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Friday, June 12, 2009
The 'Soiled Dove' Theory
It's up to her alone. We know Obama will do his part.
ROCK ON. There's an Ed Morrissey post up at HotAir about Sarah Palin's appearance on the Today Show with Matt Lauer. It correctly acknowledges that she performed well across the board, both on the substance of her response to tough questions about Alaska politics and on the Letterman controversy. But then it sounds a warning.
[H]ad the Letterman controversy not
existed, that aspect of her performance [the politics] would have been
the headline here. Instead, the three minutes or so in the middle of
this 11-minute interview that has nothing to do with governing or
policy will be all that the public will remember or want to see.
That could be the overall aim of Palin’s opponents. If David Letterman has to eat some crow every few months for his personal attacks on Palin, does that really matter to him? He has a contract with CBS for the next three years, at which point he’d probably retire anyway. Letterman and his ilk can continue to make all of the coverage about Palin revolve around her daughters, forcing her to respond and to look less serious as a politician, in a way that the media would never do to a man or to a liberal - as Palin said, no one did it to Obama, nor should they.
If enough of them do it, the downside for her attackers will be small, and the upside will be to kneecap Palin before she can threaten Democrats in a future election.
That could be the overall aim of Palin’s opponents. If David Letterman has to eat some crow every few months for his personal attacks on Palin, does that really matter to him? He has a contract with CBS for the next three years, at which point he’d probably retire anyway. Letterman and his ilk can continue to make all of the coverage about Palin revolve around her daughters, forcing her to respond and to look less serious as a politician, in a way that the media would never do to a man or to a liberal - as Palin said, no one did it to Obama, nor should they.
If enough of them do it, the downside for her attackers will be small, and the upside will be to kneecap Palin before she can threaten Democrats in a future election.
I think this is a dim and short-sighted view of the American political scene. I would have made this comment directly at HotAir, as politely as I will make it here, except that my attempt earlier in the week to sign up as a commenter during the site's 24-hr so-called "Open Registration" did not result in the promised email containing a password. Neither did a polite follow-up request to Ed Morrissey's email address. So. I will make my response here (longer than it would have been there, of course), and any of you who are among the elect few permitted to comment at HotAir can pass it on to Ed.
There's basically a two-pronged political attack underway against Palin from the Republican side. There are the snobs we've written about here before. And there's a new contingent -- those who are personally sympathetic to Palin but believe the left has already succeeded in turning her into Dan Quayle, an instant punchline for jokes that no longer even have to be made. Morrissey's post is redolent of the latter prong. However softly it's delivered, the message is, "Stay away from Palin. She's a walking liability the Republicans can't afford if they're ever going to regain power." Call it the 'Soiled Dove' Theory. Most popular among those who believe that to accuse a woman is to destroy a woman. More 19th century than 21st if you ask me. But clearly no one did. Nonetheless...
I reject that message. And so should you. Nothing has happened that Sarah Palin can't overcome if she's as gifted a politician as she is demonstrably charismatic. To paraphrase the famous Lloyd Bentsen quote, "We've seen Dan Quayle... and Sarah Palin is no Dan Quayle." Quayle may have been a capable guy unjustly ridiculed out of politics, but he never tripled the size of a crowd for a scheduled political event or brought that crowd roaring to its feet in acclaim. Palin has star power. There is something attractive and authentic about her. That's exactly why she inspires such irrational antipathy from both ends of the political spectrum. A lot of the powers that be don't like what's attractive and authentic about her because it reminds them of their darkest fear, that there are millions of people out there who don't accept the clear superiority of constipated policy wonks who know what's better for the common people than the common people do.
People forget. Note how often this is cited as a weakness of the American people. But like everything else, people have the strength of their weaknesses. Maybe what people forget isn't always as important as the intellectuals and other snobs think it is. (IRONY: This from today's National Review Online: "An intellectual is someone who can hear the William Tell Overture and not think of the Lone Ranger.") For example, Hillary Clinton got bulldozed out of the presidential race by something akin to a perfect storm of political opportunism, but not by the mountain of personal, political, and financial scandals some of her opponents were counting on. Worst of all, she had been cast in the most humiliating role of the biggest sex scandal in American political history, and the only way it figured in to the popular response was as proof that she was a survivor, a tough old broad who could weather anything and keep on keeping on. People admire that kind of grit, long after they have forgotten the details of whatever ordeal was survived.
That's all Palin has to do. Survive. And learn from the premature thermonuclear attack the MSM launched against her. By the time 2012 rolls around, Obama will have a heavy record hung around his neck that he won't be able to skate away from. If the press tries to cover for him by attacking Palin again, the public won't buy it. They've already heard all this shit before. It's BORING, and she's still here, still charismatic, and making more sense than any of the other old DC whores who've been running the country into the ground. And if you in the MSM had spent half as much time investigating our loser president as you did the uterus of Sarah Palin, maybe we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now.
The biggest problem with smart people is that they overestimate how much smarter they are than the people whose stupidity they fear. Both the MSM and its elite Republican critics think the American people don't see the liberal bias in the press and pundit class. Of course they do. Last time, they were rejecting Bush and the Republicans regardless, so the bias didn't especially irk them, at least not to the point of protest. Next time, they may be disposed to reject Obama and all the fools who told them he was something more than an arrogant young pup who thought he knew more than he did. It may well be that Sarah Palin -- if, as I've already stipulated, she really is a politician who can learn, think, and fight -- will be able to point her finger at the MSM in attendance and say, "These are the people who don't want you to listen to me. I have only one thing to ask: Listen to me in spite of them."
If and when that day arrives, everything Sarah Palin has been subjected to will become an advantage with the electorate. Every American knows what bullies are, what snobs are, what unscrupulous bitches are, and what valiant, persevering underdogs are. Ed Morrissey is borrowing trouble way way too soon. But then he's one of the smart guys who see every side of every issue. Which is why he doesn't have quite enough imagination to see the improbable yellow brick road that could lead Sarah Palin through Alaska to the first female presidency in the history of the United States.
Improbable, I repeat. But the odds depend far more on her and what her real capabilities are than they do on the continued graceless conduct of the mainstream media. Or stuffy conservative naysayers. Can a Steel Dove fly? I'm waiting to see.
You're wrong about my intent. I'm
hoping we have Palin sticking to the political battles, and I'm writing
about how tough it will be for her to do so with a hostile media, not
as a warning to "stay away from Palin".
That's good and as it should be. Don't listen to the naysayers, any of you. And my thanks to Ed, who is, if old-fashioned enough to speculate about the 'Soiled Dove' theory, also old-fashioned enough to be an honest-to-God gentleman. Which ends this dark week on a high note.
UPDATE 2. This addendum has been added to Ed Morrissey's Palin post since our exchange of emails:
Update:
Just to make clear, I’m not suggesting at all that Republicans distance
themselves from Palin. At some point, we will need to let the
Letterman-like provocations go and have her focus on national politics,
where she has clearly improved. Promoting Palin as a victim (although
entirely justified) won’t make her a compelling force in politics.
We approve. Rock on.
