“Don’t Even Think About It”?
Having earlier defended Ross’s latest column against some of his more ludicrous critics, I want to take issue with its takeaway message, which I think ends up being discordant with the note on which he begins. Here’s the kicker:
Sarah Palin is beloved by millions because her rise suggested, however temporarily, that the old American aphorism about how anyone can grow up to be president might actually be true.
But her unhappy sojourn on the national stage has had a different moral: Don’t even think about it.
But reaching such a moral would be a bit quick, wouldn’t it? After all, Ross himself begins his column by suggesting that it would have been good for Palin’s long-term political trajectory if she’d declined John McCain’s offer and delayed her rise to national prominence by an election cycle or two, and he also makes the point that the personality that the McCain campaign crafted for Palin turned out not to be an especially appealing one, and that Palin’s “missteps, scandals, dreadful interviews and self-pitying monologues” led her to botch the role that her circumstances had put her in. Indeed, this is the very point of proposing that “She should have said no” would make an appropriate epitaph for the soon-to-be-ex-governor’s political career; the idea is that if Palin had played her cards differently, then maybe she wouldn’t have ended up a national laughingstock whose once-rising trajectory now appears to be meteoric in the astronomically proper sense.
If this analysis of the Saga of Palin is accurate, though, then it seems that the appropriate morals for would-be presidents from humble backgrounds would be cautionary rather than defeatist: bide your time; make sure you put your best face forward; keep up with the news and study the issues long before you’re called to speak out on them; and please, please make sure you’re sufficiently on top of things to handle a one-on-one with Katie Couric. For a candidate thus prepared, an “average” background and some all-around folksiness can turn out to be an advantage, notwithstanding whatever sneering mockery is bound in any case to come your way, and it’s up to you to maximize your political gifts and do what it takes to prove that aphorism right.
This is not, however, to agree with Conor that the level of criticism that Sarah Palin had to bear was anything short of extraordinary, or that the only reason the punditry laid into her was that she was so evidently inept and unqualified. To be sure, she was those things, and there’s no disputing the ruthlessness of American politics, but the particular varieties of scorn heaped on Palin by perfectly mainstream figures were like something out of an over-the-top movie, and something tells me that certain people with agendas would have slung around the insults even if Palin had been able to hold forth more competently on the niceties of nuclear policy. The point is just that a good deal more of that competence would have put her in a much more solid position, and made her that much more able to withstand the barrage when it finally came her way. It’s obviously not true that anyone can grow up to be president, but if she’d taken her time and spent it wisely it’s not at all a stretch to think that Sarah Palin could have done just that.
Filed under: politics
But I don’t think this last paragraphs history is quite correct. The press was, in my memory, quite enthusiastic about Palin the the first couple of weeks following her selection. Even fawning. The press loved Obama, but they hated loving Obama, and since they are the press they were desperate for any narrative to upset the conventional wisdom, and especially a narrative that helped them polish their unbiased (that is, not liberal) laurels. Palin fit that role perfectly. But the press quickly turn on her, because of her utter nosedive in the first several weeks. Did the press turn too soon? Perhaps. Could she have done worse? Sure. But she was being seriously introduced as a candidate for the second highest office in the country. It is absolutely fitting and proper for such candidates to receive a harsh accounting, and she failed, on her own terms and due to her own limits. And, as Ross Douthat has been known to say, politics ain’t beanbag.
“This is not, however, to agree with Conor that the level of criticism that Sarah Palin had to bear was anything short of extraordinary…”
John, I mostly agree with your post, but I just don’t see how the treatment of Palin was extraordinary. That isn’t to say that it wasn’t over the top, unfair, etc. It’s just to say that I watched George W. Bush be compared to Hitler, Bill Clinton accused of orchestrating Vince Foster’s death, Barack Obama being accused of being a secret Muslim who faked his birth in the United States — I mean, name a prominent politician, especially one involved in a hotly contested election, and I’ll point you to all kinds of absurd attacks.
Was Palin’s treatment extra ordinary? I don’t see why.
Conor: That was part of my point about referencing “perfectly mainstream figure” in the sentence after the one you quoted. I mean, I suppose I don’t remember Clinton’s candidacy that well (if at all), but the “Obama is a secret Muslim” meme was largely confined to tiny regions of the lunatic Right, and the particular sort of sexist and classist disdain that Palin had to endure was not at all something that, say, “blue collar” Joe Biden ever dealt with. Perhaps I’m wrong, though – but in any case even if the treatment wasn’t abnormal, that still doesn’t excuse it at all.
And Freddie: I have no problem with candidates receiving a “harsh accounting”, but spiteful mockery and sneering hatred are quite another thing. (You know, Christian love and all.) I never denied, though, that Palin’s failure was due to her own limits; indeed, that was the entire point of the post.
I think one almost has to be an agnostic on the question of whether the media would still have piled on (to a greater extent than normal for a national level politician) had Palin not been “so evidently inept and unqualified.” It is, in my opinion, the kind of counterfactual that is particularly hard to answer. Sure, some “people with agendas” would still have slung insults, but, as you admit, any politician has to suffer a certain amount of that. How can we know if she would have been subject to more than the normal amount of that but for her ineptness? By the same token, it is equally absurd to assume the opposite – she may well have still been subjected to more than the normal amount of abuse.
I’m not sure we’ve had a candidate as uniquely unqualified as Palin seek the Vice Presidency. When the narrative is dependent on portraying Katie Couric and Charles Gibson interviews as gotcha and anything but the softballs that they are and were, there is a problem with the narrative. The only thing she could or would talk about is not aborting a child with Downs Syndrome and the rest of her biography. Admittedly that was enough for much of the pro-life right to saint her, but I’m not quite sure what the rest of the world was supposed to take away from the Palin experience except that she was a glad handing nitwit that has gotten by on her good looks.
I think most of my anger at Palin came from the total dismissiveness toward Obama which she displayed in her acceptance speech. Sure the speech was written by someone else, but her delivery presented a smug and self-satisfied image which pretty well summed up all we’ve seen of her in the public eye. For all of Sullivan’s excesses, she has never tried to clarify her ridiculous overstatements, misstatements and outright lies. Unfortunately for her, she missed her time. If she arrived on the public scene in 2002 or 2004, she would have done well, but the public had tired of that schtick by 2008. She also happened to run into a much more gifted person and politician who better aligned with the public mood.
I’m still a big fan of the “finishing school” theory: http://bit.ly/pN5Np
“… but the “Obama is a secret Muslim” meme was largely confined to tiny regions of the lunatic Right,” – the Pew April ’08 (and ’09) findings contradict that:
” While a majority — 53%(55%) — identify Obama as a Christian, 16% (17%) of conservative Republicans, 16% (19%) of white evangelical Protestants and 19% ( – ) of rural Americans believe the Illinois senator is Muslim. About a third of Americans(35%) said they don’t know what Obama’s religious beliefs are, and 9% (13%) of that group said it’s because they’ve heard different information about his faith. 14% (17%) of all Republicans, 10% (7%) of Democrats and 8% (10%) of independents think he’s Muslim, according to the survey”.
Googling: Obama Muslim (24.2M links) v’s Obama Marxist (1,23M) or Obama N***er (0.46M) – regrettably gives anecdotal support