After Palin

Sarah, we hardly knew ya’.

The media have been out to analyze and take down Sarah Palin in her resignation with the same speed and fury with which they raced to….well….criticize and take down her candidacy from the time she was announced by John McCain as his running mate (remember that: Sarah who?!). Few other events could have seized reporters and headlines when they were saturated with Michael Jackson coverage like this did, but she knew that. And so taking a move from President Barack Obama’s own playbook, Palin issued an impromptu bombshell on Friday afternoon, on a holiday weekend.

Everyone with a pen, keyboard or microphone (okay, everyone) has pronounced on this story in some way. It has been a primer on the state of current politics and journalism, taking in all this analysis, sometimes informative, some annoying, some entertaining. Rather than add to the bulk of opinion pieces with my own take on ‘the meaning of it all’, I decided it would be way more fun to indulge in a distillation of some media spirits. And see what state that puts us in….now that we’re leaving Alaska. 

‘It’s Her Own Fault’

New York Times’ columnist Ross Douthat blames Palin for getting into this mess in the first place. “She should have said no,” he begins and declares that those five words could well be her epitaph. Intriguing thought, how things may have gone had she turned McCain down at the time. But Douthat doesn’t linger with ‘what might have been’ for long. “A Sarah Palin who stepped down for the sake of her family and her media-swarmed state deserves sympathy even from the millions of Americans who despise her.” What? Rubber-stamping…as de facto hostility among the American electorate…the animus major media crafted? Do millions of Americans despise her? 

He suggests that if Palin were exactly who her critics believe she is, embodying “every right-wing pathology, from anti-intellectualism to apocalyptic Christianity, she wouldn’t be a terribly interesting figure….” Okay, he admits this is a caricature, but making a snarky remark and then dismissing it as hypothetical doesn’t excuse the blow. (Though Wm. F. Buckley once remarked “that it is not enough for conservatives simply to be intelligent or sophisticated. They have to project these qualities, conspicuously and convincingly, in order to get past the visceral prejudices of elite opinion-makers, who generally regard conservative ideas as some combination of boobish, evil, backward, boring, dangerous, and simplistic. Overcoming these prejudices is, if not a prerequisite, at least a very helpful vehicle for receiving a fair hearing on the merits.” And Sarah Palin defied that particular wisdom…)

In fact, they never knew what to make of her, so the media made much of it up as they went. Which actually necessitated Palin doing the same, says National Review editor Rich Lowry. “It’s fashionable to opine that the culture wars are over. Palin proves that they still burn hot. Her very existence is a cultural provocation. Before she had been on the national stage five minutes — before the Katie Couric interview, before the Tina Fey parodies — she had earned the eternal enmity of the liberal elite for the affront of who she was: a working-class, pro-life woman with decidedly red-state mores. Conservatives loved her for the same reason. She had a true magnetism. The more she repelled one side, the more she attracted the other.” 

If she had been as ignorant as they portrayed her, they wouldn’t have needed to persist in hammering that point. If she were a real hick, yahoo and laughable wannabe….they would have laughed her off, especially after the November election. But she posed too much of a danger to the elite-leftist feminist agenda, because she landed on the national stage as if from mars as one not in their image (or control) but the dreaded ‘Other’: the quintessential feminist who did it all, and, arguably, well. And even with an unexpected pregnancy, a Downs syndrome child, who she chose to bear. They could not bear her.

‘She Chose Wrong’ 

This may be a parody, but only sort-of. And it’s a great one. “Not only were we offended at the sheer effrontery of McCain’s pick: How dare the Republicans proffer this déclassée piece of Wasilla trailer trash whose only claim to fame was that she didn’t exercise her right to choose? [She did: She chose wrong.] Where were her degrees from Smith or Barnard, her internships at PETA, the Brookings Institution, or the Young Pioneers? We were also outraged that the Stupid Party had just nominated a completely unqualified candidate nobody had ever heard of, a first-term governor of Alaska whose previous experience consisted of a small-town mayoralty…

“And so the word went out, from that time and place: Eviscerate Sarah Palin like one of her field-dressed moose. Turn her life upside down. Attack her politics, her background, her educational history. Attack her family. Make fun of her husband, her children...Hit her with everything we have...” 

And here, he zeroes in on the not-funny truth at the center of these attacks: “In Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, ‘the fourth rule is: Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.’...Did Sarah stand for ‘family values’? Flay her unwed-mother daughter. Did she represent probity in a notoriously corrupt, one-family state? Spread rumors about FBI investigations. Did she speak with an upper-Midwest twang? Mock it relentlessly on Saturday Night Live.”

And on ‘serious’ news sites. Where they reported her press conference remarks, colloquial as it was: “We have so many people who offer advice, but I’m going to continue to be, whether some of ‘em like it or not, pretty darn independent, and not get wrapped up into a strong political machine that hasn’t been extremely successful in some ways,” she said on Fox News Channel. "I want to work, right now, for people who are going to work in office or out of office for the right things. Those principles that built up America, those who are inspired by the values of America, and will not deride or apologize for the values we hold as Americans. I’m gonna work for those people.” 

The Globe piece called her speech “rambling”, and so it was at times. And tight and nervous and unconventional, though she’s been nothing but that. She wanted to get it over with in a hurry, evidently. One of her aides mused that Palin can’t get out of there fast enough. Taking into account the sheer volume and intensity of repeated, unrelenting, frivolous ethics claims filed to keep her on the defensive and out of cash, who can blame her?

The media. "I don't know if there's gonna be another shoe to drop," said Stuart Rothenberg of the Rothenberg Political Report. "But this one wasn't merely a shoe. It was a boot and it landed with a thud…The criticism has been that she's rather thin in the resume, and [that] she doesn't seem particularly serious or thoughtful," he said. "This kind of act, I think, only adds to that impression. It doesn't help her redefine herself." 

“It's mystifying," said ABC News political analyst Cokie Roberts. "It was a bizarre statement. It didn't make a lot of sense, and it doesn't seem to be the kind of thing someone would do if someone was running for president."

‘If She’s Running for President’ 

Who said she was? The media. Or so they speculated. “Strange though it might seem to many outsiders, it is not unthinkable that she could capture the Republican nomination in the 2012 presidential race.

“Assuming, that is, that she wants it…Should she seriously be interested in a presidential bid, it is hard to see the cause for urgency. And nothing she actually said seemed to hint at such a bid; instead, she stressed a desire to protect her family from intrusive attention, which would only grow much more extreme were she to run.” 

‘….Or Not’

After taking a deep breath, the New York Times relaxed a bit. “So in the end, this could simply be one of those it-is-what-it-is moments. Ms. Palin was weary of being governor, and, facing constant ethics complaints, she saw her family being chewed up by bad publicity and decided to trade those things for the opportunity to work on her book (for which she received a lucrative contract), tour the country giving paid speeches and consider offers from television or radio to become a highly paid commentator.” 

But go another paragraph or two further…

“As one friend remarked, Ms. Palin is facing potentially high legal bills because of the ethics and other investigations — all frivolous, she said — that were one product of being thrust into the national spotlight.” Well, not exactly. They were the product of forces bent on withering her appeal and unraveling her base of support. 

“From this perspective, the decision was simple and sensible: Less stress, and more national attention and money. A year from now, perhaps, she will find herself in a position where she wants to run, or is being pressed to run, and may do it. Or she may find that being a big player in her party and the conservative movement — you could see candidates making a pilgrimage to her doorstep for her endorsement — might be satisfying enough.”

Palin’s Power 

Actually, this is the more interesting type of speculation. “John Ridley of National Public Radio says she has the potential to be a Republican "kingmaker."

"She was never going to be president of the United States. But who's got all the sway in the Republican Party right now? It's the political pundits; it's the talk show hosts; it's the people who are not responsible to an electorate," Ridley told CNN's Campbell Brown. "I would not be surprised if around 2011 people are circling around Sarah Palin, saying, 'please, anoint us for the road to the White House.' She's never going to be president but possibly a kingmaker." 

Or a revolutionary. After that Fourth of July weekend announcement, “every presidential hopeful should realize that in the next election Sarah Palin — or someone like her — could be the vehicle for another revolution. The distinctions between Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, are being overshadowed by that between what we might call the “Court party” — made up of the well-connected, the people who feel represented by mainstream politicians who argue over how many trillions should be spent on reforming American society, who see themselves as potters of the great American clay — and the “Country party” — the many more who are tired of being treated as clay.

“As of July 4, 2009, Sarah Palin is the leader of the Country party. The fact that she did almost nothing to earn that position underlines that party’s nature and power.” 

Does Palin have a political future? “Palin can steep herself in foreign policy, become an advocate for issues that people actually care about — like special-needs children, a cause for which savaging her would be difficult — and help a national Republican party that is in no position to turn away any volunteers, let alone one for whom thousands cheer at events.

“Palin has a future in politics or public policy or both — if she wants one. That’s a broader question than the possibility of a presidential run in 2012 or beyond. If she does pursue the presidency, she’ll have to earn it, but her cost of admission to the race should be no greater, and her burden of proof no higher, than those of the other governors — or the one-term senator/community-organizers who have come before her.” 

Which brings us back to Ross Douthat, and what he takes away from this experience. “Here are lessons for any aspiring politician who shares Palin's background and her sex. Your children will go through the tabloid wringer. Your religion will be mocked and misrepresented. Your political record will be distorted to better parody your family and your faith.”  By necessity, or expediency….a nice word for the politics of destruction?

“Male commentators will attack you for parading your children. Female commentators will attack you for not staying home with them. You'll be sneered at for how you talk and how many colleges you attended. You'll endure gibes about your "slutty" looks and your "white trash concupiscence." And eight months after the election, the professionals who pressed you into the service of a gimmicky, idea-free campaign will still be blaming you for their defeat. 

“All of this had something to do with ordinary partisan politics. But it had everything to do with Palin's gender and her social class. Sarah Palin is beloved by millions because her rise suggested that the old American aphorism about how anyone can grow up to be president might actually be true.

“But her unhappy sojourn on the national stage has had a different moral: Don't even think about it.” 

What a message. But it needn’t be taken as conclusive and de facto. There is also the rare media voice crying in the wilderness….must this be our political reality? “In helping to convince Sarah Palin that her road forward in national politics would demand even more sacrifices and pain than exacted from most politicians, the media did nothing to encourage women or people of modest means to participate in politics. By sidestepping her critics, Sarah Palin is now moving to another playing field where she has more control over the rules of the game.”

And in the politics of the day, it’s all about power, and control.

Sheila Gribben Liaugminas is an Emmy Award winning journalist who reported for Time magazine for more than 20 years. She blogs at InforumBlog.com and on MercatorNet 

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