

[More]

- JP

Victor Davis Hanson: Political Vultures

The sick art of turning insanity into politics
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Victor Davis Hanson analyzes the Tuscon shootings in the context of American history and political opportunism:

Very few Americans are fans of both The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf, as the Tucson killer, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, apparently was. Fewer still post on the Internet fears about “brain washing,” “mind control,” and “conscience dreaming”; have a long record of public disruption and aberrant behavior; were expelled from community college; or were summarily rejected for military service.

No matter. Almost immediately following Loughner’s cowardly murdering of six and wounding of 14 including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, pundits and some public figures rushed to locate his rampage, together with his paranoid rantings about government control, within the larger landscape of right-wing politics — especially the rhetoric of the Tea Party and Sarah Palin.

Apparently, we are supposed to believe that Loughner’s unhinged rants about the “government” indict those who express reasonable reservations about the size of government as veritable accessories to mass murder. The three worst offenders were Paul Daly of the New York Daily News, who claimed just that in an essay with the raging headline “The blood of Congresswoman Giffords was on Sarah Palin’s hands”; the ubiquitous Paul Krugman, who connected Loughner to the supposedly Republican-created “climate of hate”; and Andrew Sullivan, who thought he saw yet another avenue through which to further his own blind antipathy toward Sarah Palin and “the Palin forces.” In their warped syllogism, the Tea Party unquestionably creates hatred; a congresswomen was shot out of hatred; ergo, the Tea Party and/or the Republican party all but pulled the trigger.

That the 22-year-old shooter more likely fit the profile of an unhinged killer like Ted Kaczynski or John Hinckley did not seem to register. In the wake of the Kennedy assassination, commentators pontificated about a right-wing “climate of hate” in Dallas, Texas, that supposedly explained why a crazed avowed Communist — pro-Soviet, Castroite 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald — shot President Kennedy. Suddenly, this week, we are back in a 1963 mood of blaming politics for deranged shootings...

[More]

- JP

VDH on Hypocrisy in Service to Revolution on the Left

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In an analysis of the Left's philosophy of hypocrisy, Victor Davis Hanson's first example is the Palin/Edwards dichotomy:

John McCain was damned for picking Sarah Palin who had not finished her first term as governor, and had previously only been elected to local political offices and served on a state commission.

Her middle American ‘you betcha’ twang, NASCAR persona, good looks, and occasional deer-in-the-headlines interviews with hostile anchor people, coupled with the kids, conservative creed, Christianity, and 19th century husband, sickened—there is no other word for it— the DC-New York punditocracy. Yes, they concluded, she really was from Wasilla. Yuk.

So we got everything in the media from the maverick McCain suddenly as cynical sell-out who settled for third-best, to Palin, the clueless Alaskan yokel.

In contrast, to this day, there is no in-depth analysis of Kerry’s disastrous pick of the first-term, uninformed Senator Edwards as his VP choice in 2004. And it took the National Inquirer to inform us of his later conspiratorial lying and bribery involving his illegitimate child—sordid facts apparently well known to—and hushed up by—the mainstream media. Remember, later presidential candidate Edwards was not just inexperienced, but as a confessed wonk, did not open a book. He was the owner of a mansion who preached about “two-nations” inequality, and he alternately used and humiliated his alternately heroic and conniving cancer-stricken spouse.

Hanson asks what explains the treatment of an Edwards versus Palin, and concludes that "hypocrisy vanishes, and revolutionary pigs walk on two legs in the farmhouse":

An Edwards is mellifluous, puts his energy on behalf of those in the “other nation”, and is devoted to promoting a society where we are all about as wealthy as John Edwards, who uses his wealth for proper contemplation and preparation for further good deeds, and thus needs a castle of compassion. Given that, who cares that he is a congenial liar, lives one way, lectures another, helped destroy the practice of obstetrics in his home state, and took a great deal of money for doing very little? The former considerations alone count, the later are mere right wing talking points.

Read this VDH essay unabridged at his Pajamas Media web journal Works and Days.

- JP

Victor Davis Hanson discusses Sarah Palin

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Victor Davis Hanson, one of our all-time favorite authors was interviewed by FrontPageMag.com editor Jamie Glazov about Sarah Palin. Here's are a few excerpts from VDH's responses to Glazov's questions:

I think she taps into a current of populist unhappiness in the country with Washington insiders, Big Money, and condescending elites in the media and popular culture. The Wasilla mom of five, married to the snow-mobile champ, is simply the antithesis of all that. She senses the general disgust with an insider class that has nearly bankrupted the country through insane federal spending and equally insane financial speculation. She resonates in this regard mostly through an authentic middle-class upbringing, the real-world living of Alaska, natural intelligence, spunk and drive that sent one from the Wasilla city-council to the governorship of Alaska—and common sense answers like less government, lower taxes, more self-reliance, and national confidence.

Her can-do “let’s develop our own energy and spend no more than we earn” creed has a reassurance in these days. People root for her. The Ivy-Leaguers in government, whether the lawyer Obama or the economist Summers, haven’t exactly wowed the public with their studied brilliance so far.

[...]

She has so many gunning for her, that she needs to be proactive. Joe Biden did not know that FDR was not President in 1929 or that TV was still experimental—but given his status, the media shucked “Oh, that’s just Joe!” Obama can be clueless about state geography, a 50-state union, or the basics of US history, but that’s because “he’s tired and has so much on his mind.” Wasilla moms has no such margin of error.

Read the complete interview here.

- JP

Victor Davis Hanson: Palin-odes?

We just love it when our favorite political writer writres about our favorite former governor. Another VDH bumper crop of political prose. Excerpts:

Palin faces many of the same problems that sunk Reagan in 1976: the moderate Republicans think she is a shallow, superficial head-nodder, the way they wrote Reagan off in his quest to dethrone Ford. She earns as much resistance from Republican Old Guarders as she does the Obamians. In the elite center-right way of thinking, she knows little of foreign affairs and is not wonkish about domestic issues.

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Palin must have at her fingertips far more elucidating answers than offered by any liberal icon—or what she showed in the 2008 campaign. If Sarah Palin thinks FDR was President in 1929, or that he could speak on non-existent TV, she is through; if Biden says that, it’s “just old Joe again.” If Obama does not know the first thing about our most prestigious medals, the language of Austria, or diplomatic protocol about presidential bowing, it’s because he is deliberately trying to be cool; if Palin did the same, she’s a buffoon hockey mom. That is the way it is, and her supporters should accept it, deal with, and overcome it.

In other words, Palinites should assume that there is no margin of error for her at all. Like it or not, she must, like Reagan, not only communicate, but also be able to draw on abstract concepts about conservatism. It does no good to say the media is biased, or to review the talking points offered above. She must be better than, not as good as, mainstream Democratic and Republican candidates in matters of foreign policy, gottacha recall, and talking points on health care, taxes, etc. Specificity, detail, and exactness, not generalities or whines about an unfair press, will make her a serious candidate

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I would trust the judgment of someone with Palin’s background on matters of Iran or Honduras or Putin far more than I would someone of Obama’s resume.

Read it all. Read it now. Read it here.

- JP

Quote of the Day (November 1, 2009)

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Victor Davis Hanson:

"What if you took everything Yale Law School Hillary has said abroad the last week and put it into the mouth of Idaho BA Sarah Palin?"

"The press would have gone ballistic about her ignorance of the Middle East, her sermonizing, her scapegoating, her factual errors, etc. (What is it about Palin that drives the elite, especially elite women, crazy? Great looks? That Middle-America accent? The 5 kids and he-man husband? The lack of a powerful father or spouse who could jump-start her 'feminist' career with money, contacts, and influence? That Idaho BA? The wink? The charisma and, indeed, sensuality so lacking in her angry critics?)"

- JP

Quote of the Day (October 11, 2009)

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Victor Davis Hanson:

"If a Clinton or Edwards got caught up in the vanity of power, and needed the ego-boosting or enjoyment that younger flesh might impart, why did Letterman, given his similar character, think he was any different? Did he think the goddess was snoozing when he libeled the 14-year daughter of Sarah Palin as a dugout tart?"

- JP

Commentaries on the Liberation of Sarah - Pt. 7

This is the seventh in a series in which TX4P recommends some of the best writing which chronicles the liberation of Sarah Palin from the ball and chain of the Alaska governors office to her new role as a leading American conservative coalition builder.

Adrienne is a young woman who is a committed Sarah Palin supporter and and a born again Christian. She also just happens to be black. Adrienne recently posted about the frustration she feels when she encounters people who falsely assume that Gov. Palin "doesn't like black people" on her blog Motivation Truth in "Sarah Palin and I Working Together":

Look, I've spent a considerable amount of time in Sarah's hometown, spent time with her family and friends. I've walked the streets of the place that has influenced her, where she grew up and currently resides. I worshipped at the church where she gave her life to God and worshipped for years. I digested the culture of Wasilla. I've met the governor myself before. I've talked to her. She's shaken my hand. She's hugged me. I've talked to her husband and two of her kids. I know what I'm talking about here. Now, I didn't have to do any of these things to know that Sarah Palin is sincere, kind, and respectful--to all. I already knew in my spirit that she was the real deal--a woman of character, a woman of God. I had no doubts along these lines, but when you actually look someone in the eyes, you get a better sense of who they are. When you spend time where they spend time and see the people there--how they treat you, how they smile, how they reach out--it brings it home even more. I know Sarah is who she says she is. I know she sees people as people. I know she doesn't have people divided into groups and segments of society. I support her because what she stands for is right for all America..."

Minnesotan David Karki studied political science at St. Olaf's college, has campaign experience and now writes about politics for the North Star Writers Group. In an earlier column, he turned a famous Lincoln quote about Grant into what has become an anthem for many Sarah Palin supporters: "We can't spare this woman. she fights." Karki comments on Palin's critics in "Who’s Scared of Sarah Palin . . . And Why":

Think about it – if she were half the joke of a candidate that both Democrats and liberal establishment Republicans apocalyptically claim she'd be, both should eagerly welcome Palin running against President Obama in 2012.

Democrats would theoretically have an easy win given a weak challenger and the fact that first-term incumbents generally win re-election barring a disaster. Vichy Republican bigwigs wouldn't have to sacrifice a preferred liberal candidate – such as Mitt Romney – against an unbeatable incumbent, and could save their Just-Like-the-Democrat-Only-A-Tiny-Bit-Less guy for 2016. With the loss, both would be rid of her once and for all.

But this isn't what's happening. Instead, both entities are freaking out over Palin, in a classic case of “methinks thou doth protest too much.” (To use the oft-misquoted Shakespeare line from Hamlet.) And, just as in Hamlet, the very fervency of the dismay inherently undermines its own credibility while revealing more about the critic than the performer.

In Palin's case, it's that entrenched interests on both sides of the aisle are scared to death of her. And even though the attacks on her might actually generate sympathy and draw attention to her, they can't take the risk of just letting her run, watching her lose and being rid of her – because she might well win.

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist, historian and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is an author and was a full-time farmer before he became an academic, as we learn in "Why the Elitist Hatred Toward Palin?" published at RealClearPolitics.com:

I saw more stupid people in graduate school and three decades in academia than I ever did who ran 100 acres without going broke-and more of the latter whom I'd trust not to bankrupt the country and let down our defenses than of the former.

While we rightly argue that the Sarahs of the world, if they are to be taken seriously as leaders, must read and study more, why do we not also suggest that the Baracks of the world could do a little more chain-sawing, run a coffee shop for a summer, or drive a Winnebago cross-country? (Who knows, he might meet a fellow woodcutter who knew there were 50 states or that it was dumb to make fun of the Special Olympics.)

After all, a lot of geniuses are now calling for a "second stimulus" to borrow another trillion or so still, but I don't think they come from Wasilla.

So I am afraid right now, but not of Sarah Palin.

Former newspaperman Stuart H. Schwartz, Ph.D., is on the faculty at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. We've referred to his American Thinker post "Peggy Noonan: Sarah Palin Jealous" before, extracting a Quote of the Day from it and also in an update to "The Pwning of Peggy Noonan." Here are some more excerpts:

You're Peggy Noonan and you're jealous. So you loosed a multi-column primal scream: Palin is an idiot who is "out of her depth in a shallow pool", a woman who has no sense of personal limits because she is not even smart enough to realize she is "a ponder-free zone." Whoa-good one! The rhetorical equivalent of the chickenwing camel clutch, where you come up behind and twist her arm behind her back, and then force her face to the mat. Or, in her case, to the snow. That's what they have in Alaska, don't they? You don't know, of course-Martha's Vineyard is about as far north as you venture, and then only to observe humanity-you know, the common folks-from "a little pier" before strolling over for dinner with two of the more brilliant stars in your friends firmament, television personalities Diane Sawyer and Katie Couric.

You're Peggy Noonan and you're jealous. You pal around with Sawyer and Couric, Jane Fonda, Marlo Thomas, Lily Tomlin -- the world is your aging oyster -- and The New York Times (which is sort of iffy on your writing) admires you for the company you keep. The Manhattan and beltway salon denizens love you. Brian Williams even said he'd nominate you for a Pulitzer, calling your writing "sparkling." Yes, THE Brian Williams, He Who Anchors NBC News, who had an audience with President Obama, to whom he bowed when leaving.

Bill Adams is a retired computer industry executive and an historian. From "Bon Voyage: Sarah's Departure Viewed From Alaska" -- also published on American Thinker -- we gain the perspective of the governor's neighbors on how low her enemies stooped to attack her and her family:

It was the assault on the children that was breaking my heart. As a father, I wondered how Sarah would explain to her fourteen year old daughter why she was the brunt of a joke on national television about her most intimate person. I pondered how she would council another daughter whose dual mistakes of getting pregnant out of wedlock and being a Christian were transmogrified into nationally-ridiculed hypocrisy.

Those involving Trig, Sarah's Down syndrome baby, were astonishing. How does one explain the hateful and evil mentality underlying these attacks on him -- and on her for daring to bear him? How does Sarah explain to her children the nature of people who rail through the media that the child they clearly love should never have been allowed to be born? Sarah's decision not to abort that baby, my friends, is what I believe to be the basis of most of the Democrat hatred of her.

Watch The View on TV or read anything from the Washington Post to the Huffington Post. You will see the media bubbling over with hatred of the woman who would dare not to kill her afflicted baby and then dare further to flaunt him in public as a blessing. Recently the Huff-Po proposed that Sarah run in 2012 on a "More Retardation platform." Good Lord.

Sure they label her as ‘trailer trash' and make fun of her manner of speech, but that's an old tactic for the Liberal Elite. It worked well on all of Clinton's bimbos and it worked on Bush because he had a country accent. But it is that she's an evangelical Christian and didn't abort Trig that makes these Elites crazy.

The absence of shame in the promulgation of such base evil is stunning.

Other posts in this series:

Commentaries on the Liberation of Sarah - Pt. 1
Commentaries on the Liberation of Sarah - Pt. 2
Commentaries on the Liberation of Sarah - Pt. 3
Commentaries on the Liberation of Sarah - Pt. 4
Commentaries on the Liberation of Sarah - Pt. 5
Commentaries on the Liberation of Sarah - Pt. 6

- JP

Must-read of the week

I you haven't read it yet, you're in for a masterpiece of satire. My three favorite pundits, each for very different reasons, are in reverse order, Bill Whittle, Mark Steyn and Victor Davis Hanson. Here is VDH's latest.

Enjoy!

- JP