Peggy Noonan is kinda hit and miss for me. Sometimes she seems she just can't figure out how to say what she wants to say and there have been a couple times when she's just been furiously vacant, as when she recently suggested we should all just ignore U.S. use of torture because it was just too unseemly.
But Ms. Noonan nailed her column today on Sarah Palin, taking the Palinphiles talking points and unraveling them:
"The elites hate her." The elites made her. It was the elites of the party, the McCain campaign and the conservative media that picked her and pushed her. The base barely knew who she was. It was the elites, from party operatives to public intellectuals, who advanced her and attacked those who said she lacked heft. She is a complete elite confection. She might as well have been a bonbon.
"She makes the Republican Party look inclusive." She makes the party look stupid, a party of the easily manipulated.
"She shows our ingenuous interest in all classes." She shows your cynicism.
"Now she can prepare herself for higher office by studying up, reading in, boning up on the issues." Mrs. Palin's supporters have been ordering her to spend the next two years reflecting and pondering. But she is a ponder-free zone. She can memorize the names of the presidents of Pakistan, but she is not going to be able to know how to think about Pakistan. Why do her supporters not see this? Maybe they think "not thoughtful" is a working-class trope!
"The media did her in." Her lack of any appropriate modesty did her in. Actually, it's arguable that membership in the self-esteem generation harmed her. For 30 years the self-esteem movement told the young they're perfect in every way. It's yielding something new in history: an entire generation with no proper sense of inadequacy.
"She makes the Republican Party look inclusive." She makes the party look stupid, a party of the easily manipulated.
"She shows our ingenuous interest in all classes." She shows your cynicism.
"Now she can prepare herself for higher office by studying up, reading in, boning up on the issues." Mrs. Palin's supporters have been ordering her to spend the next two years reflecting and pondering. But she is a ponder-free zone. She can memorize the names of the presidents of Pakistan, but she is not going to be able to know how to think about Pakistan. Why do her supporters not see this? Maybe they think "not thoughtful" is a working-class trope!
"The media did her in." Her lack of any appropriate modesty did her in. Actually, it's arguable that membership in the self-esteem generation harmed her. For 30 years the self-esteem movement told the young they're perfect in every way. It's yielding something new in history: an entire generation with no proper sense of inadequacy.
Ouch.
Peggy Noonan writes that Sarah Palin is "self-referential to the point of self-reverence"?
An understatement. Try "delusions of royalty."
Mrs. Palin actually said she loves Alaska so much that she's "sacrificing her title" for the state.
See:
http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/sarahs-sacrifice/
Posted by: Mike Licht | July 11, 2009 at 03:14 PM
I have to believe most Alaskans agree with her that the state is now better off.
Posted by: Jay McDonough | July 12, 2009 at 03:15 PM