Is He A Paragon Of Journalistic Integrity, Fearlessly Documenting The Rise Of A Evil Demagogue, Or Just Another Silly Old Poof Who's Terrified Of Women?

One of the funniest aspects of Andrew Sullivan's obsession with Sarah Palin is Andrew's inability to see what this obsession says about him. I fully understand that consistency has never been one of Sullivan's virtues, but with Palin there is nothing but inconsistency. Yesterday she was the Wicked Witch of the West; a dangerous, cunning demagogue of intolerance and evil:

If you are one of those people who think this person cannot become president of the United States, think again.

Two lines stood out for me. The first is a sign that she believes and her followers believe that she has a divine destiny. She is Esther, with a touch of martyrdom:

"I will live, I will die for the people of America."

The second was the Dolchstoss attack on the duly elected president of the United States:

"We need a commander-in-chief not a professor of law."

These two potent messages - delegitimizing Obama as "the other" and as a weak-kneed traitor to the troops, and casting herself as the avatar of the real America, ready to die for its survival - are political gold. Most politicians in liberal democracies she somewhat from stating them so obviously, because they clearly invoke certain, shall we say, non-democratic forms. Not she.

(Note the Marcotte-ish incoherence. It's a nice touch.)

The media, too scared be tarred as elitists, will never demand policy specifics from her; there is a huge constituency out there (rightly) outraged by Washington corruption and she now has the critical mantle of the rogue outsider; she can channel Christianism and fuse it with the slogans of phony "fiscal conservatism"; she will blame every lost job on Obama; and she will accuse him of betraying the troops and befriending America's enemies. Behind her are the Cheneyites.

Above all, she is capable of generating a personality cult - much, much more so than Obama, because she can harness Christianism to her divine destiny. The power of this kind of appeal - of a charismatic, beautiful woman, an icon of the pro-life cause, persecuted by the evil elites, demonized by libruls, and commanding the biggest military on earth - should not in my view be under-estimated.

Know fear.

Yes, indeed... (dramatic pause)... Know fear.

Anyway...

Evil genius? That was yesterday. Yesterday Sarah Palin was a combination of Huey Long, Pat Robertson and Dick Cheney. Today? Not so much:

I was too busy tapping away at my laptop to notice this little high-school trick. Having mocked president Obama for using a TelePrompter - not long after he made mincemeat of Republicans with no such TelePrompter at their retreat - she had to scribble down her priorities as president on her palm for the truly tough-as-nails Q and A she had to endure for ten minutes or so last night.

Written on her hand:

"Energy"

"Budget [crossed out] (Cuts)"

"Tax"

"Lift American spirits"

My favorite detail is "[Budget] Cuts". Which just about sums up the real Tea Party agenda on spending. But it also suggests that she was told in advance of the questions she would be asked, one of which was what would be you priorities if you were elected president? Now think about this: she had to write on her hand her priorities as president.

I stand by my belief that none of this matters to the people who support her, and that she remains a very potent, content-free and destructive force in American politics.

But remember too that even before her Glenn Beck interview, she was furiously Googling the Empire State Building in case she was asked any obvious universally known facts about it, and before her debate with Biden, she was buried in little post-card notes on factual basics that most Americans know - but she, of course, didn't.

Yep. Forget the whole evil genius thing: Today Sarah's a moron.

Most of what Sullivan writes is simply a pseudo-intellectual veneer for his raging emotionalism. It would never occur to him that someone might pick up on the fundamental inconsistencies in his day-by-day view of Palin. Simply put, Sullivan is no longer able to distinguish between an intellectual insight and a passing mood. Nor is he able to seperate honest disagreements over policy from his near all-consuming Fear of the Uterus. He's as unware of self as anyone I've seen in a long, long time.

What is of interest now (at least to me) is how soon the continuing emergence of Palin as a genuine political force leads him to blog his way out of a job at The Atlantic.

Comments

[JeffS]

"The media, too scared be tarred as elitists, ...."

If Andrew truly believes that, he is not only inconsistent, he's delusional. Or at least in denial.

[Phil Smith]

OT, but I can't wait to see what Dennis says about this.

http://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/8784856397

Oops, halftime's over.

[Dennis The Peasant]

Phil-

Stupid and unfunny. About what I'd expect from Mandy.

[Randy Rager]

Sullivan, like Olbermann, is simply terrified of the vagina.

[wombat]

But it ["Budget- Cuts" hand crib note] also suggests that she was told in advance of the questions she would be asked, one of which was what would be you [sic] priorities if you were elected president?

Gee, I've never run for President of anything but geek and garden clubs, but seems to me any possible candidate for POTUS might anticipate the priorities question w/o prompting. 'Course, had I gone to Hahvard that'd be an assumption too far in the favor of a non-elite, in Palin's case.

[Mike Myers]

It's called preparation you silly poofster.

Sullivan's wanderings these days remind me of a very old comedy record where the comic was playing an outrageous poofster playing college football for a team facing Oregon State. "And there I was running around right end with the ball only to be faced by BEAVERS!" Quel horror!

[mojo]

Know fear

In the biblical sense?

[Tam]

"Forget the whole evil genius thing: Today Sarah's a moron."

This kind of doublethink is spinal reflex to people who did it with the Shrub for eight years.

[Jim Ryan]

Behind her are the Cheneyites.

I can see them peeking out of my wife's blouse!

[Bob]

I pray to God that the Republicans are not actually putting their hopes on Sarah Palin as the future of the party. I mean, sure, even as retarded as she is she would be an improvement over Obama or probably anyone else the Democrats could put up, but please don't let this hot librarian type with a frame of reference limited to self-promotion lead the Republican charge to relevance in 2012.

[Mikee]

Bob, posting at 12:00pm on Feb 08, called Sarah Palin "retarded." Palin, former governor of a state, former candidate for VP, highly paid public speaker, highly paid pundit, got McCain more votes in 2008 than McCain did.

People used to complain that Lincoln was a hick from a backwater state with no class or intelligence. I seem to recall the same kind of thing being said about Truman, and Eisenhower, and Reagan and GW Bush. It wasn't true about them, either.

[Simon]

Mikee - The key issue in the next election will be competence - a safe pair of hands, almost regardless of ideology. By the next election if Hitler's very competent grandson runs - he would be elected.

Is Palin the right candidate on that basis ?

[Don Meaker]

At least this time Sarah knows not to give Katy Couric two days of interviews, which can then be edited to come up with the worst 15 minutes.

[Cassandra]

Note the Marcotte-ish incoherence. It's a nice touch

Just a thought, but have you ever seen Andy and "Mandy" in the same place?

I thought not.

[churriguerresco]

No to a competent fascist, and thank GOD the green and pink transnationalist-socialist has been incompetent.

How about a Prez confidently non-transformational?

[Jewel]

I'm trying to think like sullivan here, but a mind is a terrible thing to baste, that's for sure. All I got is this:
Written on her hand:

•"Energy"
•"Budget [crossed out] (Cuts)"
•"Tax"
•"Lift American spirits"

If you take the first two letters from each of the words listed, you get EnBuTaLiAmSp...enbutaliamsp....see? Get it?

Know fear, people. KNOW fear....

[Bob]

Mike is my new hero. I was unpersuaded by his initial arguments since being a VP candidate, pundit, highly-paid, and a public speaker are no proof of competence (or of a lack of Down's Syndrome). But his rhetorical trick of comparing Palin to Lincoln put my pejorative into distinct contract with the true meaning of the word retarded. Well-played, sir! I stand corrected and hereby retract the word "retarded" in favor of "not particularly knowledgeable about much that might be important to a world leader."