Washington Examiner
By:
Some of the best, though not last, words about Sarah Palin come from Joshua Green of the Atlantic Monthly, trying to square the circle between Palin I, the prenomination wildly popular centrist reformer, and the polarizing, divisive, culture-war icon that is Palin II.
As governor she was the very antithesis of the boneheaded ditz of our snottier pundits: a shrewd, canny, focused and very effective state governor.
"The Alaskan Palin fought corruption within her own party, attacked the nexus of government and big business, avoided polarizing feuds and cut successful bipartisan deals," Ross Douthat tells us, someone who settled "insoluble" problems and put her state on a glide path to fiscal integrity.
Compare her at this stage to Barack Obama at a similar point in his life, and she is by far the more accomplished political figure, and by far the less partisan, yet within months she was fixed in some people's minds as a wing nut and a cretin. What occurred?
Better ask what had not. Point one, Sen. John McCain's idiot handlers cast her in the traditional role of a partisan slasher, not in her own role of reformer and maverick.
Point two, they showcased her weakness: She knew as much about geopolitics as most first-term governors, and needed a heavy tutorial.
Halfway in, they threw her on the mercy of liberal anchors, while her knowledge of economic and energy issues remained a dark secret. (In fact, her whole record remained a dark secret.)
Third, she became a culture-war flash point, responding to ferocious attacks with defiance and anger that created a cycle of rhetorical violence. But what made those attacks so vicious and personal?
Let us suggest a point four. In an alternative universe, what might have happened had she had three children, not five? With Track, Willow and Piper, she would have had a boy about to join the armed forces and two little daughters too young to be trouble, and her life would have been the ideal.
It was the two others -- the unwed, pregnant girl and the Down syndrome baby -- occurring at once in one year in one family, that set culture-war fires aflame.
What drives the pro-choicers? The idea of control. What do they say when in a tight corner? Abortion is wrong in the eyes of a few, but with Down syndrome babies and pregnant teenagers, it becomes a necessity.
Here was a woman confronted with both, but who refused to see the necessity and did not seize the option to tidy things up. Who resists the temptation to tidy things up when the option is offered?
Someone, that is, whose values are beyond comprehension, who barely seems civilized, and upon whom attacks of all kinds can be made -- such as the joke about the younger teen daughter getting "knocked up" at a ball game, the incest allusions on comedy programs, the gynecological riffs of the no-longer-serious blogger.
The New York Times played Wasilla as Dogpatch with sled dogs. Palin's refusal to conform to their concept of reason got her labeled in their minds as trash.
On the Left, this let Bush hatred flow seamlessly into Palin dementia; on the Right, it prompted the gentry conservatives (including the one who co-hosted a talk show with Eliot Spitzer) to rush to distance themselves from it all.
Demeaned by her presence, they let everyone know it. Never mind that her actual record in office tracked perfectly with the No Labels approach that they trumpeted later. Record? What record? They're intellectuals, aren't they? Do not confuse them with facts.
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