Jim Geraghty is trying to get to the bottom<\/strong> of the over-the-top hate the left feels for Sarah Palin, a hate that seems to intensified, rather than ebbed-away since the election.<\/p>\n Well, some of that may simply be embarrassment. After all, she was supposed to be \u201ctoo stupid\u201d to be Vice-President, but it\u2019s a sure betcha she would not have given away her own \u201cundisclosed location\u201d or provided the weekly entertainment we get from Joe Biden.<\/p>\n But I kid. Geraghty writes: <\/a><\/p>\n My first thought was that it tied heavily to her appearance; in liberals\u2019 minds, conservatives are supposed to look like the couple from the painting American Gothic: Dour and joyless, aged, spartan and frail. Political leaders aren\u2019t supposed to be young, really good looking women, full of energy, smiles and winks.<\/p>\n Hugh [Hewitt] suggested it tied to the contrast between her lifestyle and her critics: \u201cShe is the embodiment of the anti-choice, the opposite of every choice that lefty elites have ever made \u2014 as to going back home instead of moving to the west coast, having children, having a child with Downs, staying married to one man the whole time, choosing rural or suburban over urban and living a generally conservative lifestyle, working with her hands\u2026 That everything she is is the antithesis of everything that liberal urban elites are, so it\u2019s not just enough to say, \u2018I disagree with you,\u2019; she has to be repudiated and crushed.\u201d<\/p>\n And now, I would submit a slight refining of that idea, that the seeming happiness of Palin\u2019s life is a 24-7 irritant because it challenges the way some liberals see the world. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n It\u2019s a thoughtful piece, and well-worth reading<\/strong>. I think Geraghty gets quite a lot right, particularly as to the left\u2019s rather ignorant perceptions of who and what conservatives are, and he suggests that there is a great deal of complexity to the hate.<\/p>\n He may be correct. Both adulation and hate have their subconscious roots and hidden nutrients. But the excessive Palin-hate may also be as simple as this; Sarah Palin, who came from middle class folk, did not go to an Ivy League school but managed nevertheless to find success as a small business owner, then as mayor, then as Governor of an important state, and she\u2019s managed to \u201chave it all\u201d \u2013 family, success, expertise on a crucial subject (oil, gas, energy) \u2013 without succumbing to the siren song of leftism.<\/p>\n The truth is, if Sarah Palin had a \u201cD\u201d after her name, instead of an \u201cR\u201d, they\u2019d adore her, and they would be falling all over themselves to showcase her as \u201cthe successful product of feminism and the opportunities provided by progressivism!\u201d Hell, they\u2019d even tolerate her having allowed Trig to live, as they could then prop her up as a \u201cbig tent, pro-choice Democrat, and you know, a Christian\u2026ist\u2026no, she\u2019s an Evangelica Christian! And that\u2019s\u2026okay!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n This is of a piece with the Dubya-hate.<\/strong> Had a Democrat president kept the nation safe for 7 years after a heinous attack, kept the economy running and unemployment numbers low, even after that attack; had he taken out a murderous despot who gave sanctuary to terrorists like Abu Abbas, liberated millions of people and helped warring tribes forge a tenuous democracy in a region where it was thought impossible, we would have heard that the inevitable mistakes and difficulties of war were \u201cinevitable mistakes,\u201d and there would be talk about Mt. Rushmore. We\u2019d be hearing that \u201cthe president did not overspend, the congress overspent,\u201d (though the whole Sallie Mae\/Freddie Mac debacle that upset the markets would still be underreported). But because a Republican president did those things, well, we know the rest.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the same with Palin. Put a D after her name, and the story would be completely different; the hate would be the over-the-top, \u201chow\u2019d she get to be the greatest, most beautiful, from-the-ground-up, practical mommy-mayor-goddess ever\u201d<\/em> coverage we\u2019ve become so used to.<\/p>\n Although, even in that best-of circumstance, there may be something to the idea I wrote a while back, that they hate Sarah Palin because she is not a victim:<\/a><\/p>\n They hate her because she is not a victim. And she does not see her son as a victim. And one gets the sense that she has no patience for disaffected drama queens with pretensions to victimhood, or with people who make their livings tearing down instead of building up, in order to keep the victim-mentality alive.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Let\u2019s face it, even if Palin were<\/em> a Democrat, I\u2019m sure some of the abortion activists would be grumbling that the narrative would be more perfect if Sarah Palin, (D-Alaska) gave a weepy interview to Barbara Walters, discussing her \u201cheartbreaking but right\u201d decisions to abort her Down Syndrome child, who she loved too much to bring into the world and watch as he struggled, and fell behind, and looked different and stuff. Poor Sarah Palin; victim of circumstance, destroying her child in the painful feminist sacramental that makes her \u201chuman and like everyone else,\u201d and so paradoxically, makes her a heroine<\/em>.<\/p>\n The addition of that little story, plus the D after her name? Right now we might all be asking, \u201cBarack Owhata?\u201d Although perhaps Krauthammer is correct when he says she\u2019s not yet a serious candidate<\/a> for President. Right now, Palin\u2019s more like a rallying point. Also, check out allahpundit\u2019s thoughts on the left\u2019s \u201ccontempt for her intellect,\u201d<\/a>. The Ivy League is deeply saturated in some minds as a definitive value.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The move from First Things has made old posts difficult to find in search engines right now. This is reposted by request from reader Mark S.; I found it via google cache, as July 2009 seems to be missing from my archives in the move. Jim Geraghty is trying to get to the bottom of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[226],"tags":[4898],"class_list":["post-24465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sarah-palin","tag-sarah-palin"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp.patheos.com\/community\/sites\/7\/2011\/01\/palintrig-1.jpg\")
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