Sloppy Thinking
Thank goodness there are some level-headed folks out there. Here‘s Freddy on the main blog on the effort to compare Palin to Thatcher:
For a start, Thatcher was an exceptionally intelligent woman; Palin, for all her canny snark and tough-gal know-how, is not. If you think that is an elitist view, then you are wrong and perhaps stupid.
What can be said for Palin is that she is reputedly very diligent and a quick study, so I am inclined to think that she is probably not intellectually lazy and incurious as, say, Mr. Bush is, but that doesn’t invalidate Freddy’s observation. More important, however, are these points:
Maggie T was not plucked from obscurity by a party establishment eager to play personality politics; she had to fight her way through often hostile Tory ranks. Unlike Plain, she achieved in spite of her sex, not because of it.
Palin’s appeal is almost the antithesis of Thatcher’s. The amazing thing about Thatcher was that she was never really popular — she was viciously hated by the working-classes — yet she still won elections. Her success was based on a personal strength, a certain philosophy of government, and perhaps a degree fearsomeness. Palin’s is founded on her class, family, lipstick, and puerile class baiting (it’s too cheap to be called class warfare).
Unfortunately, the intellectual laziness that allows people to identify Palin with Thatcher (they’re both women, and they’re high up in center-right parties!) is the same one that allowed so many Republicans to identify Bush with Reagan. If Bush was attacked for not being curious or knowledgeable, Republicans made this a badge of honor because Reagan had been attacked in similar ways. The difference was that the criticism of Bush was accurate, and it was largely not accurate when applied to Reagan. When most sane people reacted with a mixture of horror and laughter to Bush’s “axis of evil” remarks, Republicans took this not as a sign of the stupidity of the idea, but as a vindication of the ”Reaganesque” quality of Bush’s warmongering because Reagan’s rhetoric had once provoked similar reactions. Never mind that the geopolitical circumstances and the underlying policies being offered were radically different–they both said something was evil, so they are alike!
In fact, if you wanted a comparative example of a female politician on the right promoted not primarily on merit, the European name to spring to mind is Angela Merkel. She was placed in Kohl’s cabinet because she was an Ossi, and perhaps partly because she was a woman, as a gesture to the East Germans after unification. Merkel then became Kohl’s favorite and became leader of the CDU after he resigned. The comparison isn’t perfect–she spent a lot more time in the federal government before rising to a comparably high leadership position–but it is much more appropriate than comparing her with Lady Thatcher. Perhaps there are Merkel admirers who would find this comparison flattering, but I’m not sure that it really is.
P.S. Clark has also failed to swoon.
The title of your post explains both the fundamental GOP governance strategy, and the conservative base’s approach to politics. Let them have September. We’ll take October and the first week of November.
The strange thing is that I don’t think they’re going to get to have September, either. I suspect they will still be significantly behind after tonight’s speech and suddenly all of those people who were wondering why Obama was doing so poorly will be saying, “Why hasn’t McCain started crushing Obama yet?” Pundits will expect a huge “Palin bounce,” and they will be mystified if it doesn’t show up.
I’m starting to feel like that kid in Invaders “From Mars”–I want the check the backs of necks to make sure that “they” haven’t got to them yet.
The Thatcher analogy seems forced to me, given Maggie’s aversion to smarm, among other things, but I don’t see how one can evaluate Sarah Palin’s intelligence one way or t’other.
If she’s an intellectual, she’s hiding it well. No references to Kierkegaard, Derrida, or St. Thomas Aquinas. But then the last intellectual in Presidential politics was Gene McCarthy, and look how far he got. A lack of intellecuality often doesn’t connote a lack of intelligence.
Obama’s “articulate,” as Joe Biden says; a “doubleplusgood ducktalker.” In spite of his precocious memoirs, it’s hard to evaluate his native intelligence, either, and he’s been in the public eye longer. As for Biden, well . . . . ’nuff said.
The woman’s only had five of her fifteen minutes. At least let’s wait until ten have passed before we jump to too many conclusions.
I don’t think Freddy is saying, and I am certainly not saying, that Palin is not intelligent, but that she is not at Thatcher’s level. That’s an important difference.
I didn’t know Maggie Thatcher, but I’ll grant you, Sarah Palin’s no Maggie Thatcher.
G.O.M. – you say it’s hard to evaluate his native intelligence. Doesn’t it make a difference that he takes an active role in writing his own speeches and positions, while her single national address was provided by GOPAC? Obviously (see Hollywood) it doesn’t take intellectual gravitas to deliver a strong speech from a teleprompter; I operate on the assumption that it’s much more difficult to write such a speech.
My wife and I finally had a moment to sit down over dinner this evening and discuss this topic, and I thought her take on the matter was related to the Thatcher discussion.
She finds the pick insulting for several reasons.
First, she pointed out that the traditional position of the Republican party is that individuals should be selected for jobs and promotions based on ability, and not arbitrary personal characteristics. She thinks it is pretty difficult to argue that govenenor Palin was selected for any reason other than the fact that she is a woman.
Second, because govenenor Palin seems to have been selected for what she represents rather than any talents she might bring to the ticket. My wife seems to think the pick will ultimately make it harder for women to argue that they only want equal access, and not special treatment.
Finally, she said she had discussed the pick with the CFO of her company, and he said he thought the pick was, “a joke.” He pointed out that the board of directors at most corporations would be calling for the CEOs head had he or she made such a reckless selection.
No, Sarah Palin certainly is not at Margaret Thatcher’s intellectual level, although the same could be said of most U.S. politicians — and Lady Thatcher herself would not be at the level of a Churchill, a Balfour or a Salisbury. Equally true, Mrs. Thatcher advanced, when she did, not because of her gender but in spite of it.
Governor Palin is an intelligent woman for whom the appellation overachiever should be added to that of hockey mom. Her accomplishments are laudable. However, Alaska is so far removed culturally, as well as geographically, from the rest of the United States and so unlike any of the other states that the moxie shown in her national speaking debut in front of a controlled and fawning audience is little guide to how she will do in less-controlled situations with relentless, recurring questions buffeting her from all quarters of the media — local, national and global. This is a serious handicap because one really only learns to handle this by doing it. Not only has her exposure to this been exceedingly thin, but having taken place in Alaska, the exposure she has had affords little preparation. Had she cut her political teeth even in Ontario, she would be better prepared, in many respects, for the scrutiny she now will encounter, although presumably excluded from running for legal reasons. Anyway, here she is, all of a sudden, playing for the proverbial Stanley Cup.
Class baiting, referred to in one of the blogs above, is about all the GOP has left, in its desperation; and no doubt, Governor Palin will be called on to take the lead in this exercise. The media, performing its role unexceptionably, will do all it can to smoke out anything in her background that seems unusual or extreme. There is a strong likelihood that they will find a number of examples, and Sarah Palin on the defensive may look considerably different than the toast of the Xcel Center did last night. Even then, she showed a taste for sarcasm and some relish for cheap shots that verged, at least, on cockiness. As she responds to questions that imply that she is out of the mainstream, it is almost inconceivable that she will have the reservoir of charm that Ronald Reagan had in such situations, and she certainly doesn’t have his seasoning. Class baiting depends on the audience’s ability to merge themselves with the speaker and see the speaker’s prejudices — so often called values — as their own. I truly wonder whether independent women and Hillary Democrats will be tracking with Governor Palin a month from now. They easily could be sending her to the penalty box.
Josiwe: Obama has a certain lofty eloquence. Palin and he both have writers and they both are said to participate in the writing process, although Obama probably does more of his own writing and speaks in a fancier register.
I imagine both have above-average intelligence. OTOH, it’s impossible to tell what brain power Slow Joe Biden has behind those constant effusions of verbiage.