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Abandoning Ship

Miss Noonan’s unconscious fear may be that it will be precisely Mrs. Palin (and others like her) who will be among the leaders of the about to be re-born conservative movement. ~Tony Blankley I think the fear is quite conscious.  She is explicit about her desire that Palin not be in such a leadership position.  In […]

Miss Noonan’s unconscious fear may be that it will be precisely Mrs. Palin (and others like her) who will be among the leaders of the about to be re-born conservative movement. ~Tony Blankley

I think the fear is quite conscious.  She is explicit about her desire that Palin not be in such a leadership position.  In my view, this fear is unnecessary for some of the reasons I have given below, but there is no question that critics of Palin have various reasons to dread Palin becoming one of the leaders of the zombified re-born conservative movement.  Some of this has to do with weariness with or lack of interest in culture war issues (I would say this describes Frum’s reaction), some of it is opportunistic at this late stage in the game, some of it is a deep aversion to anything that resembles uninformed populism (that’s Brooks’ reason), some of it is stylistic (professional writers cannot take much satisfaction when a public figure so badly butchers the language), but a large part of the hostile reception of Palin by Palin’s critics on the right is a genuine objection to an unqualified candidate unprepared for the post she seeks.  While her critics may have engaged in some self-serving rhetorical overkill, as I think Brooks certainly has, and even though most or all of them raised no such objections to Mr. Bush, they do seem to have learned something from the experience of the Bush administration in that they have concluded that “good instincts,” folksiness and ignorance are not what is needed. 

In the end, the selection of Palin was not only a desperate and cynical move designed mainly to mobilize core constituencies, but her candidacy quickly turned into nothing more than a vehicle for riling up the remaining true believers who still approve of Mr. Bush’s job performance.  If recognizing this obvious truth makes one a “me-too” conservative, you’re going to find a lot of people clamoring to acquire that designation.  Obama endorsers are a somewhat different story, as they are trying to jump on the popular bandwagon, but rather than wailing about the perfidy of the defectors and demanding to know what side people are on one might want to consider what it is about one’s own side that seems to have become so radioactive.  It’s all very well to say that the critics and defectors are rats deserting a sinking ship, but instead of worrying about that one might spend a bit more time considering how the ship came to be in this situation.  When in an imploding political system or an imploding political movement, it is usually more important to change conditions inside to keep people from fleeing than to wish them all good riddance while building higher walls.

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