[whiteperil] Sean: He knows how to give me two-fisted love

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Posted by Sean:
He knows how to give me two-fisted love
http://whiteperil.com/posts/1222825544.shtml


   I don't happen to think the whole Palin thing is all that hard to
   understand--whether you do or do not want to support her. The original
   argument from the McCain campaign was that it didn't matter that she
   didn't have impressive academic credentials or a history of grooming
   herself for national politics; she had the knowledge and skill sets to
   get the job done well. The initial protests from the more hysterical
   corners of the left that she was a rube with outdated hair and a
   degree from Nowheresville State and too many kids and guns and a
   history of sportscasting were therefore petty and irrelevant.
   Unfortunately, many on the right are still responding as if those were
   the issues at hand. They are not. The issue still is, can she get the
   job done well?
   Rachel Lucas is another person who's getting it from right-leaning
   commenters about criticizing Palin, and she [1]responds perfectly
   sensibly:

     So I watched the Couric interview of Palin clips late on a Friday
     afternoon and blogged that I thought she sounded like a fool.
     Didn't say she is a fool, or stupid, just that she didn't sound
     like she knew what she was talking about and that if she were on
     "the other side," I would mock her with verbatim transcripts and
     most of my readers would laugh and mock along with me.
     ITâS TRUE AND YOU KNOW IT.
     ...
     This isn't the Washington Post you know. I'm not Charles Freakin'
     Krauthammer. But most of all, I refuse to be a hypocrite and it
     kinda pisses me off, not a lot but kinda, that so few others on "my
     side" don't see how hypocritical it is to say that you wouldn't
     tear her up all over the place if she were a Democrat, wouldn't say
     that she sounded like a complete and total moron in those
     interviews if she were a liberal. She did sound like that, editing
     or not. You do realize that half the time I or any other blogger or
     right-leaning writer mocks the intelligence of Democrats, we're
     doing that selectively, too?

   Along the same lines, my friend Zak [2]zeroes in on a major issue,
   though I think he mischaracterizes it:

     The thing is, it's almost impossible to talk about these things
     when someone who has risen up from truly humble roots through his
     own abilities is branded "elite," while the guy who got into
     Annapolis because his dad was an Admiral and then married an
     heiress is somehow salt of the earth.
     In the end, it's now a nonsense word, and just means "a liberal I
     dislike."
     I DO think there is a serious current of anti-intellectualism in
     America these days, though. There always has been, but I think it's
     been cresting.

   To start with...look, this is probably about the thousandth time I've
   linked [3]this post by Megan McCardle, but it really does help
   illuminate things, so here it is:

     What is true is that Democrats, right now, have more ability to
     insulate themselves from being confronted with the views of the
     other side. Geographically, they can isolate themselves into
     coastal cities, which is why I never met any Republicans except my
     grandparents until I went to business school. And informationally,
     provided that they don't watch Fox news, don't subscribe to the
     Wall Street Journal, and keep the radio tuned to NPR, they can keep
     from ever hearing if the other side has a good argument.
     ...
     This is why the Democrats at that luncheon were so shocked and
     hurt. Not because they are stupid, or venal, or arrogant. But
     because they live in a bubble, and thus are genuinely not aware
     that the other side may occasionally have the better of the
     argument. The New Republic is about as far right as your average
     New Yorker generally goes, publication-wise -- and I am acquainted
     with a number of people who have dropped it because it's too
     right-wing these days. If the only explanation of conservatives
     beliefs you ever hear comes from the editorial pages of the New
     York Times, it is indeed incomprehensible that people out there
     could actually embrace such twaddle. I'd be looking under the couch
     for the Vast Right Wing conspiracy too.

   The main distinction that needs to be made here is between eliteness
   (being privileged) and elitism (the state of mind, the worldview, the
   主義 that one is superior to others and, in this context, can govern
   them effectively without learning from them). I've never heard the
   argument advanced that McCain is not an elite, in the sense of coming
   from a powerful insider family and therefore being in a better
   position to snag an heiress. I have seen people occasionally use
   Obama's grandmother's job as a bank vice-president as grounds for
   arguing that his background was more elite than we're given to
   understand, but most of his detractors that I know of accept that his
   family was pretty non-descript middle-class.
   The argument that McCain, despite his background, is not an elitist is
   based on his perceived willingness to get his hands dirty, which is
   predicated on the belief that he's no better than anyone he's serving.
   He went to Vietnam and withstood imprisonment and torture. He's spent
   his career in the senate pursuing bipartisan cooperation. His wife
   doesn't inform voters that her husband is going to shake them up,
   because his position is not that they've chosen to live their lives in
   ways that need to be reformed by do-gooder technocrats. He tells them
   that they have every right to love America as it is and that their
   existing values are worthwhile.
   The argument that Obama, despite his background, is an elitist is
   based on his perceived belief that he's destined to fulfill the role
   of an enlightened political leader, a high-status charity worker who
   ladles goodness onto his constituents from on high because they don't
   know what's good for them. He [4]explained the values of small-town
   and rural voters as resulting from the failure of presidential
   administrations to engineer the economy to make them happy. He sucks
   up to European social democrats and acts as if we needed to be more
   like them. He's still against the surge even though he acknowledges
   that it's worked. He started running for president practically from
   the moment he was elected to the senate.
   My point is not that either extreme is entirely true, only that it's
   about more than just deciding based on upbringing who's elitist and
   who is not.
   Regarding Sarah Palin, the questions seem to revolve more around
   eliteness of achievement than around elitism of beliefs. There seems
   to be little evidence that she's tried to use the coercive power of
   her government position to push others to live her way. There is,
   however, evidence that she's out of her depth as a contender for the
   vice-presidency. It's not conclusive evidence, so I'm happy to humor
   conservatives who maintain that she's saving up all her killer lines
   and dazzling political insights for the debate Thursday. We'll know
   soon enough, after all. But the contention that anyone who questions
   her possible relationship to the Peter principle is a tool of the
   Obama left is ridiculous. I'm as unmoved by that as I am by the
   [5]contention that anyone who votes against Obama is a racist.

References

   1. http://rachellucas.com/index.php/2008/09/29/how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people/
   2. http://whiteperil.com/posts/1222462236.shtml#3082
   3. http://www.janegalt.net/archives/004311.php
   4. http://whiteperil.com/posts/1207982094.shtml
   5. http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2008/09/vote_for_obama.html