The New Republic

The best part is that his being so exposed for what he really is had nothing to do with Palin.  Her ridiculous performance certainly hasn't helped, but this McCain battering was all him.  Roundly deserved.

- Wandreycer1

September 18, 2008 at 11:56am

...but this McCain battering ...

Is he being battered really?

My impression is that Obama has been having a nice, brief uptick, but that things are close, very, very close.

No?

- basman

September 18, 2008 at 2:04pm

...Her ridiculous performance certainly hasn't helped...

Ridiculous to whom: you or the general electorate?

Ridiculous how: lacking in substance by your lights; generally politically; or what?

I see that Ezra Klein, fwiw, thinks that as a matter of pure politics, she is in her own way a fantastic communicator, on a par with Obama, and that she is phenemonal on television and will debate well.

So, I ask, do you need to separate your own revulsion with her from what is actualy going on?

- basman

September 18, 2008 at 2:09pm

Basman - Sarah Palin is a compulsive liar, to the point that she has insulted both me and my family's intelligence numerous times.  She continues to lie long after these things have been disproven.  Almost nothing she has claimed about herself is true. My question to *you* is, how can that not insult you?

This is in combination with the rest of her of course, lying alone wouldn't be enough (although in this case, its been so egregious, it cannot be overlooked).  She has exhibited no expertise in anything at all and presents as a deer in the headlights  in the one interview she has deigned to share with the Americans she's claiming she can lead if need be.  

I find it to be moral relativism of the worst kind to hold her to a different standard of behavior because she's not well educated and comes from a small town.  These things are irrelevant.  Is she professionally qualified and presenting herself honestly and well?  This is all that matters.

I agree that she has the ability to speak confidently to a camera and in combination with her retrograde views, this is entirely enough for many people.  If you want to call that fantastic, that's your call.  That's not exactly my take on it.  I find it sad.

Please don't infer that she's some sort of authentic American that I just can't handle.  

I bartended and waitressed at a diner where the clientele was mostly bikers to put myself through my undergraduate work and waitressed my way through two masters degrees after that.  The second one at night, pregnant. No one ever gave me anything and I worked hard, used my own abilities to get where I am.  More often than not, I *was* blue collar.

So you'll have to excuse my revulsion at the self serving nature of people in their BMW's on their way home from their Federalist society meetings pontificating about the cuteness and gumption of those on the lower socio-economic scale or making blanket judgements about people based solely on the size of the town they live in.  Like the people that live in these towns wouldn't judge her as an individual too.  Like they are monkeys in the zoo, pets. It's patronzing, classist nonsense I recognize well.  (I say the same thing about liberal racism, which I think is alive and well too).

Only people who don't live those lives romanticize them, which is so patronizing.  I take people as individuals, not by what class they may or may not present.  

By that criteria, yes, I think Sarah Palin's performance has been ridiculous.  I also think John McCain will rue the day he ever set eyes on her.

- Wandreycer1

September 18, 2008 at 4:31pm

I just looked closely at this: "So, I ask, do you need to separate your own revulsion with her from what is actualy going on?"

And I just wanted to say absolutely not.  The word "actually" is inappropriate here,  Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and experience of someone.  Just as many people feel like I do as not, even in the media.

- Wandreycer1

September 18, 2008 at 4:37pm

When oil stood at $137/bl I predicted it would fall below $100 before it reached $150.  With

that feat behind me, let me make a prediction about Governor Palin.  She will be a national

laughingstock by Nov. 1.  Her selection by McCain will be seen in retrospect as the moment

McCain's campaign began to unravel.  Why?  She is so completely out of her depth on the

national political stage.  She's a serial liar who cannot help herself.  She's as shallow as

an Alaskan summer day is long.  She is ridiculous.  For some this was apparent in the first

48 hours.  But it will be apparent to most Americans by the time the next 48 days come to pass.

- wscothan

September 18, 2008 at 6:13pm

wscothan: Excellent comment. Seems to be right on the money. I hope we are right.

She believes in Creation Science! God Help Us! Like Bush, she would diminish the value of science. And not that science is everything, but If there is a way out of the current mess we are in as a nation and families, it is most likely that science and technology and education will help us find way.

Their--Palin and McCain--public distain for "elite easterners and 'university'" people, (who likely vote Dem): instead of the best and the brightest from whereever, their motto is: "Pride in Ignorance". Too bad the world is complicated.

- sabatia

September 18, 2008 at 7:08pm

If Palin does not crater before Nov. 1, we'll need a New New Republic to replace the one that's served us pretty well (a Civil War and a few other dark spots notwithstanding) these past 200+ years. If this election is finally starting to turn around, it's because the politics of reaction and resentment (which have served the Republicans quite well these past 40 years) have finally run their course. A sensible, decent conservative, along the lines of the folks who write for the Economist, could have taken positions that would be somewhat different from Obama's, but still cognizant of and responsive to objective reality. Instead, the requirement to be the anti-Obama, anti-liberal, anti-Other, has led McCain and his reactionary cheering section to demean reason and take positions that do not address any real problems, or any real issues other than Obama's obvious plans to turn the US over to Louis Farrakhan and Osama bin Laden (and teach BJ's to the youngsters). We're having serious withdrawal discussions with Iraq, shifting troops from there to Afghanistan, negotiating with Iran (and a couple of days ago, Kissinger, Powell, Christopher, and Allbright said that's what we should be doing), witnessing the financial meltdown that many serious, non-ideological economists saw coming, etc. All as predicted by Obama.

Was Obama a visionary? Hardly - no more than I'm a visionary for predicting that you ought to pack an overcoat if you're going to Chicago in December. No, he simply pointed out the truth. Because McCain had to oppose all of these things - not because he really opposes them, but because he had to draw a contrast between his patriotic, America-loving self and the dastardly Obama - he's on the wrong side. (In fact, McCain's dwindling support among reality-based conservatives is due mostly to the fact that they hope he's not as stupid as he's having to pretend to be.)

Maybe a hockey Mom (and Forty-Year Old Grandma) can save us and assure that we do not fall into the clutches of the dangerous (but not because he's Black!) Obama. If God is on our side, however, don't count on it.

- Geoff G

September 18, 2008 at 9:49pm

Me thinks that by the end of the week Palin has told us that if we only pray hard enough the markets will rebound. Sort of a new take in the "havinig faith in the economy" stance....

- joelandersson

September 18, 2008 at 9:50pm

Jill, listen to yourself. “Sarah Palin is a compulsive liar.” She is a politician. So does she embellish and spin in the way of politicians, likely; or is she, even as amongst politician, extraordinary in her need—“compulsive”—to lie, unlikely? Does her compulsion have her lying when she is not politician: or does her pathology begin and end only within political boundaries? You and your family’s intelligence has been  insulted: perhaps you all need thicker intellectual skins if you are going passionately to observe, participate in, politics. Here is Richard Posner on Machiavelli and the vulgar tendency to see him and and poltical morality as cynical:

“People… have difficulty grasping the distinctive and essential components of political morality, comprising the qualities necessary in a statesman or other leader. Those qualities are strategic and interpersonal (manipulative, coercive, psychological) in character. They are quintessentially social. They constitute the morality, misunderstood as cynicism, expounded by Machiavelli, the morality that Weber contrasted with an ‘ethic of ultimate ends’, his term for the uncompromising absolutist ethics that one finds, for example, on the Sermon on the Mount. The ethics of political responsibility implies a willingness to compromise, to dirty one’s hands, to flatter and lie, to make package deals, to forgo the prideful self satisfaction that comes from self-conscious purity and devotion to principle. It requires a sense of reality, of proportion, rather than self-righteousness or academic smarts. The politician must have an ‘ability to let realities work upon him with inner consciousness and calmness.’”

Palin also has expertise aplenty and that is political expertise. You just refuse to see it because ideologically she so threatens you.

Perhaps you would care to deal with these points arising from the Gibson interview and things generally:

1. I have now heard both Ezra Klein and Bill Clinton on what a tremendous natural politician she is, not to be underestimated, as both Reagan and Bush 43 were underestimated;

2 .her political instincts in dealing as well as she did, purely politically and not substantively, in fending of Gibson when asked a question—Buh Doctrine--  that threw her;

3. her political instincts compared to Obama in refusing to answer about violating Pakistani sovereignty;

4. and making the same allowances for her given her recently being thrust into all this that have been given to Obama when he said politically stupid things in the course of 20 or debates and was learning on the job;

Even if she were judged politically by a different standard because she comes from a small town or is not well educated, how is that “moral relativism”? There is no moral judgment being made here, only political judgments. To call that “moral relativism” is as wild as calling her a “compulsive liar.” And you are the only one asserting that double standard. Where is anyone giving her a pass on those grounds? And who says she is not well educated. She has a degree from a respectable university. Or is she to feel humbled because she did not go to an ivy league type school or does not have advanced degrees. Neither did Reagan nor others.

So what? I suggest that if you reflect on the inner meaning and sub text of your comments, you are implicitly positing an unbecoming elitism, which disdains American ideals of merit in actions as opposed to credentials. She hs been heralded as up and comer by Republican professional politicians who know a thing or two more than you and I do about such things, she is the self made governor of a state, and she took on mighty foes in so ascending.

So why don’t you park your sarcasm at the door, for all that she does not seem sophisticated enough for you, applaud her achievements and argue against her on the merits, and stop descending into wild and ill thought out declamation.

Considering the mileage Obama has gotten from delivering well good, well written speeches, it hardly lies in your mouth to dismiss this ability in Palin. Your intellectual problem here is that apart from talking points—like his ethics reform legislation with Tom Coburn and his “loose nukes” legislation with Luger—you can point to nothing on the basis of experience that qualifies him for the presidency. And don’t tell his readiness for that is vouched for by having secured the nomination of his party. So did Bush 43.

…Please don't infer that she's some sort of authentic American that I just can't handle….´  You mean "imply" not "infer".  That’s a mistake I can see Sarah Palin making, and I really don’t give a shit if she does or if you do, even if it’s bad English. But who’s the one, even with two masters degrees,  saying she is not well educated and looking down on her accordingly?

… So you'll have to excuse my revulsion at the self serving nature of people in their BMW's on their way home from their Federalist society meetings pontificating about the cuteness and gumption of those on the lower socio-economic scale or making blanket judgements about people based solely on the size of the town they live in.  Like the people that live in these towns wouldn't judge her as an individual too.  Like they are monkeys in the zoo, pets. It's patronzing, classist nonsense I recognize well.  (I say the same thing about liberal racism, which I think is alive and well too)….

I really don’t know what you are talking about here. Who are these people making these judgments? Are these judgments as bad as saying some folks in small towns bitterly cling to this and that, when the sayer is behind closed doors, thinking he is talking off the record to his fellow sophisticates, on the analogy of partying in Hollywood two nights ago when the markets were tumbling down, with heeled donors paying  $28,500.00 a person to attend the party?

Really, you have no criteria other than your own highly emotional and irrational ones to say Palin is ridiculous, for her effect on the very people you presume to defend from elitist and patronizing judgments in the paragraph of yours I just cited has completely changed up the race in the way a more conventional vp pick would not have. So in effect, you are disdaining and dismissing the very people she has affected even while you spring to their defense from the likes of effete snobs whom you so decry. Very incoherent it all is, I must say.

You have no call to criticize  my use of ‘actually” if you take 4 seconds to be reflective about it. Her impact on the race is objectively measurable and you are conflating that measurement with opinions about Palin herself, to which of course every one is entitled to their own.

Get me?

- basman

September 19, 2008 at 1:10am

Whew! A lot to digest in that post, basman. It's late, so I'll just hit on one or two topics. Certainly Palin has strong political skills. And political skills are necessary to get elected. But they are not sufficient to do the job once elected. And the evidence suggests that Palin isn't strong on the other skills needed for high office. Taken to the extreme, lack of preparedness can override political skills.

The other point that caught my eye: "... you are implicitly positing an unbecoming elitism, which disdains American ideals of merit in actions as opposed to credentials."

Credentials aren't granted willy-nilly. They are earned through merit and hard work. What we often see today from the Republican party is a reverse elitism, in which those who have worked hard and earned credentials are disdained for having done so, and are sometimes even considered not authentic Americans. That, I think, is why Wandreycer reacts so negatively, and I understand her anger about this. Disdain for those who have earned credentials of some sort means disdain for me personally (and her, and you), and disdain for the work that went into earning them. It is just as bad as the credentialed looking down their noses at the uncredentialed.

Yet  the same party never disdains one sort of elite -- those who are elite by virtue of having a lot of money. But that's another topic.

- JEFF FREY

September 19, 2008 at 2:27am

I stand by everything I said Basman.  If you can stand all of her lying by using your equivalency argument, fine - I will not.  Her lies are so egregious, so complete, they insult.  Shall I list them again or have you read them enough in the press?  How about this:  please find me a statement of hers on her record that is factually accurate.  I'll bet you can't.

There is nothing else to her rollout to this country but her lies.  This cannot be said about Bill Clinton, et all.

I know politcians lie. Please stop being condesending because I disagree with you on Palin.  Was your support of Hillary at all based on her values and her record?  Because if so, I cannot understand your enthusiasm for someone who stands in polar opposite of Hillary's beliefs in every way.  What exactly *was* your support for Hillary based on?  Experience? Expertise?  Knowledge? Intelligence?  If so, good for you.  How can you possibly find Palin anything other than offensive if so?

Mussolini was a talented politician as well, most demougues throughout history were.  Without context or values, "talented politcian" is a meaningless, if not menacing term.  

I have no problem being called an elitist in this case, I am.  Although I do find it to be an ad homeniem attempt to stop diaoluge and confuse the specificity of the issues at stake, I'm not in the slightest bit intimidated by it.  So be it.  I am openly tired of fundamentalst rubes and disrespectful incompetents running this country in to the ground, most of history tells us this is what happens when you let those people take over.  She is poorly educated and lacks even rudimentary curiosity - let alone knowledge - about the issues facing this country.  She isn't qualified to teach a class on government, let alone run one.  

America was founded on the idea that this religion-based governing must stop. Our founders looked to enlightenment principles of inquiry, learning and objectivity.  They valued knowledge, learning and an rigorous philosophical and intellectual basis for decision making.  By your definition, they were elitists too. I'm in good company and proud of it.

I am tired of ideological Republicans mindlessly denigrating people who chose to work in government, who gather real expertise and value excellence in their work.  I am tired of glib ideolouges treating the art and science of effective governing as some sort of joke that any boob could do with their eyes closed while destroing everything they touch. I would no more look to Sarah Palin to run this country than I'd look to her to perform surgery or represent me in a court of law.  Why should I not feel this way?  Does governing this fine country mean any less?  Not to me.  Not to millions of us.

If that makes me an elitist: I wear it proudly,  I respect my country too much to cow in the face of that.  I have high standards for my leaders and make no apologies for that.

I also have a fondness for objective truth: this woman is unqualified to be President and the only reson she was picked was because of her anti-intellectual religious fundamentalism and her fecunidty, which I find deeply offensive as a patriot and a woman.

This woman is not on the same planet as Reagan, whom I grew up with as Govenor most of my life.  Reagan had been a successful movie star (no small feat), president of the biggest union in the US (ditto), had run for President twice on a platform he designed that was ahead of his time and became revolutionary, had been Govenor of the seventh largest country in the world twice.  He had a firm and detailed grasped of education, health and defense policies, despite what the left said about him - Sara Palin has no idea what she is talking abou tin any of them.  Reagan was a natural politician, yes.  But there was context and values there that made it mean something as well.  

You may value her telegenic perkiness.  Personally, I need more in a President.

- Wandreycer1

September 19, 2008 at 6:38am

2 .her political instincts in dealing as well as she did, purely politically and not substantively, in fending of Gibson when asked a question—Buh Doctrine--  that threw her;

In what way was this valuable?  I am not alone in finding her response to have been transparently embarassing.  Skillful?  In what way?

3. her political instincts compared to Obama in refusing to answer about violating Pakistani sovereignty;

I agree completely with Obama's stance on Pakistan.  

- Wandreycer1

September 19, 2008 at 8:02am

"You may value her telegenic perkiness.  Personally, I need more in a President."

So you're voting McCain and hoping he doesn't croak, then?

- selish70

September 19, 2008 at 9:31am

Jeff, it’s always a pleasure and a treat to exchange a few words with you.

I agree with you about the divide between political skills, which Palin clearly has, and the ability to govern, about which I do no know much concerning her and about which for the presidency itself, I am certain that she now does not have. Were something to happen to an elected McCain, that would be a bad political circumstance for America and that goes to the quality of his selection of her. I’m certain we agree on all of that, and I did not intend to argue against any of those sensible thoughts. My concern was to argue against the shrill and at times hysterical dismissal of Palin as some lying, ridiculous, even villainous,  rube, who can be bracketed simply by so categorizing her.

There is a fair criticism to make of a complex populism that pits “the folks” against elitist Ivy league types who, the charge goes, look down on the ordinary people, for whom they presume to know better than they themselves what they need. It is a complex populism because at its cynical worst it is a divisive strategy and tactics that seeks support by breeding division and stirring resentment. But at its not worst, there is a natural antipathy to progressive liberalism’s core ideas of strong central government planning and regulating as much as possible, which looks to educated elites and technocrats to do the planning and regulating, the kind of impulses Hayek railed against in The Road To Serfdom. Democrats are inclined toward progressive liberalism and Republicans are obviously strongly inclines against it. Populism, which I have been thinking a lot about lately, finds fertile ground in that antipathy and therefore will tend to find itself exploited by, and resonant in, Republican politics more than by Democratic politics.

A wild card here here is the politician who by his or her own gifts is capable of a tremendous connection with the majority of people and examples of them to my mind in the modern era include Bush 43, Reagan, Clinton and Robert Kennedy (more than his big  brother). Palin has some of that about her as well. If one considers Palin in these terms and the now old news media firestorm she ignited, it all becomes for me at least fascinating to contemplate.

So I have no argument against credentials as such and they may be impressive and signal great achievement. But what I was reacting to, as I apprehended it, was a slur against Palin as being not well educated as part of a meme as to her as simpleton rube who is ridiculous. I saw an implicit credentialism in that characterization of her. And I guess on this issue that is the point: credentials as against credentialism.

I have taken more time from work than I have to write this and will stop here.

- basman

September 19, 2008 at 11:15am

Jill I'll try to answer you some when my day eases up a little.

- basman

September 19, 2008 at 11:16am

But Wandrey, Palin is a FOX!  She kept her figure after having five kids, she knows how to find food in the wilderness, and she's got that special hot-line to God.  Who cares about the Bush Doctrine?

- Robert Powell

September 19, 2008 at 1:20pm

Hey RP - OK, you're right.  Foxy trumps all...not that I don't admire her for it, I do - her hubby is unambiguously awesomely hunky too - make that woman Veep! I want to see that hubby cleaned up in a tux!

I like him more than her by alot.

- Wandreycer1

September 19, 2008 at 2:14pm

McCain's statement that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" is like Obama's statement about bitter religious gun-owners. Both statements are essentially true, but neither statement is what anyone wants to hear, and thus both statements were politically foolish.

As of this moment (1:17 PDT Friday the 19th) the Dow is up a few ticks for the week. That, of course, has nothing to do with the soundness of the economy, anymore than the Dow being down a few ticks for one week has anything to do with the soundness of the economy.

Saying the economy is fundamentally sound may be closer to the truth than many people would like to hear, especially people who have lost their jobs or homes or who face crippling health care costs, to give just three of many possible scenarios. No matter. The United States economy has some daunting and, yes, systemic problems that I doubt anyone will be able to wholly repair during the next Administration. We forget we've had a dullard in charge for the last eight years. That things aren't any worse than they are, given Bush's leadership, is itself a testament to the economy's essential strength. If our economy has serious problems, it also is the most robust in the world. If we like what we smell, the world wags. In finance we are arguably second to the UK but still not by much. In high tech and health care it's not even close. Our sock factories may have lost out to China but our brain factories (our universities) are still the best-run on the planet. Our economy continues to be the most diversified in history. Our agricultural output is easily the world's most diversified. Europe would kill for our demographics; unlike much of the world, we still have large, young, entrepreneurial and energetic generations eager to replace our current crop of leaders in all industries. Thousands risk death, literally, to cross our borders in search of a tiny fraction of our wealth. Meanwhile, we provide state-of-the-art armed security to much of the planet. All these factors, while not strictly economic per se, are evidence of an economy that is fundamentally strong.

John McCain's knee-jerk reaction to anything lately has been his silly "Country first" mantra, so what's the patriotic knee-jerk reaction to a temporary dearth of liquidity in the financial markets? The economy is "fundamentally strong." That John McCain is an idiot who shouldn't be within 100 yards of the Oval Office doesn't make him incorrect in this case, even if he has stumbled upon the truth by accident. As Tom Petty sings, "Even the losers get lucky sometimes."

- williamyard

September 19, 2008 at 4:42pm

Thanks, basman. The feeling is mutual.

I agree with your point on credentials vs. credentialism. We have to strive for a middle ground, because both "anyone without an Ivy league degree is unqualified" and "Ivy league graduates are elitists, not authentic Americans" are incorrect generalizations. On the other hand, credentials do matter a lot. The guy who did the yearly maintenance on my furnace last week was a great guy and very competent at what he does, but I wouldn't want him running the Securities and Exchange Commission (or serving as VP unless he showed qualifications for that job). Nor would I want the SEC chairman fixing my furnace.

I think people do naturally overreact, and the shrill criticism of Palin has indeed had an unpleasant element (and often unflattering for the one doing the criticizing). But at the same time there are ample grounds for non-shrill criticism. I think the overreaction of some does not reflect some failing unique to liberals, because there is plenty of the same stuff coming from the other side. It reflects a common human failing.

Perhaps the bigger issue that goes beyond partisan considerations is the practice of defining authenticity (or some other positive quality) by exclusion. I am sick and tired of hearing Republicans yammer on about how people like me are not authentic Americans because I did not grow up in a saintly small town, or because I went off and got a graduate degree instead of working in a factory, or doing one of the other things that brand of populism claims to value. The sort of definition by division reminds me of high school cliquishness, and it makes me feel very sympathetic also to WandreyCer's more visceral response to Palin and those who are praising her to the heavens. One of the things that I find most appealing about Obama is his message that we are all in this together, and that I think he truly means it and will do his best to practice it.

- JEFF FREY

September 19, 2008 at 5:44pm

Nice post, Jeff.

- williamyard

September 19, 2008 at 6:40pm