OCTOBER 8, 2008
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To try and place the amazing Sarah Palin phenomenon, gurus have been reaching for historical analogues: she "embodies the most basic American myth-- Jefferson's yeoman farmer" (Joe Klein); no, she's "the next Ronald Reagan" (Richard Viguerie); no, "she's our Obama" (Jay Nordlinger). But what about Bill Clinton?
The fitness-obsessed, policy-lite, skirt-wearing conservative from Alaska would not, on the face of it, seem to have much in common with the Big Mac- scarfing, policy-relishing, skirt-chasing Democrat from Arkansas. And yet, before Palin, what other youthful and relatively inexperienced governor from a backwater state burst onto the Washington scene, chased by an eye-popping train of hometown enemies? What other charismatic politician became a culture-war lightning rod? Who else drove his critics to such depths of rage and despair that they reached for wild conspiracy theories (a few of them actually true)?
As anyone who watched last week's "Saturday Night Live" knows, Palin is no Hillary Clinton, and she's certainly no Bill, either. If she makes it into office, she's more likely to build a bridge to nowhere than to the next century. But the more one burrows (an activity that both Clinton and Palin seem to provoke), the more weird parallels between the two emerge (could Todd Palin be Hillary with a goatee?)--and the more liberals might want to look to the Clinton years for direction on how--and how not--to hit back.
'They were particularly attracted to those who were slavish, unobtrusive, and loyal; forceful personalities were not courted, Washington dinner party regulars were shunned--anyone who might be less than worshipful was considered suspect, a probable source of news leaks, a potential enemy." This is how Joe Klein described the Clintons in his book The Natural, but it describes Sarah Palin's political instincts eerily well, too. Attracted to those who were slavish? Check: As mayor of Wasilla, she tried to fire the town's librarian for having the wrong attitude, and she succeeded in firing the police chief in part because she heard he'd been "acting sad and unhappy" about her win at a Chamber of Commerce meeting. Forceful personalities were not courted and dinner-party regulars were shunned? Check: In Juneau, Palin neglected to advise powerful Republican legislators on budget negotiations because, explains Larry Persily, a longtime state employee who used to work for her, "she thinks of it as backroom deals, good-ol'-boys network, horse-trading, arm-twisting, politics as usual, the cliche." ("She doesn't do well with dissent," sniffs one GOP state legislator.)
As for turning neighbors and friends into enemies, Palin is as talented in this reverse alchemy as Clinton. In fact, their roster of foes includes the same disgruntled archetypes: the hometown exposeur (Clinton's was Larry Nichols, the Little Rock nemesis who pushed the Gennifer Flowers tale; Palin's is Anne Kilkenny, the Alaska housewife who helped get the saga of Sarah's Wasilla tyrannies into The New York Times); the former supporter turned critic (Clinton's include adviser Dick Morris; Palin's include Lyda Green, the Republican president of the Alaska Senate); the culture warriors (Clinton's were religious right stalwarts like Jerry Falwell; Palin's are horrified feminists like Gloria Steinem); the spouse-hunting prosecutor (Clinton's was Whitewater inquisitor Ken Starr; Palin's is Steve Branchflower, who just subpoenaed husband Todd). They even have matching Troopergates!
It's not too surprising that Clinton and Palin have similar political styles. They were both forged in the cramped and corrupt crucibles of small-state politics, where the political is personal and the rise of one faction often comes at the expense of another. In this environment, an us-versus-them mentality thrives, one that has led both the Clintons and Palin to lash out at their critics as a bloc--the Clintons wailed about the vast right-wing conspiracy and the snooty elites who, Hillary huffed, "wouldn't be doing this if we were from some other state"; Palin complains about the elitist left-wing media and other "opponents" who "seem to look down on" her Alaska background. It has tempted them to put under-qualified former schoolmates in high places, such as Clinton's kindergarten playmate turned chief of staff Mack McLarty and Palin's cowloving high school classmate turned state agriculture official Franci Havemeister. And it's fed the urge to consolidate the spouse onto the political team.
Todd Palin the caregiver dad and snowmobiling--er, snowmachining--champ gives off pretty much the opposite of Hillary Clinton's famed Lady Macbeth vibe. But call around to Juneau legislators and Anchorage political observers and you'll hear grumblings about his shadowy influence, how he was cc'd on official communiques and sometimes attended cabinet meetings. "I don't mean to compare Todd to Hillary, but it's a similar thing," remembers John Bitney, Palin's former legislative director, who, though he still praises the Palins, was fired with an assist from Todd. "He had a network of friends in the bush. [They] would call and say, 'The river's washing away the bank,' and he would pass it on up." Some insiders gossip about how Todd would sidle around the legislators' corridor in the statehouse to lobby lawmakers during gas line negotiations. "I have heard he works the second floor," whispers one statehouse observer. The subpoena an independent prosecutor served Todd last week regarding his role in pressuring the public safety commissioner to sack a state trooper once married to Palin's sister doesn't do much to dispel the odor of Whitewater that clings to Alaska's First Dude.
But what unites Clinton and Palin the most is the unique level of total, complete hysteria they provoke in their critics. Remember Representative Dan Burton, who became so obsessed with proving that Vince Foster was murdered that he recreated the death scene in his backyard, shooting at a melon standing in for Foster's head? These days, conspiracy theorists are back and having more fun than when they imagined that Web Hubbell fathered Chelsea Clinton. (Who do the chat rooms say gave birth to baby Trig today?)
Even more measured partisans can't help being swept up in an emotional tide. Take Salon.com essayist Rebecca Traister's recent Palin-inspired nightmares: "[S]he kidnaps my cats. ... There's also a chilling one, in which a scary witch stands on a wind-swept hill and leers at me." Alaska House Republican Jay Ramras called Palin a McCarthyite. And, in the middle of a phone conversation I had with John Cooper, the museum director Palin fired in her first year as mayor of Wasilla, the line suddenly went silent. I assumed I had just lost the connection, but then I realized Cooper had begun to cry. "You're not supposed to get emotional, but I do," he said, after a pause. He added, "My dad went ashore at Normandy beach. This is not the kind of country he and those guys were hoping to save."
Like Clinton, Palin infuriates precisely because she so fully embodies one side of the culture war. It's just that, instead of symbolizing dissipated baby-boomer elites, as Clinton did, Palin represents anti-intellectual evangelical reactionaries. Now, it's the Democrats who are horrified at Palin's values-- injecting religion into public life, abstinence-only sex ed, antipathy toward global warming, gays, evolution--and afraid of what it would mean if, just as the country blithely accepted Clinton, America turned out to actually like Palin.
But, before liberals go the same extremes that conservatives went to in attacking Clinton, they should remember that Slick Willie had the last laugh. That's why the parallel between Bill Clinton and Sarah Palin could, for Democrats, be a cautionary one. As Republicans fought the culture war through Clinton, hammering him on his sexual peccadilloes and thundering for a reawakening of family values, his administration's popularity only rose--just as the initial spate of attacks on Palin's right-wing values and family choices rallied the Republican base and gave the McCain ticket a bump in the polls.
By fixating on what they didn't like about him as a person, Republicans underestimated Clinton's skill as a politician. Election Day 1998--after a fierce culture-war campaign that included fights with Clinton over gay adoption and attacks over Monica--saw a huge backlash in which Clinton's supposedly beleaguered party picked up seats. That night, the triumphant Clinton team partied until 2:30 a.m. with wine and cigars. Let's not see that scene repeated in November with ice wine and moose jerky.
Eve Fairbanks is an associate editor at The New Republic.
41 comments
Before Palin's nomination I had no idea just how much the Democrats hated me. Thanks goes out to all of you progressives for enlightening me.
- Sea of Liberty
September 20, 2008 at 7:51am
yes Sea of Liberty (what a pretentious moniker) I hate you. I don't know you, never met you, but since I am a Democrat I must naturally hate you. Yeesh, pretentious and paranoid. Try going outside, get some air, look at a sunset, pet a dog, in short, don't be such a tool. Next time why don't you comment on the article. As to me I think the article is fine, making an interesting analogy, and I think it speaks well enough for itself.
- blackton
September 22, 2008 at 6:16pm
Perceptive analogy and an excellent implied piece of advice for Obama: ignore Palin completely and continue tying McCain to Bush.
- Marvin Sussman
September 25, 2008 at 11:31pm
I'm on the conservative side myself and tend to like Palin and I liked the article and the analogy. I look for reasoned and well stated opinion from both left and right and I think this is a nicely done piece. Thanks.
- goldpython
October 1, 2008 at 8:36am
What you are really talking about is human greed and power-lust. Very human conditions, regardless of party affiliation. What really motivates the honest, sincere politician? Or is that an oxymoron?
- Dave
October 1, 2008 at 8:38am
As long as Tina Fey keeps it up there is no need for Dems to attack. Also other comedians-I like Chris Roc's diddy on Michael Vick asking "why am I in jail?" when Palin is pictured smiling while holding up a dead Moose that she shot.
- lesserliz
October 1, 2008 at 9:05am
Ms. Fairbank's article is contrived copy. There's every reason to believe that the Palin story would fit any number of personal tales. Sarah Palin is an incoherent politician and out of place. This has nothing to do with her political ideas as she's unable to communicate these to anyone. Other than a stunt by John McCain, who's completely run out of ideas and has become increasingly irrelevant, that's all there's left to say. In that sense McCain is a sign of our times, which is sad to say the least.
- Jack Clumpkens
October 1, 2008 at 9:16am
The Palins are not like the Clintons in one important way-intelligence.
- evagrius
October 1, 2008 at 9:41am
The difference? Either Bill or Hillary Clinton, whatever your opinion of them, are a hell lot more talented than Palin.
- Herunar
October 1, 2008 at 9:47am
Why is the TNR going insane? ------------------------------------- The real street where the Obama activists are recruiting, and brainwashing, is not a pretty picture. ------------------------------------- The Obama empowerment is misunderstood by many white and black people, and brings out the worst from them. -------------------------------- Palin and McCain have got more class than Harvardous Obama. -------------------------------- Go to Kenya to recognize the real Obama, and his guilt by association with the repulsive Odinga, or to his previous church in Chicago. Stop TNR being such a demagogue.
- y7777
October 1, 2008 at 10:16am
Fairbanks' comparison is an incredible stretch. So what if there is a cultural similarity of incredulity and hate between the Clintons and their conservative critics and that of the Palins and the liberal hysteria? Palin is a certifiable idiot. Todd Palin, perhaps less of one, but we don't know. The Clintons were educated and informed, even if despised. Fairbanks may correctly assume that the electorate is dumber now than they were in 1992, 16 years ago. We will find out, and we will find out how racist it is. I don't think that anybody should be surprised if McCain wins the election by 3 to 5 points even though he will be down in the polls by 4 to 6 points. This election is race and the electability of a black man, not about the electability of an ignorant white woman.
- jasinvt
October 1, 2008 at 10:24am
"And yet, before Palin, what other youthful and relatively inexperienced governor from a backwater state burst onto the Washington scene, chased by an eye-popping train of hometown enemies?" C'mon...while I enjoyed Chris Rock's takedown of Bill on Letterman, he was not "relatively inexperienced." He was just relatively unknown to the general public. Clinton was the Arkansas AG in the late 70s, Arkansas governor for 12 years and was active in national Democratic politics especially the DNC. I like Eve, but this story is really reaching.
- hellx
October 1, 2008 at 10:28am
Goldpython -- you say you've been looking for well stated reason? Did you watch Palin's interview with Katie Couric? She was barely speaking English. Best line in the article: "Palin represents anti-intellectual evangelical reactionaries." I think the last 7 years should show us what anti-intellectualism gets us, and her daughter shows us what abstinence-only yields.
- Lalas
October 1, 2008 at 10:29am
A couple points. Interesting and sweet, but there's no there...there. I think you could find such similarities between many politicians (especially governors). And if you can find such similarities in so many comparisons, I don't see the point of the piece, it's nothing more than blue skies and green grass. ....Let's see: I don't know if you could discern a difference between Clinton, Palin, Bob Ehrlich from MD, Mitt Romney, and probably any number of small western and mountain state governors--if the only areas you chose to highlite were the instances when the principals were similar. ... Take MD (please). Say former governor Bob Ehrlich had been tapped by McCain. Small state: check. Scrappy, up from the bootstraps background: check (ok, no check for Romney). Political opponents who disagree with policy decisions: check. Irate, at-will employees of the former power structure who suddenly found themselves looking for a job when the new governor arrived: check. An attractive wife who seems to have an outsized influence on the governor and the process: check. Small state cronyism: check. One or two scandals: check.......But if I chose to focus on other issues like political genius, or lifelong desires, or political activism as a young man (or woman), or the tone of the reasoning (educated and legalistic vs populist), or their religious views, there might not be any similarities...... And the warnings about going after Sarah Palin? Americans (regardless of political identity) tend to sympathize with those who are pounded like pinatas--especially when the punishment is disproportionate to the actual offense.
- malwords
October 1, 2008 at 10:54am
Oh, Sea of Liberty, the "hatred" you complain about on the left is nothing compared to the hatred and vile lies that the right has spewed on the Clintons for the past 16 years. I don't think Congress will be holding any hearings on how the Palins may have engineered the deaths of their rivals or past associates in Alaska. There won't be any wild conspiracy theories on how the Palins crashed an airplane with 81 people on board in order to bump off the head of the RNC.
- Dubyadoubter
October 1, 2008 at 11:01am
I don't think that Sarah Palin suffers from a lack of intelligence - or low cunning. She is simply unable to articulate her position, knowledge, or opinion sufficiently clearly to enable those listening to her to understand her adequately. And that inability endears her to some and makes others cringe in horror. To me, the combination of her nasally piercing voice and barely literate responses, makes my skin crawl as much as the sound of W's faux-Texan illiteracies, or nails on a chalkboard.
- Robert
October 1, 2008 at 11:05am
Yeah, dropping out of about 5 different colleges before graduation is KINDA like being a Rhodes Scholar at perhaps the best university on Earth... Personally I think her penchant for loyalty and secrecy sound more like Bush jr. than either Clinton...
- BillyFLA
October 1, 2008 at 12:56pm
The most appropriate Palin comparison is Obama who is likewise too inexperienced to be President. This comparison is the very reason Obama himself and associates immediately responded so virulently to her appointment. As it turns out, Obama can handle himself better than Palin. He doesn't know more but he can dance better. It also helps that he has rarely received a probing question from a goo-goo eyed media.
- klfoster
October 1, 2008 at 2:11pm
Yes, the similarities between Clinton and Palin are remarkable - how they were both from small states, both went to Georgetown and became Rhodes Scholars, both were know as moderates in their parties, both gave keynote addresses to their party nominating conventions, both were key figures in the Natl Gov Assn, both served as governor for 12 years before running for national office. Oh, wait a minute...
- cmo
October 1, 2008 at 2:46pm
What a crock. Clinton used Troopers to hit on women. Palin wanted to get rid of a sick twisted and dangerous trooper for the good of Alaska. No Match. Branchflower is an operative for Obama trying for an October surprise to swing the election and predicts the outcome before he sees any facts. Ken Star was an honorable man who let the Clinton's off lightly for the good of the country. Get off the drugs and stop drinking the kool aid.
- Bill30097
October 1, 2008 at 3:17pm
Sarah Palin does not appear to be corrupt or immoral like Bill Clinton. Nor does she stand in husband's shadow like Hillary.
- Suzy
October 1, 2008 at 3:19pm
Wow, what a stretch. Hey Ms. Fairbanks, next time, if you're having that much trouble thinking of something to write, just take the day off.
- Bill
October 1, 2008 at 3:21pm
What a crappy piece of journalism. What "scandal" was Hillary involved in? She had Vince Foster killed? She stole from an S&L? She went through the GOP FBI files? All these so called "scandals" have been refuted after a $100 million witchunt and yet TNR still continues repeating the "Clinton scandals" meme. Not a word about the REAL scandals involving their golden boy Barack Obama who has been presented by an adoring press, including TNR as pure.
- MikeD
October 1, 2008 at 4:07pm
Student to farmer: How much experience do you have planting potatoes? Twenty years says the farmer. Student says, you've planted them differently each year? No says the farmer, the same each year. Student replies, you have one years experience and twenty years doing the same thing. Sounds like the farmer and the politicians went to the same school.
- Jude O'Connor
October 1, 2008 at 4:21pm
A sign of the times will be when Palin/McCain fudge their way into office. Interesting times.
- Steven Schaaf
October 1, 2008 at 5:00pm
I keep hearing Palin is an idiot, yet she has an 80% approval rating and runs her state rather efficiently. No one denys this ofcourse, they just point to her first national interviews, SnL and moonbat rumors of how stupid she is. They don't need any proof, they just make it up along the way as Obama does. Bill Clinton was right this is a big fairytale as the leftwing moonbats do not rely on any sort of fact. She gets the job done and has run her state effectively. Obama has done nothing for his state or his constituents that anyone can point too. Let us see the what the results of his community organizing? Are those persons no longer poor? Are thier neighborhoods safe? Does Obama run down from his million dollar home to see what the results were??? Who would know since he never had any real responsibility. Palin has the experience and she will get better in interviews once she realizes left wing hack talking heads are not her friends.
- Africanus
October 1, 2008 at 5:45pm
Be wary, young liberals, be wary. Negative attention is still better than no attention at all.
- desertdog
October 1, 2008 at 5:59pm
Good propaganda piece. Eve is very skilled.
- p.
October 1, 2008 at 8:09pm
“Let's not see that scene repeated in November with ice wine and moose jerky”----Assuming that it can happen, which is probably questionable. The numbers of Palin-loving reformed Congregationalists (A.K.A. “evangelicals”) and reformed Catholics are probably insufficient.
- p.
October 1, 2008 at 8:12pm
“Republicans underestimated Clinton's skill as a politician” ----Beyond the fact that Palin is the vice presidential, not the presidential, candidate, then Clinton’s “skill as a politician” is way overrated. Far more important is both the Clintons’ skills as trained human animals, and their utter amoral ethics. Of far more importance in 1992 and 1996 were the mass-communications media, the Perot campaigns (in 1992 and 1996), the decrepit appearance of Bob Dole in 1996, and the American death rate throughout the decade of the 1990s. However, the Clintons’ did have vastly more experience playing the amoral re-invent-themselves game, and Bill had the benefit of an education as a Rhodes Scholar (priceless where rhetorical skills are concerned). No doubt the Palins are as amoral as the Clintons, but experience is where any Clinton-Palin similarities end. Sarah Palin is a post-1995-21st century fast-tracked Female Politician and doesn’t have the same longevity in office, experience, or polishing that Clinton had: Not in 1992 and definitely not in 1996 or 1998 (skill wise, in his Hillaryesque support role, and given his history, then Todd Palin may be another story). ----More importantly, this a DIFFERENT population of Americans. The third party choices, and sheer disgust, are probably sufficient to siphon away the remaining remnants of genuine "reactionaries." After that, are there enough Americans formed in bad-hillbilly-stereotype ethics, claiming to be either religious or non-religious, to give them an edge?
- p.
October 1, 2008 at 8:30pm
“It's just that, instead of symbolizing dissipated baby-boomer elites, as Clinton did, Palin represents anti-intellectual evangelical reactionaries.” ----The proverbial Useful Idiots (UIs) all: Of the social revolutionary movements that have transformed the Human Resources of the U.S.A. (previously known as American citizens). ----The so-called evangelicals are certainly anti-intellectual (as the left-wing types used to be, decrying intellectualizing,’ between roughly 39-10 years ago). However, where most are concerned, then reactionaries is wrong. The post-67ish neo-judaized-puritan Jesus Movement has also been a social revolutionary movement. The majority of the present-day evangelical UIs were never elite, in any sense of the term, but did lustily engage in dissipation, just the same: B-Boomers cadre leading, 1967-89, and Xer cadre following, especially circa 1976-98. The debauched-turned-disillusioned began turning prodigal,” and ‘returning’ to the new reformed American religions, from about 1989 onward (after having severed their roots and ruined their lives). The left-wing debauched prodigals tended more to the spiritual but not religious” and “grace for health, wealth and success” sects rather than the reformed Congregationalists (a.k.a. “evangelicals”) and reformed Catholics. The majority of these people really haven't changed all that much. Their repentance was extremely ephemeral, if at all, and they didn't reform their lives (and the newly Reformed American religions waiting on them really didn't call upon them to do so). Simply put, most of the "prodigals" had simply just grown older (and became "prodigals" via their "mid-life crises"). The Xer age bracket, circa 1960-78, has its prodigals, but is also a differnet bunch, altogether. ----Sarah Palin is typical of the Xer-age bracket that she belongs to, formed from an earlier age than the Baby Boomers. Baptized a Catholic, but never taught, nevermind formed, as one (and never really had the opportunity since the reformed catechesis of children had been implemented, 1970 onward). Palin went through puberty (roughly 12-14 years old) and entered junior high (by then reformed as "middle") school and high school during the midst of the explosion in teen drug use and pregnancies (about 1978 onward), coinciding with the further booming of the Jesus Movement. Whether because her parents converted, or however it transpired, Palin got her religious formation by attending a Pentecostal church. Sarah matured as the right sex (female), just in time to begin to be useful to be fast-tracked in politics (no doubt she’s intelligent). Her shabby life is about as ‘good as it gets,’ ethics wise, for these types. She’s perfect for the post-98, reforming ‘Pro-Life’ Movement (being used to institutionalize contraception, abortion, and euthanasia, and, like the reforming 'pro-choice' movement, to regulate them). ----At any rate, the majority of Americans who genuinely deserve to be termed “reactionaries,” in the proper sense of the term, are now dead or are people like myself, a TINY minority. The “reactionaries” were populated primarily by members of the so-called ‘Greatest Generation,’ but most especially by their parents’ generation (The "Lost Generation"). This present-day bunch, on the other hand, is primarily populated by Baby-boomers who began as “liberal,” going only so far, and then turned “conservative," (the "prodigals"), re-educated boomers, and the Palin-types, educated in social-re-education from childhood and now entering, or in, Middle Age.
- p.
October 1, 2008 at 8:57pm
** Palin, ultra-right tomboy ** Talking with Couric, Palin has backpedaled on most of her ultra-right beliefs. Millions of fundies who want a theocratic America -- an Ameristan, complete with puritanism and fanaticism -- will forgive her lies. After all, she's lying in a holy cause. The cause of dominionism. Now, you know exactly what Sarah Palin reads -- it's the Bible. That's the only source for law and morals, domestic and foreign policy, strategy and tactics. Palin has neither integrity nor a spark of intellect. Anyone who opines that human beings and dinosaurs walked together in a world at most 6,000 years old has abandoned both rationality and honesty. Fundies hate exactly what the US has become. Christian fideism, just like Islamic fideism, cannot tolerate an open society, a pluralist culture, or a secular state. Nostalgia for racism, for male dominated social control, for misogyny, for unequal rights (not by those labels of course) rules the minds of millions.
- bipolar2
October 1, 2008 at 9:05pm
He doesn't know more? He doesn't know more? Thanks for revealing your IQ score. I'll know to skip over your comments in the future.
- Claudia
October 1, 2008 at 9:52pm
“Cooper had begun to cry. ‘You're not supposed to get emotional, but I do,’ he said, after a pause. He added, ‘My dad went ashore at Normandy beach. This is not the kind of country he and those guys were hoping to save.’ " ----The Latter is an understatement. ---The former is a perfect example that this is a DIFFERENT population (“Human Resources,” NOT “citizens”). ----Cooper is obviously a thoroughly MODERN man (an Educated American Male Baby Boom and X age brackets, de-sensitized, re-educated, re-sensitized, effeminized: In a word, the gutless GIRLY-Kind-of man). Cooper’s been taught to behave (i.e. whimper) Like A Woman. . . The men like his father who served in World War II were average American males: American “farmboys” (more than half of the population then, but which no longer existed in significant numbers by 1955), and urban wage-labor males, including about 3 million toughed and regimentalized via their depression-service in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). AVERAGE men made into soldiers, airmen, sailors and marines (in contrast to the ‘super-hero’ garbage being promulgated today). But the majority of them would not (as they didn't) recognize the likes of Cooper (The pitiful, disgusting, “poor bastard”). ----The men of the elder Cooper’s generation were formed, rightly, to keep their emotions in check. However, when cornered, beaten down, and injustices perpetrated against them, or against family or friends, then men would inevitabley get angry. For the most part, they were un-reformable, hence the importance of the 1990s-21st Century Death Rate. In contrast, most typically women under such conditions would, and still do, get depressed (It’s a stereotype” that perfectly matches reality). ----Anger, except for the absurd “righteous anger” (i.e. ideologically controlled) was the ONLY emotion that the educated Boomers and Xers were taught Not To Show, whatsoever (many Xer boys even being drugged). To the contrary of Cooper’s statement, this pack WAS taught to show weepy emotions (as Fairbanks says Cooper did here). ----Today’s effeminate, population of women and effeminized men, is, as is true of women alone, a more docile population. However, clearly the males of the post-2002 generation, whatever name it receives, are beginning to be reformed with some more “manly” characteristics (hence such as the Biden story about Ma-Biden’s advice to little Joe when a boy at the Democratic Convention, Coopers’ mention of “not supposed to cry,” the “girly-kind-of man” phrase that Americans are now being taught, and the work of numerous propagandists and popular works being propagandized by the mass-communications media). What is not being taught, and no-doubt will not be, is the character formation and Christian ethics that the men of the elder Cooper’s generation were mostly formed in. No doubt that the ‘post-2002 generation’ males will be cleaned up a bit, so to make better workers, but will primarily be formed as amoral, debauched, and coarse individuals, lacking utterly in the compassion, decency, and basic sense of justice in injustice, that the men of the so-called “Lost,” “Greatest,” and “Boomer” (until teen years)generations were formed in. God only knows what kind of pathetic variation that American women will be formed as (although, since “ass-kicking women” is a fantasy, rather than a “stereotype,” continued, and further enforced, coercion will obviously be necessary to keep them "empowered" while contraceptive drugs, or sterilization, will continue to be necessary for females to be "secure with their sexuality")? -----No doubt, future generations of these so-formed “Human Resources” will be kept docile (even when whipped up via “righteous anger,” which they would be wiser to keep in check, now and then). This is clearly a beaten population. This year's elections more than demonstrate it.
-
October 1, 2008 at 9:55pm
Hatred inspiring? We keep hearing she enjoyed a popularity record north of 80% in her home state at the time of her nomination. Most of the "haters" apear to hail from elsewhere.
- lsernoff
October 1, 2008 at 11:22pm
Imbecile Fairbanks article. Two corrupt stupid people versus two accomplished people. The great similarity is that in both cases there's a married couple. Do they teach you in journalism school to find similarity everywhere? Yesterday I saw a pair of hobos - a man and a woman. Wait! They're similar to the Clintons and Palins.
- sleepyavl
October 1, 2008 at 11:38pm
Bill30097 mentions Kool Aid! What a clever idea, comparing Palin supporters to suicidal cultists! He also believes that both Obama and Hollis French of the Alaska Legislature can predict the future: "Branchflower is an operative for Obama trying for an October surprise to swing the election and predicts the outcome before he sees any facts." You know what's funny about that? Branchflower was hired, and his hiring approved by a bipartisan group, BEFORE Palin was chosen by McCain as the surprise VP pick. If Obama can put his operative in place in a case like that, he's so brilliant we just have to elect him.
- JEFF FREY
October 2, 2008 at 1:47am
Sarah Palin is unique in American politics now because she is the only leader to have taken action in a fundamentally radical way to share the wealth. She doubled the taxes on the oil companies and then sent checks to the residents of Alaska from the oil revenues. Huey Long advocated the same sort of thing. He said Americans needed to "share the wealth." Roosevelt saw him as his biggest threat because Long was going where Roosevelt would never go. Roosevelt was a patrician aristocrat who feared this sort of economic redistribution. It is astonishing, then, that she is on the Republican ticket with a candidate from the WASP establishment, which, throughout American history, has done whatever was necessary to not share the wealth. Should McCain die in office, America would have its first truly radical president, to the left, economically, of the liberals. The conservative Republicans are using her to keep power, just as the conservatives in Italy thought they were using Benito Mussolini. But beyond her Huey Long radicalism, she is basically a Peronist in the sense that Bush is a Peronist. What they advocated is the "ownership society," much as Peron did with his philosophy of Justicialism. Peron concluded that if everyone owned his own home, no one would be a Communist. And the Bush-Palin brand of Peronism has led America into the same crisis that plagued Argentina under his rule. Sub-prime mortgages are a form of Peronism to give a home ownership stake in the society, so that a deep conservatism would take hold and forever defeat the Democrats. Peron, using his wife Evita to attract the working class into the fold, took what had been a sound economy and trashed it, turning Argentina into a Third World country when it previously had been considered a developed nation. This is precisely what has happened in America. Our once great economy has been trashed beyond recognition, with wild spending and cheap mortgages with ever-increasing interest rates because of the very inflation that these policies have inevitably engendered. Using social conservatism, much as Peron did, to whip up hostility to the left, Palin has managed to sell her brand of populist radical economics while still posing as a conservative. But however much she opposes abortion and gay marriage and advocates the teaching of creationism in science classes, the real Sarah Palin is Eva Peron with an Alaskan accent and without the high fashion, although now, she has a much better hairdresser and her clothes have dramatically improved. But there is an underside to Palin’s populism and this is its inevitable authoritarianism. Her interest in banning books is just the tip of the iceberg. When she spoke at the Republican convention, she accused Barack Obama of worrying about their civil liberties while the Al Queda terrorists wanted to blow us up. The crowd cheered wildly as though they were at a Peron rally, shouting "Sarah! Sarah!" the way the Argentineans shouted "Evita! Evita!" Then, there is the matter of "Troopergate." Her defenders now say that she had every right to try to get her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper because of his drinking, his abusive behavior and his threats to her parents. But that is precisely the point. She had no interest in calling for a hearing so he could defend himself against these allegations. Moreover, if he were fired and had no job, the question of custody of the children would have been clear-cut. He would not have had a chance to get custody. Now, she and her husband, Todd, have announced their refusal to cooperate with an investigation that had been authorized by both Democratic and Republican legislators. But we know the defense. "It is a political circus." Palin has enemies not only among the Democrats, but also among the Republicans because of her efforts to weed out corruption in her own party. Everyone in the legislature is out to get her and only a hearing before the Ethics Board would be fair. But since she has appointed the members of the Ethics Board, how fair and impartial could that hearing be? The answer is that she is a reformer. As a reformer she would not go against her own principles. But here, once again, there is a similarity to Huey Long, who created Louisiana State University, the first public university in the state so the less fortunate in the state could get a college education, and then, shut down the student newspaper for criticizing his authoritarian methods. Can a reformer abuse power? Of course. Just look at what Eliot Spitzer did in going after Senate Majority leader Joseph Bruno. Her strategy, that McCain has embraced, is to keep stalling and denying until the presidential election is over. Once elected, she will be beyond the reach of the Alaska legislature because she will be leaving the governorship and Troopergate will be moot, particularly because the trooper in question has managed, thanks to his union, to keep his job. But is this what America needs now, a regime with no respect for this constitution? After all, if the rule of law doesn’t apply to the government, it doesn’t exist. The Bush administration had already interpreted the constitution to justify unbridled executive power, something they call the "unified executive." Madison did not create the separation of powers to allow this kind of approach to government, and Jefferson didn’t insist upon a Bill of Rights so America could have a dictatorship, however populist it might be. That we have come this far is appalling, with John Marshall being relegated to the ash heap of history. William Buckley said his philosophy, which led him to found the National Review, was to hold up his hands and yell, "Stop!" That is precisely what America must do now.
- Richard Cummings
October 2, 2008 at 1:11pm
It's a bit of a stretch comparing the Palins to the Clintons. The Palins may have ruffled a few feathers, but I don't think they've ever been accused of as many felonies as the Clintons have, to include the murder of Vince Foster, the Whitewater housing scandal, Bill's numerous affairs and lying about it under oath, etc. If the Palins are bad people, they are amateurs at it compared to the Clintons.
- Greg
October 2, 2008 at 1:15pm
i just remembered why i spam-foldered this newsletter. thanks TNR for being inept clowns. you guys wanna bring up anything about liberal's accountability with respect to this bail out of foreign investors? TNR is UNAMERICAN.
- jah
October 2, 2008 at 1:53pm
It is fascinating that you have so many readers who are able to determine the intelligence of people they have never met. They take highly edited interviews and then project intelligence. If Bill Clinton was born to a school teacher in Alaska with 4 siblings instead of a having a millionaire Stepfather, he would not have ended up at an elite college. The reason people relate to her is that many of us have to start and stop college when our parents are not wealthy. Ms. Fairbanks and the rest of the mainstream media should probably not report on Palin based upon the stories of people they fired. I am just happy that someone actually fires state employees. But it makes about as much sense as consulting ex-spouses as character references. So journalists must ponder: Is your objective to destroy Palin, or to get the story right?
- jpwinklhofer
October 2, 2008 at 6:18pm