The Washington Post website today linked to its sister site of black political analysis, The Root, where former Time magazine editor and columnist Jack White asserted Sarah Palin's "tea party speech revived the ancient practice of attacking people who actually know something."
White painted Palin (and conservatives) as unthinking. Like many liberals, he doesn’t grasp that what conservative speakers are often inveighing against is not people who think. It’s against people who think that conservatives don’t think. White is clearly, precisely one of those people.
White plucked out one phrase of Palin's speech -- that "we need a commander-in-chief, not a law professor at a lectern" -- into a grand indictment of know-nothing populism, vigilantism, book-banning, and the general hatred of knowledge:
In her view, and that of the tea party movement she is seeking to co-opt to her own inflated political ambitions, the painstakingly acquired insights of experts on subjects ranging from evolution to global climate change is of less value than the instinctive "common sense" of average people with no special knowledge of those subjects.
Hence her sarcastic references to the common people’s supposed resentment of being "lectured" by Obama and his fellow liberal politicians. To Palin, Obama is the teacher you loved to hate—especially if you didn’t get to go to college. It’s the envy the C students aim at the A students, and it does not go away.
More ominously, her campaign draws on the same old tactics—scapegoating outsiders and immigrants, ascribing power to nefarious plotters, pitting the so-called people against the so-called oppressive elite—that have characterized right-wing, know-nothing, populist movements since the early days of the Republic.
They often arise at times of economic stress, such as the current recession, pointing fingers and driving out rational thought with appeals to angry emotion. Theirs is the impulse behind vigilantism and the urge to ban books and the invocation of supposed traditional values to oppose social change. Theirs is the value system that stubbornly puts more value on intuition and received wisdom than on scholarship and experimentation. Theirs is the mind of the mob, resenting being told things it does not want to hear.
That leaves out a lot of context. White knew it was an indictment of Obama’s terror fighting. After he trotted out all the pro-Obama talking points on how tough he is on "man-caused disasters," he turned it into an attack on smart people. But he could have at least let Palin have one paragraph of elaboration from her speech, like this:
The events surrounding the Christmas Day plot reflect the kind of thinking that led to September 11th. That threat then, as the U.S.S. Cole was attacked, our embassies were attacked. It was treated like an international crime spree, not like an act of war. We're seeing that mindset again settle into Washington. That scares me for my children and for your children. Treating this like a mere law enforcement matter places our country at grave risk. Because that's not how radical Islamic extremists are looking at this. They know we're at war. And to win that war, we need a commander-in-chief, not a law professor at a lectern.
That has a lot more thought in it than liberals are willing to acknowledge. They should do more to engage it, and less to simply invent their own ideas of Palin's cynical hate-mongering and race-baiting and pandering to the "booboisie."
—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center.
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Comments Policy
The Media and libs are...
Mon, 02/08/2010 - 22:03 ET by P. Aaron...condescending wimps.
Tell us please.......................
Tue, 02/09/2010 - 13:49 ET by Patriot IIWho? are these people that actually know something? They sure as H are not liberal socialist dumocrats.......so quit hiding their names! You jerk!!!
Licking the ink off your palms?
Mon, 02/08/2010 - 23:08 ET by Doug WildIt’s rather quiet around here this evening. I imagine conservatives are either nursing their Super Bowl hangovers, the hangovers that continue from Tancredo’s tea party racist remarks about literacy tests, or nursing the hangovers that come from wishing too much that Sarah Palin didn’t have to write “tax cuts” on her hand to remind her that it is an important talking point during an unscripted Q&A session. I personally wish she had used as teleprompter during her speech; she did it really well during the campaign and at the Republican convention, and her eye contact with the audience would have been much better. Staring at the script on her podium became rather distracting and she muffed a lot of lines, despite the fact that the person who wrote it for her kept it pretty simple. I guess it would have been tough to do, given one of her best punch lines was to bash Obama for using a prompter.
I know many conservatives believe the best government is no government, but do you really want a president who has to consult her palm when negotiating with say, Putin?
Putin: Ms. Palin, how do you view our respective country’s military relations in the future?
Palin (staring at her palm): I can see your house from my house. No wait, I scratched out your ‘house’ and wrote ‘country’. Can I do a do-over?
Putin: Do you mean fly-over?
Palin: You Betcha’! Hi, Mom!
Chuckles, Doug Wild
And it's only Monday!
Mon, 02/08/2010 - 23:15 ET by Doug WildHey, let’s give Sarah credit for one thing. She obviously learned something from the Katie Couric interview. Prep for Q&A!
I hope Sarah wins the Republican primary in 2012 … hands down!
LMFAO!!!
Doug Wild
HEY DOUG...
Tue, 02/09/2010 - 08:10 ET by danybhoyYou hope the GOP puts Palin on the top of the ticket? To quote Metallica...
"I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish that I wish tonight...
I want that star, I want it now, I want it all & I don't care how...
Careful what you wish, careful what you say...
Careful what you wish, you may regret it...
Carefull what you wish, you just might get it"
...don't kid yourself, after a couple of more years of Obama doing what he has been doing, even an idiot like Palin will be more then able to dehtrone King Nothing himself.
"Please awake & see the truth, he can only be if you believe what he tells you...Remember who you are, what you stand for...There will always be way"- WITHIN TEMPTATION http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fir0Cffv1ng&featured=related
Doug Wild = Dave High??? ACA
Mon, 02/08/2010 - 23:21 ET by acaiguanaYour insincere criticism of Sarah Palin using a three note 'crib' during an interview that lasted over ten minutes (like the speech for the 6 graders ..um..) is so transparently shallow that I think you must be Dave High, who was always condescendingly polite in his sign off, such as, 'sincerely, Dave High'. Like 'Chuckels, Doug Wild' ???
Let me explain something to you my good friend. This thread isn't about that topic. The thread above this one is about that topic.
Since you obviously cannot run a keyboard or at least cannot follow a thread, most of this is moot. But if you are so darn smug and smart; why can't you follow the right thread? Unless you don't want this thread to follow the insane ideas spouted by White?
And therefore wish to derail this thread.
Here's how it works, Mr. Genius (my good friend) the topic of the thread is stated above the text which is generally about the topic.
Now, those with educations and often those without educations can understand that when one reads a headline about a dog the reader would expect to read next about dogs; not cats.
You sir, again my friend, can't seem to follow the above sequential and linear concept.
Obviously you are math deficient and challenged.
Or maybe you are logically challenged.
Either way, it appears you are challenged and possibly shallow; but I am just commenting on how you are coming across, not whether, my friend, you are actually shallow.
And if you were so shallow as you appear, I would never bring it up to embarrass you.
ACA
...
Quoted from: 'Acaiguana notes from the Underground' (Soon to be at theaters near you)
→ Barry's moment of sputum
Mon, 02/08/2010 - 23:32 ET by Cool ArrowI wonder if a teleprompter feeder got his tail reamed out for not phoneticizing corpsman?
Barack Ѡbama - Nero on the Potomac
Bush Googled the Internets, Sarah even more connected
Tue, 02/09/2010 - 00:04 ET by Doug WildACA,
I didn’t see the above thread when I posted. My bad. I will write a note to myself not to do it again. On my Palm Pilot. That’s my original joke, but you can use it if you want to, since we are such good friends. I am thinking we met in Atlantic City during the Miss USA Pageant. Sound familiar? Were you the guy with the big cigar? Have a good night.
Doug Wild
Can't respond to your comment. Have a problem with the premise.
Tue, 02/09/2010 - 00:09 ET by acaiguanawhen you say, "I am thinking...", for some reason my attention wanders.
ACA
...
Quoted from: 'Acaiguana notes from the Underground' (Soon to be at theaters near you)
My guess
Mon, 02/08/2010 - 23:26 ET by Quasi-socialistthe rest of us aren't at work in the Media Matters (or other Soros funded org) basement with alert macros for when Newsbusters posts something, so we can run interference for our ideology with lame comments.
That's my guess.
Wondered, Dumb Child---
Mon, 02/08/2010 - 23:32 ET by matthewdeanWhat had become of you.
Glad to see you are still around, trying to develop Palin bashing into an art form.
History has shown, unfortunately for you, that a one trick pony, such as yourself, never grows up enough to graduate from the kiddy-ride ring.
No matter the political level Sarah Palin attains, I will be eternally grateful that she exists if for no other reason than just because she causes nimrods like you to soil your Dr. Dentons while still wearing them.
You have a lump in the backside of your drawers, and you smell bad.
Tell me something, Liberal Troll; is that condition something you aspire to, or is it just representative of your highest accomplishment in life?
MD
Ha! Thanks for the slogan!
Mon, 02/08/2010 - 23:17 ET by TeamcheeserThe Tea Party:
"The Party of Know!"
So this genius
Mon, 02/08/2010 - 23:24 ET by Quasi-socialistknows how to do genius things like take quotes out of conquest and build a whole anti-intellectual screed against intellectuals, whereas an intellectual is the type of person who can understand context and hopefully has enough ethics to address the context in which the sentence was intended.
Instead he seems to end up lauding the people who've actually "done stuff" to the people who have a theory about how things ought to be done.
→ Yup
Mon, 02/08/2010 - 23:33 ET by Cool ArrowWhatever you said, that's exactly what he thinks.
Now if you'll excuse me, my head is spinning like a sunbeam mixmaster.
Your liberal friends have driven him to drink...
Tue, 02/09/2010 - 17:01 ET by stage9Cool...
"If God is dead, somebody is going to have to take his place. It will be megalomania or erotomania, the drive for power or the drive for pleasure, the clenched fist or the phallus, Hitler or Hugh Hefner." — Malcolm Muggeridge
O bama's days are numbered
Mon, 02/08/2010 - 23:34 ET by jkwtradingO bama's days are numbered as the libs become more and more petty.
Their days are almost over attempting to decide what my inaleinable rights are.
Yep. Only 2516 more to
Mon, 02/08/2010 - 23:51 ET by JerYep. Only 2516 more to go. :-)
Jer
Dream on
Mon, 02/08/2010 - 23:56 ET by BlondeThe Vain Obama has one-termer tatooed on his forehead, Jer.
I hope he fails, too.
I resent being lectured to by all of the so-called 'elite' Dems.
Mon, 02/08/2010 - 23:40 ET by acaiguanaI am so tired of being told by commercial advertisements for investment funds how I have 'learned' from the recession; by Al Gore on how my life is 'bad' due to some debunked and defrocked scam; by Obama as to how my government is 'helping' me by taxing me out of existence with all the redistribution ideas; and how the Republicans are 'evil' because they are the Party of NO.
I'm glad they said no.
Let's see...
It was a fierce battle, with the Republicans voting full house against all the silly bills designed to crack open the capitalist system to a more European Socialist system; holding out against all odds.
Then the Dems lost Massachusetts.
By a hair we kept the hoards at bay.
Now, it is time to stand pat. The concepts and slurs hurled by White against Palin are nothing compared to what is to come.
The Democrats will berate the Republicans a hypocrits when (or if) they tell Obama to take his road show somewhere else, unless he is willing to start from scratch.
No deals; no prior commitments to hold anyone hostage to Democrat favor doling out to the Unions and the Insurance Industry; no new taxes; no increase in the Federal debt and further, no tax-funded universal health system.
Thank you very much, Mr. White. You only exemplify the snootiness and contempt you and your fellow travelers have for solid Conservative values.
Good luck next November (and May with Murtha).
ACA
...
Quoted from: 'Acaiguana notes from the Underground' (Soon to be at theaters near you)
Rush was right - yet again
Tue, 02/09/2010 - 00:11 ET by SlyrrRush has said many times - 'The Left will tell you which politicians to watch out for by reason of who they try to destroy.'
And you can see from that that El Rushbo hits the nail on the head yet again. The left, Democrats and their media apologists are quaking in their boots because of Sarah Palin. They're scared to death of her, and the Tea Party movement. They're probably waking up screaming in the middle of the night shrieking 'Palin!' or 'Tea Party!' while buckets of sweat are pouring down their faces.
So it's equally obvious the KNOW Palin and the Tea Party movement are a real, legitimate and dangerous threat to them, and their political power. I fully expect Democrats, leftists and their media cabals to get worse and worse and more and more rabid in their attacks.
Joe the Plumber became a threat to Obama simply by having the nerve to ask him a question that Obama gave a stupid answer to. And the left, media and all their cohorts mobilized - doing everything in their power to attack Joe.
Imagine that - the entire left-wing machine was turned out to attack a PLUMBER because they thought he was a danger to their ascent to power. The mighty Democrat power-brokers - terrified of plumbers.
Just goes to show how weak they really are.
So does this make Obama's anti-banking populist rhetoric
Tue, 02/09/2010 - 00:42 ET by lsudolemite"attacking people who actually produce something", namely wealth?
Annoying
Tue, 02/09/2010 - 01:29 ET by nkviking75Everytime the libs trot out this "stupid" meme, I remember a poster that was on my college dorm room wall:
"Those of you who think you know everything are annoying to those of us who do."
“Always love your country — but never trust your government!" -- Bob Novak (1931-2009)
nk....some really great posters I've seen
Tue, 02/09/2010 - 01:33 ET by Blonde"I cried because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no class" (penguins, believe it or not).
And
"Teenagers, move out and leave home while you still know everything" (on a family therapist's door).
I hope he fails, too.
Funny, Blonde!
Tue, 02/09/2010 - 01:38 ET by nkviking75Funny!
Good to hear from you again, Blonde.
“Always love your country — but never trust your government!" -- Bob Novak (1931-2009)
"..what conservative
Tue, 02/09/2010 - 01:57 ET by shannon76"..what conservative speakers are often inveighing against is not people
who think. It’s against people who think that conservatives don’t
think."
That's a great point, Mr. Graham.This particular issue of anti-intellectual versus anti-elitism is a nuance that the Lamestream will never outline. Liberals have a set idea about who she is and what she represents. I wonder what Palin could do from a media perspective and in her speeches or rhetoric to make your distinction clear. It might help with independents, because I see Liberals winning that battle of perception that Palin is against people who are educated.
Would someone please write
Tue, 02/09/2010 - 02:04 ET by Red46a letter to the "head progressive intellectual" who decides who is smart and who is a rube? That person needs to spread the word down the line that conservatives are not stupid, uninformed or undereducated. We have studied your philosophy in your college classes and in ours. We can read and exercise critical thinking. Guess what, intellectual socialists...we are laughing at you because you don't know that the chair really is a chair. You elite intellectual dopes will buy anything that "sounds smart". Progressivism, Statism, Marxism, Communism are all dead end philosophies because the proponents of these ideas know that there is no Utopia for hoi polloi because human nature is to take the easy road and the leaders make out like bandits. That leaves leaders and the ones who are led. Sounds a lot like royalty and a fiefdom...
Didn't we already fight that war?
Enjoy your speci-al-ity, as the Brits say.
Beware of People who actually know something
Tue, 02/09/2010 - 09:53 ET by goodspkrThe liberals think that they are the intellectuals in the political spectrum. The problem is that while they are okay at identifying problems, the solutions these people "who know something" come up with causes more problems that they solve.
Look at healthcare. Obama told us we needed to "bend" the cost curve because Medicare was bankrupting the Federal Government. So what is the solution? Cut costs? Reduce demand?
No, their solution is to increase costs by at least one quarter of a trillion dollars per year while increasing demand.
Dems spent six years sniping at W for reckless spending. He was spending 400 to 600 billion dollars more than we had. So what do they do when Obama gets into office with supermajorities for the Democrats in both the House and Senate. Cut spending? Balance the budget? Nope they increase the deficit to 1.5 trillion dollars.
Next time a liberal shakes your hand, count your fingers when he's done.
Time mag = rag
Tue, 02/09/2010 - 11:34 ET by jessieHTime mag = rag mag.