Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Victor Davis Hanson: Target Palin [Palinomania, Two nations, All About Race, All the Time]
pajamasmedia.com ^ | September 4, 2008 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 09/04/2008 12:48:21 PM PDT by Tolik

Palinomania

If the post-Speech reaction of the talking heads at CNN, PBS and MSBNC, or the op-ed ravings of Gloria Steinem, Maureen Dowd, Eleanor Clift or Sally Quinn are any indication, the Secret Service better enlist the Alaskan National Guard for help ensuring the Alaskan Governor’s safety.

A beautiful, confident, articulate, independent, accomplished—and conservative—woman apparently has enraged Team Obama, the mainstream media, and the entire American intelligentsia, as if they were collectively hit by a cruise missile aimed from Middle America.

When Palin talks about her present life it sounds as authentic as Biden’s showy populism came off as false. Enraged feminists are apparently the gatekeepers for less well-educated American women, who are supposed to have 0-1.5 children not 5! Their husbands must be professors, lawyers, CEOs, editors—not snowmobile champions, union members, oil workers, and fishermen—or, worse, all in one! And unlike a Pelosi, Quinn, or Clinton, Palin, God forbid, did not rely on a powerful, wealthy husband or father to energize her career. Worse still, she took no women’s studies class, never attended the Ivy League, and shoots moose. The danger is not just that Sarah Palin could win McCain the election, but she could expose the entire flimsy structure of doctrinaire liberalism as the hypocrisy—and chauvinism—it has become.

Dumb and dumber

At about the time that the Republicans were making the case that liberals were hyperpartisan, a little unhinged, and out of touch, hundreds of nutty demonstrators were outside the convention screaming in the usual street theater mode about war crimes et al.—even as Joe Biden announced that when elected, he and Obama may well seek out Bush administration officials to try them for crimes!

Two nations….

The Geraldine Ferraro Democratic Vice Presidential nominee appointment was an inspired stroke of genius that advanced the cause of feminism; Palin’s was tawdry tokenism.

Edwards was a social reformer brought down by the tabloids; Palin’s 17-year-old daughter is white trash and fair game.

Insulting “small town mayors” and “good looking” women is funny; suggesting that “community organizing” is often a farce is a felony.

Obama’s violation of drug laws with a “little blow” was youthful exuberance; Palin’s husband’s DUI was more proof of a working-class messy family.

Joe Biden bravely continued as Senator after the tragic death of his wife and daughter left his injured young sons with a single parent; Sarah Palin selfishly shorted her children by running for VP and endangered her infants by flying while pregnant.

Criticizing Clinton’s engaging in sex in the oval office and lying about it to the American people were once “the politics of personal destruction”; lying that Sarah Palin might not have been the mother of her 5th child is the mere overreach of the blogs caused by the improper vetting of the McCain campaign.

This all reminds me of the 2000 campaign when the media beat the dead-horse of Bush (Yale BA, Harvard MBA) as the lousy, lazy C-student, when, in fact, Al Gore’s undergraduate record at Harvard was full of C’s, F’s at Vanderbilt Divinity School (dropped out), and C’s at Vanderbilt Law School (dropped out). The point is not that quitting professional schools is necessarily a sign of anything, but rather once again that the media is shown to be bending and inventing facts for their higher purposes of liberal utopianism— a continuation of some half a century when we remember the “dumb” Ike floundering before the  “brilliant” and “witty” Adlai Stevenson (who flunked out of Harvard Law School, a fact hidden from the public for decades.)

The Poverty of the Legal Culture

Every Democratic Presidential and VP nominee of the last thirty years, with the exception of Al Gore (law school drop out), has been a lawyer—Obama (s) and Biden, Kerry and Edwards, Gore and Lieberman, Clinton (s) and Gore, Dukakis and Bentsen, and Mondale and Ferraro. And while Carter was a failure, he at least brought a different perspective from someone whose professional training was argumentation.

The Republicans, at least, understood that legal training is not a prerequisite for the Presidency (one in law doesn’t build things, grow, defend, or create anything). The Democrats need to branch out, and find a Reagan, Palin, or McCain. Had the Bushes and Cheney been lawyers, I doubt they would have been elected. I am not suggesting that the products of modern law schools are not articulate, clever, used to arguing both sides of an issue, often rhetorically adept, and attentive to detail; but all that is part of the problem: they simply rarely wade out and solve problems rather than postfacto examining and litigating those who do.

All About  Race, All the Time

Two truths have emerged: after promising to be the postracial candidate, Obama evokes race constantly; after suggesting McCain will, he hasn’t yet.

Remember this from Obama: “So what they are going to do is make you scared of me. You know he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like those other presidents (sic) on the dollar bills.”

Or this Obamism:  “They’re going to try to make you afraid. They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?”

Or this in Berlin: “I know that I don’t look like the other Americans who’ve previously spoken in this great city.”

Or  his slur of his grandmother as a “typical white person” or the Pennsylvania “clingers” nonsense. No need to go into  the rest of the Obama racial stable: Rev. Wright’s racist outbursts; Father Pfleger’s creepy rants; Michelle’s more subtle “they” “raised the bar” complaints, or Barack Obama’s own promises to fund more “oppression studies” as a result of the “tragic history” of the United States that requires “reparations” in deed, not just word.

And then, of course, there are the self-appointed spokesmen from the nut-fringe, racists like Ludacris or Diddy who have weighed in with creepy attacks on McCain and Palin. Here I include the ever crazy Howard Dean. Remember this from the Chairman of the Democratic Party: “If you look at folks of color, even women, they’re more successful in the Democratic Party than they are in the white, uh, excuse me, in the (chuckles) Republican Party, because we just give more opportunity to folks who are hard-working people who are immigrants and come from members of minority groups.”

Then there are the op-ed writers weighing in on cue, like Philadelphia Daily News columnist Fatima Ali: “If McCain wins, look for a full-fledged race and class war, fueled by a deflated and depressed country, soaring crime, homelessness — and hopelessness!”

Or this from Harold Meyerson (who earlier accused Hillary and Bill Clinton of playing the race card) in the Washington Post: “In a year when the Democrats have an African American presidential nominee, the Republicans now more than ever are the white folks’ party, the party that delays the advent of our multicultural future, the party of the American past. Republican conventions have long been bastions of de facto Caucasian exclusivity, but coming right after the diversity of Denver, this year’s GOP convention is almost shockingly — un-Americanly — white. Long term, this whiteness is a huge problem.”

Or Bob Herbert’s fantastic claim that a McCain ad showing Obama speaking in front of the Berlin Victory Column was really a racist attack juxtaposing the Washington Monument and the Leaning Tower of Pisa as phallic symbols to scare the public about black male/white women coupling. About all Herbert revealed was that the New York Times columnist can’t distinguish America’s best known obelisk from a European monument to Prussian militarism.

Bottom line: expect more of the race card, especially if Palin gives the Republicans a bounce after the convention—and anyone who objects to it will be preemptively charged—of course—with racism.


TOPICS: Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008rncconvention; mccain; mccainpalin; obama; palin; race; vdh; victordavishanson
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-29 next last

1 posted on 09/04/2008 12:48:21 PM PDT by Tolik
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: neverdem; Lando Lincoln; quidnunc; .cnI redruM; SJackson; dennisw; monkeyshine; Alouette; ...


    Victor Davis Hanson Ping ! 

       Let me know if you want in or out.

Links:    FR Index of his articles:  http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
                His website: http://victorhanson.com/
                NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
                Pajamasmedia:
   http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/

2 posted on 09/04/2008 12:49:22 PM PDT by Tolik (2008: Maverick/Barracuda vs. Messiah/Mouth or The Hero vs. the Zero and "Our mama beats your Obama")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All
Having some fun:

"Our mama beats your Obama"

3 posted on 09/04/2008 12:51:46 PM PDT by Tolik (2008: Maverick/Barracuda vs. Messiah/Mouth or The Hero vs. the Zero and "Our mama beats your Obama")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Tolik

I’d love to be a fly on the wall at Georgie Soros’ house right now. He and Biden really need to find an accuse to dump Zerobama from their ticket.


4 posted on 09/04/2008 12:57:39 PM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (McCain/Palin '08! Real change you won't have to "believe in." You'll be able to see it!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Tolik

Thanks, Tolik.

VDH nails it, as usual.


5 posted on 09/04/2008 1:00:34 PM PDT by rightinthemiddle (Without the Mainstream Media, the Left is Nothing.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Tolik
Victor Davis Hanson sums up the insanity, we are seeing from the Obama team and Obama mediots:

"If the post-Speech reaction of the talking heads at CNN, PBS and MSBNC, or the op-ed ravings of Gloria Steinem, Maureen Dowd, Eleanor Clift or Sally Quinn are any indication, the Secret Service better enlist the Alaskan National Guard for help ensuring the Alaskan Governor’s safety.

"A beautiful, confident, articulate, independent, accomplished—and conservative—woman apparently has enraged Team Obama, the mainstream media, and the entire American intelligentsia, as if they were collectively hit by a cruise missile aimed from Middle America.

When Palin talks about her present life it sounds as authentic as Biden’s showy populism came off as false. Enraged feminists are apparently the gatekeepers for less well-educated American women, who are supposed to have 0-1.5 children not 5! Their husbands must be professors, lawyers, CEOs, editors—not snowmobile champions, union members, oil workers, and fishermen—or, worse, all in one! And unlike a Pelosi, Quinn, or Clinton, Palin, God forbid, did not rely on a powerful, wealthy husband or father to energize her career. Worse still, she took no women’s studies class, never attended the Ivy League, and shoots moose. The danger is not just that Sarah Palin could win McCain the election, but she could expose the entire flimsy structure of doctrinaire liberalism as the hypocrisy—and chauvinism—it has become."

Missing from this great photo: Sarah’s son, who will be on active duty soon. Three of John McCain's sons, have have carried on the family military tradition, with Doug McCain serving as a Navy pilot, now out of the Navy, Jack McCain soon to graduate from the Naval Academy, and Jimmy McCain enlisting in the Marines at the age of 17. The latter returned home safely from his seven-month tour of duty in Iraq in February 2008


6 posted on 09/04/2008 1:02:22 PM PDT by Grampa Dave (Snowbami, the Oreo Bozo, wants special-ed treatment as an untouchable affirmative action candidate)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Tolik
All About Race, All the Time

According to the Internet Movie Data Base, Barack and Michelle went to the movies on their first date. The film that the happy loving couple chose to see was, "Do the Right Thing," which was produced and directed by Spike Lee.

The conclusion of the movie features a race riot in a Brooklyn pizzeria which takes place after an argument between the Italian owner of the shop and a black customer who refuses to turn down a loud boom box radio escalates into a full scale war inside the restaurant. The business ends up being destroyed as the building is set on fire by the angry mob.

Is that your idea of a good date movie or a chick flick?

The Obama File


7 posted on 09/04/2008 1:05:16 PM PDT by Beckwith ('Typical White Person')
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Tolik

These liberal and leftist folks need to get it throught their thick heads. They can have any opinion they want, but we’re not listening to them. We reserve the right inherent in all American citizens, and that is to pick our own candidates. We do not need, and do not solicit their advice.

And if they continue to resort to low tactics to get their way, we will hit back.


8 posted on 09/04/2008 1:10:03 PM PDT by popdonnelly (An Obama administration isn't "Camelot", it's "Doctor Zhivago".)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Tolik

or the op-ed ravings of Gloria Steinem, Maureen Dowd, Eleanor Clift or Sally Quinn

Now there is a group I would not want to meet in a dark alley.


9 posted on 09/04/2008 1:12:59 PM PDT by SECURE AMERICA ( Choice 2008 McCain =Hero, Obama = Zero. Palin = Fresh - Biden = Stale)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: FlingWingFlyer

Dumping BHO now loses the urban black vote even as the Maverick-Barracuda ticket picks up suburban women. And the Dems can’t afford that. More likely, dump the no-bump Biden and replace him with HRC. I’d make it 50-50, if they agree to meet the Clintons’ price.


10 posted on 09/04/2008 1:13:23 PM PDT by swain_forkbeard (Rationality may not be sufficient, but it is necessary.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: SECURE AMERICA

Well-lit might be worse.


11 posted on 09/04/2008 1:14:24 PM PDT by swain_forkbeard (Rationality may not be sufficient, but it is necessary.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Tolik

Well, Hanson justs hits the target and the libs hate looking at their foolishness!

Elitism is a disease, not a virtue.


12 posted on 09/04/2008 1:17:59 PM PDT by dforest
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Tolik

Wow! I’m speechless! There’s no way for Liberal swine to refute these wise words.


13 posted on 09/04/2008 1:18:15 PM PDT by AlanGreenSpam ("Celebrate Diversity! Look at the world with all it's problems - Isn't "diversity" so beautiful?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: swain_forkbeard

The Dims are desperate. They are going to have to do something. I know they’ve got the voter fraud gig in the bag and that those “votes” are going to get Zerobama a few million extra “votes.” However, will those fraudulent votes be strategically placed enough to give him the win?


14 posted on 09/04/2008 1:21:19 PM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (McCain/Palin '08! Real change you won't have to "believe in." You'll be able to see it!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Tolik

Love this..I haven’t stopped smiling since she began to speak.
Great words by Hanson.


15 posted on 09/04/2008 1:28:47 PM PDT by MEG33 (God Bless Our Military)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

VDH self-ping


16 posted on 09/04/2008 1:31:33 PM PDT by Christian4Bush (No way, No how, NObama! *************McCain/Palin 08************)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Tolik

VDH remains the most best commentator in the business today. Great stuff as usual.


17 posted on 09/04/2008 1:42:51 PM PDT by Wyatt's Torch (I can explain it to you. I can't understand it for you.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SECURE AMERICA
or the op-ed ravings of Gloria Steinem, Maureen Dowd, Eleanor Clift or Sally Quinn Now there is a group I would not want to meet in a dark alley.

I think seeing them in a well lit alley would make the meeting far more unpleasant.

18 posted on 09/04/2008 1:59:24 PM PDT by PeoplesRep_of_LA ("Fair and Comprehensive" is codespeak for Amnesty)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: PeoplesRep_of_LA

LOL
LOL
LOL


19 posted on 09/04/2008 2:02:28 PM PDT by gost2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: FlingWingFlyer

The leftists tried to put some big Greek columns on stage as props for Barack Hussein Obama, but it did not help him, for he still looked like an empty suit and a bag of hot air.


20 posted on 09/04/2008 2:03:42 PM PDT by tessalu
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-29 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson