Gentle heterodox conservative blogger,
I ask, with love, that all of you step outside of yourselves for just a moment, and perhaps consider again the respective attitudes of yourselves and your liberal brethren re: one Sarah Louise Heath Palin.
Look. You're upset. We're upset. These are tough times for those of us who believe in a ratcheting down of partisan rhetoric and a more ecumenical political discourse. Electoral politics, in a two-party system like ours, ensures stark either/or choices. Sadly, there is no Jarack McBama we can all vote for. (Somewhere, David Broder is weeping, quietly, while light jazz softly plays.) And the stakes are high. The stakes are high.
I'm a little disappointed in you lot. Because as much as there are some bloggers who are being unfair to Sarah Palin, there are just as many who actually are asking perfectly acceptable questions of a nominee for the understudy position to the most powerful and important job in the world. Hard questions do, in fact, have to be asked, and it seems a simple fact to me that a lot of the problem you guys have with tough questions being asked of your candidate is that she is a woman. If you really want to know about the cynicism at the heart of this selection, just recognize how the pick both seeks credit for being a women and demonstrating the lack of sexism in the GOP, and yet at the same time plays on sexist assumptions. (Women will vote for her, because broads only care about voting for other broads and don't care about ideology or policy!) And, you know, I understand you guys are on the "holding our candidates to entirely different standards than our opponent's candidates" tip right now. But that's just kind of hard for us to stomach. You guys just do the noise machine better, and we silently weep from the constant rain of talking points you hurl down on us. Like, you know, the one about experience being the absolute bedrock most important quality for an executive to have?
What really galls is that not one of you seems ready to admit that maybe, possibly, it could be the case that your own personal ideological and partisan preconceptions have something to do with how you're reacting to Sarah Palin and the questions surrounding her. Conservative blogger after conservative blogger has spent time talking about how incredibly angry the liberals are about Sarah Palin, how our opprobrium reveals lots of really nasty things about us. That could be. It could also be that your love for Palin is on the order of lunacy, that the sweet poems of praise that you've fallen all over yourselves to write for her are bizarre and over-the-top, and perhaps whats happening here isn't that liberals are insufficiently in thrall to Palin but that conservatives are exceedingly bewitched. (To hear you guys talk, you'd think the rumor wasn't that she gave birth to Trig Palin but to a little guy by the name of Jesus Christo.) Of course, it's also perfectly possible that whether one loves or dislikes Sarah Palin is a product of their ideology and their political affiliation, and maybe we're all just a little extra sensitive and partisan this election season. It happens.
But that's what's so frustrating here-- your utter certitude that we God-hating liberal elites are just being horribly mean to Sarah Palin, and that there's no sense in which, perhaps, you all are the ones going a bit too far. You all pride yourselves on your open minds and equinimity, but they seem to have abandoned you here. And fair enough; these are horrid times. But a little pushback is in order, I think, and we should all work to ratchet down the rhetoric in this most touchy season. Look I freely admit that I can be as bad as any with this stuff, and I invite-- I encourage-- you all letting me know when I need a reality Czech. Constant outrage doesn't become any of us, and each time you guys rant about how unjust this all is, it matters to me less and less. And I care what you all think, deeply.
To be brief: with my love and a kiss, CALM THE FUCK DOWN. For realz.
lots of love,
Freddie
PS Seriously, someone talk Ross Douthat off of the ledge. The guy's losing his nut. Give him compliments. (Start with the hair.)
Update: Alan Jacobs writes in to suggest that it's funny for me to be calling for calm. And he's right, by god!
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3 comments:
What's particularly galling about the difficulties reasonable conservatives and reasonable liberals are having over discussing Sarah Palin is that this is all part of John McCain's plan.
Seriously. The whole point of her selection and her speech at the convention was to divide the country. Those cosmopolitan elitists hate people like us, so we should hate them back. That sort of thing.
So, I guess there's disappointing behavioral all around. Liberals are stupid to take the bait and try to knock the chip off her shoulder, sure. This is a fight she wants to have. (Though, when someone wants to be leader of the free world, and also wants to pick a bitter, resentful fight with you and everyone like you, the level of discipline required to turn them down is much higher than I can muster.)
On the other hand, conservatives ought to recognize the colossal cynicism of McCain/Palin's strategy here. I mean, her convention speech is the exact opposite of Obama's "Little League in the Blue States, gay friends in the Red States."
McCain's whole strategy is to make it impossible for people across factional divides to relate to one another. Liberals should feel dumb for playing into it, and conservatives should dirty for cheering it on.
Freddie, may I just say — with all affection and respect — that I can't help but smile at the idea of Freddie telling people to calm down!
Also, you may not be talking about me, just as over on the scene I wasn't talking about you, but have you noticed that I actually haven't said anything positive (or negative, for that matter) about Sarah Palin?
- Alan J
Nicely said. I was initially very willing to hear Palin out (after her speech, less inclined), but the sound of all those Republican knees jerking into lock-step behind her is disconcerting and, frankly, a little scary to folks who already believe the Republican party is far too "cult of personality"-ish.
BTW I used to read Ross Douthat all the time (and your comments, too). IMO, Douthat shouldn't have gotten rid of his comments section. I suspected the echo in his chamber would only get louder once he didn't have comments to keep him somewhat honest. I am trusting that your description of his Palin writing is accurate (out of principle I haven't clicked to him since the comment section was banished) and imagine it's the losing the comments section effect at work.
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