Brava, Michelle.  That kicked ass.

This ex-Carolina mill kid [who may have been one of your ex-profs at Vandy] says thanks as well.  I do think a lot of lefties set themselves up for this stuff, and I've complained about it.  But coming from a Peters, this rhetoric is nothing more than "let's change the subject!"  The country's going down the tubes, and they want to dredge up these increasingly tiresome culture-wars arguments.  But what can you say when you have nothing worthwhile to say about the actual issues facing the country?

Michelle, the media and the entertainment cabal, which usually hold the big megaphone on the culture wars started this a long time ago.

So spare me your sanctimonious fatigue with what you call reverse snobbery.  The Left, with its constant phony calls for diversity showed how much they care about same with their unprecedented hysteria against Palin when she won the VP nomination.

The media and entertainment biz are centered in two heavily urban coastal regions of the U.S.  Their prejudices are legion, and the evidence of every other broadcast and page of newsprint belie your bizarre denials and protestations.

Give it a rest, Michelle.  No one believes you.

Jesus Michelle, eh...let me stick on that kettle and make you a cup of tea like the good little boy that I am.

Don't hit me...please...

MIchelle, I believe that you're going to have to post a picture of yourself with that enormous high school hair to convince us.  

Fantastic stuff.  

"Some of us, in fact, don't give a rat's ass where she comes from."

Really? Did you support Obama  over Clinton and Edwards because you liked where Obama  wants to take us all next. or because you liked where he comes from?

You know, if you actually try and parse what this guy and/or Palin thinks makes a "real" American you'd end up with most of America - and nearly all of the founding fathers - being fake Americans.  No "real" Americans live in the metropolitan areas that house 80% of America.  No "real" Americans live in the most populous states.  No "real" Americans read popular fiction (except Dan Brown, he's OK) or drink popular coffee or see popular architecture or eat popular food.  Being authentic is apparently an image that requires careful cultivation.

Michelle:  With all due respect, cut the crock.  Of course the R's are hyping the culture wars.  You think the D's aren't?  Do you read the posters on your and your colleagues' commentaries on this site.  TNR posters are  healthy mix of liberals and those who are at least suspicious of conventional liberalism, including moi.  Most of the dialogue is civil, but much  has a hard edge of "now that I've made up my mind, don't confuse me with facts" about it.  Why not admit there really is a "culture war", that it has been steaming for decades, that politicians exploit it, and let's try to tamp it down a bit (at least after this election).  The passion isn't all on one side.  Look at huffpost and kos.  Lot of contempt ventilated there, with a lot less civility than this site.  There is plenty of blame to go around.

Excellent column, Ms. Cottle.  Incidentally, one thing I haven't seen is the actual financial status of this ordinary American family.  I assume McCain at least insisted upon a minimal amount of financial disclosure.

Peters's piece was on a first read effective, I thought. It sort of had me going, I have to admit.

But Cottle's  respons in her post, however, did a good job of allowing to me think through better some of the falsities and stereotypical thinking Peters employs.

Chan is right to say that the immediate reaction to Palin stank of ellitist condescension.

The trouble is that the news cycles spin on too quickly. That cultural dust has largely settled, seems like old news,  and has largely blown away. Bigger problems than cultural and class antagonisms have obviously presented themselves. Which is to say, the financial elephant in the room has just taken a shit.

So that make Cottle's closing point compelling: the need to see Palin, any candidate, outside of stereotypical perspectives--whether yay or nay-- for who they are , what they stand for and what they have done,  and make concrete judgments accordingly, which I don't think is so good for the Republicans.

ChanRobt, whoever you may be, you are an illogical horses ass.

Sadly, you channel the right wing diversionary garbage flawlesly.

The calls for diversity are hardly phony and in my experience are embraced by a large portion of our society.  The idea is essentially to open the door to people who in the past were -- and even today are somewhat -- excluded and in addition to have institutions and businesses that reflect the diversity of American society.  I guess that someone with a higher IQ than you could make a respectable argument against the calls for diversity, an argument based on the merits and not dumb insult.  But you haven't done it.

Beyond that, even though I favor diversity in most areas of life, I distinctly do not think that it is a standard for choosing the President of the United States or his/her possible successor, the Vice President of the United States.  I happen to favor Obama because he would make a better President than McCain, but find his skin color to be irrelevant.  And I find the coice of Palin as a Republican VP candidate to be repugnant not because she came from a small town or shoots moose or whatever else she brags about, but simply because I totally disagree with her right wing fundamentalist beliefs and find her experience and personal depth very thin.

By the way, I have reasonable experience with small towns and small town people -- my wife grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania.  (I grew up in a lower middle class neighborhood in a suburb of Philadelphia.)  I don't find that they have more or less virtue than anyone else.  For example, two of her small town cousins spent hard time for drug running; the divorce rate in her town is I would guess roughly equal to that of a big city;  I know of groups on neighboring towns organized to make and exchange porno films featuring local couples -- lawyers, business people, etc;  and in my personal experience, the honesty and competence of government officials in various small towns is neither superior nor inferior to those in New York or DC.

So enough of your bullshit.  If you are capable of telling us, with careful reasoning, why Palin is qualified to be the most powerful government leader in the world, please do so.  Otherwise, keep writing as you did above and you'll demonstrate graphically why the rest of us -- you know the elites -- are honestly frightened about the prospect of her at the head of our democracy.

Right, we elitist latte liberals Democrats just hate those blue collar, non-ivy league types.  That's why we go for guys like Joe Biden, Jim Webb, Jon Tester, Brian Schweitzer, and ...God is this guy serious?

No, I don't give a damn what college(s) Sarah Palin went to, and I suspect nobody else on the left does either (except insofar as some people think it's weird to jump from school to school like that, though that strikes me as a silly objection), just like nobody gives a damn what school Biden, Schweitzer, etc. went to.

Peters seems blissfully unaware of the irony of writing an unbelievably bigoted article based on his own stereotypes, the point of which is that liberals are bigoted and base their judgments of Palin on stereotypes.  Maybe irony is just another elitist concept.

I love Ms. Cottle's writing.  If it pisses off wingers like Chan all the better. The more right-wingers that become annoyed the better.

lsernoff,

A real culture war would imply that somebody is fighting on the so-called elitist/latte liberal side.  When have you ever heard a Democratic politician call an opponent a hick or a redneck?  Yeah, there are people like that on the fringe left, but the sneering liberal elites looking down on the common man are a product of the Right's collective imagination.  To the extent that Dems talk at all about culture, it's to convince people they're on the side of the blue collar guys.  Where it is acceptable for a guy like Peters to be openly contemptuous of big city types, the reverse is not true.

On the other hand this got to me too and I think it's effective and persuasive.

www.realclearpolitics.com/printpage

Right on, Michelle.

Ralph Peters lives in a cartoon America in which such creatures  as Baptist Democrats Who Hunt and Ivy League Republican Connoisseurs of Truffle Oil  are altogether chimerical, and the only two actual political phyla indigenous to these here United States are

(1)  Metrosexual Democrats Who Spend Too Much Money for Meat They Did Not Kill Which They Eat While Watching Dancing With Stars and Reading the New York Review of Books in Inherited Beach Houses Lit by the Atmospheric Glow of Burning Flags

and (2) Godfearing Hardworking Republicans Who Make Venison Jerky While Pledging Allegiance to a Flag Beside a Fireplace the Mantlepiece of Which is Adorned With a Copy of the Ten Commandments Needlepointed by War Veterans in a Church Basement in Topeka.

According to Ralph Peters, I and my ancestors do not exist. Nor do the Iowans and Kansans who preferred Obama to Hillary. Who knows. Maybe he's right. Maybe I don't exist. I've never been altogether sure.

Hey ChanRobt, one question: hunt much?

"When have you ever heard a Democratic politician call an opponent a hick or a redneck? "

Never, just bitter clinging to guns and religion. This is the way for  Dems o convince people they're on the side of the blue collar guys

PeteBeck,

So enough of your bullshit.  If you are capable of telling us, with careful reasoning, why Obama  is qualified to be the most powerful government leader in the world, please do so, then I can tell you  why Palin is qualified to be SECOND most most powerful government leader in the world.

Basman,

I never replied to you on that other thread because I decided to self-impose a moratorium on commenting, which was affecting my productivity.

Had I replied I would have noted how much you and I are in agreement when it comes to diagnosing the problems of America and the needed cures. It seems that we agree in almost all respects except in our assessment of Obama. I can't figure you out. The link you posted is propaganda of the most transparent sort. I simply can't imagine why you'd find it persuasive unless you were predisposed to be persuaded.

I can respect the argument that McCain's experience makes him more qualified than Obama--though I would beg to disagree. But Palin? I don't doubt that she has political skills, skills to which, per you other post, Bill Clinton himself attests. But so does Obama. So does Mike Huckabee. Political skills alone do not make a good president, though they might make for a good candidate. (Hard to tell in Palin's case, since she has yet to emerge from her protective cocoon.)

I would never have voted for Obama simply because of his political skills. As I said on that other thread, I supported him only after reading what had been written by and about the man, considering his policy positions, looking at his voting record, etc.

I liked Hillary, as I know you and your wife did, too. It was not easy to choose between her and Obama. But man is it easy to choose between Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin.

actually Sarah Palin was the type of snobby princess who ran with the "it" crowd, more worried about fashion and puddle deep popularity than other people. She is an Alaskan version of a Valley girl and is the type of woman I detested during my high school days because people like me were invisible to her. Well, this ain't junior high and the VP isn't Prom Queen and she has shown no evidence that she has grown much intellectually and philosophically since then. She was a beauty queen/broadcaster, got where she is based on her looks and being a big fish in a very, very small pond. The Sarah Palin's are the ones who look down on the rest of us until their looks fade (but Sarah has no problem with having a tanning bed in the Governors mansion) She is a female version of Sean Hannity. VP Tits and Ass is what we don't need, and if you are going to bitch I am objectifying her, she was a beauty queen, she sold herself out years ago.

Time to take America back from the empty headed beautiful people.

Yeah, I've often wondered why it's ok to speak with contempt for San Francisco, for example, one of the most interesting and creative cities in the country, but it's not ok to point out that there's a lot left to be desired in the educational and general moral development of people who are apparently only comfortable with the narrowest range of American experience.

I don't think Michelle does it as well as Chait (?) did it a couple of month ago on TNR, but there is indeed something almost beyond satire as well-heeled conservatives rush to defend "regular Americans" whose very economic security they have shredded over the past few decades.

In fact, Peter's remark about not having "a full-time accountant to parse the family taxes" explores new levels of cosmic disingenuousness.  Very few people do, most buy 30 mins at H&R Block if they don't do it themselves, but I think we can be certain that most people with "full-time" accountants sorting out the family taxes will be voting Republican.

As a couple of people have noted above, Peter's rant is a textbook example -- quite astonishing, in a way, that it's so open -- of the Repugs' panic-stricken desire to have the election about anything, please, anything, provided it's not about basic governing competence and generally having a clue.

jacob, sad little boy. Have you ever watched an Obama interview or read either of his books? There is no there there with Sarah Palin, but indisputably there is a lot going on with Obama. If someone said Obama wrote his speeches would you doubt it, but who would believe Sarah Palin has written her own? Obama graduated from Harvard Law school, was elected President of the review, is an accomplished writer (considering how your grammar is at 5th grade level I understand you can't appreciate it).

After 8 years of unthinking I think it makes a little more sense to get back to someone who can think, the Democrats this cycle have had people who can, the Republicans not at all.

How is he qualified? Well, he has many years in Government, at both state level (Illinois, you know a real state) and 3 plus years at Federal level as a Senator. He was a Constitutional Law instructor at one of America's finest Universities (and could have gotten tenure track if she so desired)

Hmmm... Harvard educated Lawyer, Constitutional Law instructor, Legislator, Community Organizor at grass roots level. Yeah, I will take that over small town mayor who was elected Governor in a one party state whose total population is a fraction of one of America's biggest cities. But hey, she is pretty and hunted moose.

"So enough of your bullshit.  If you are capable of telling us, with careful reasoning, why Obama  is qualified to be the most powerful government leader in the world, please do so, then I can tell you  why Palin is qualified to be SECOND most most powerful government leader in the world."

If Obama wins the election, he will have been vetted over a period of 18 months by 140 million or so voters, and found qualified by more than half of them (barring an electoral - popular mismatch).  That's a hell of an interview process.

Palin was (sort of) vetted by one man for a couple of hours.  If she becomes Vice President because of a McCain win, all it proves is that she was not so obviously unqualified to scare people away from voting for McCain.  If she becomes President, she will do so by historical accident, not the vetting process of a democratic contest.

Jacob, since when did Michelle support Obama in the primaries?

I don’t think Hanson’s piece is compelling at all. I never drank from the Obama Kool-aid. I was concerned about the cult of personality surrounding him and was very worried about his lack of substance. One can debate the relevance of his Harvard Law School record, his tenure on the faculty at UC, or his two books. His elective office experience is certainly thin. But for what it’s worth, we who follow politics closely have watched this man operate in great detail over the past 19 months. We have learned a lot about him, his family, his personal history, and his philosophy. We have also watched him perform under a very powerful microscope. We have seen him interviewed, we watched him in something like 19 debates, and we saw that he ran a very difficult primary campaign against a mighty tough opponent and win. So yes, his performance over the past two years goes a long way toward relieving my own anxieties about his lack of experience.

Governor Palin is a totally different story. She may well be the second coming of Ronald Reagan, but she has been on the national scene for just over two weeks. She has taken exactly one question from voters, and she has conducted two interviews with the national media. I would venture that her performance in that limited sample was not reassuring. We do not know Sarah Palin. Is it elitist to want to know her? Is it elitist to want a picture of how she might perform in a pretty important job? So if we can’t talk to her, how else can we judge her? How about her resume?

I spend a lot of time evaluating young people applying to graduate and post-graduate positions. The one consistent thing that we look for as a predictor of future success is past success. Is that elitist? Some of our best candidates come from small unknown colleges or big Midwestern universities, and they almost always outperform their Ivy League colleagues. But they have been stellar performers throughout their adult life. What is so elitist about asking our young people to work hard in school (whatever school)? Sarah Palin went to 5 colleges, won a few beauty pageants, worked as a local sports reporter, and then ran for Wasilla City Council at the age of 28. Objectively, this is not exactly a resume that inspires confidence. When you combine her experience with what we do not know about her, and add in the fact that she refuses to answer questions, and add in that when she does answer them that she does not seem to know what she is talking about, well, you are left with some real doubt.  So I ask Hanson or Peters or anyone else who thinks that the doubts about Palin are elitist: if you were a business owner and you were looking to fill a position, and you had an applicant who had a pretty thin resume and basically refused the interview, would you hire her?

Chan, get over it. *Your rap on the left "media elites" and "phony calls for diversity" are as unbelievable as they are tiresome. What is it, a thousand thousand times you trill out your boilerplate about the left. Not only does nobody believe it anymore, but *very few want to listen to (or read) it,* for the umpteenth time.

Yeah the folks on the coasts largely do not get nor do they care for the ultra-conservative whining about us that come from people who don't so much resent us  as *envy us* (not that there's a lot to be envious of for most of us - after all, we're a bunch of elitist here, ourselves.

I've encountered the complaints and j'accuses of people like Peters and I can tell you they are dripping with contempt for the values of the "big city types" and they *aren't referring to elites*, instead are just plain bitter. My parents came from the small towns and farms of Southern Illinois, and *they valued the kind of education and experience* I could get in a big city like Los Angeles. They didn't resent Hollywood, they enjoyed entertainment no matter where it came from.

Your BS about the left is just that BS. It is boring and I wish for once you didn't jump in with your blah blah blah just to prove how vast your cultural as well as intellectual knowledge is. Admit it, It's an act, as phony and unconvincing as Sarah Palin's.

No offense.

One last thought on the absurdity of Ralph Peters:

It was in The New York Post! A paper published in New York, by New Yorkers, for New Yorkers. A paper owned by the man who put the "crat" in "mediacrat." A paper read by native New Yorkers like my in-laws! Who, unlike me, do have an accountant help them with their taxes! And who refer to New Jersey and Connecticut as "the country"! The closest they've ever come to hunting or fishing is a lobster boil! That's who's reading this bizarro-world op-ed.

sdemuth , Biden failed vetting twice already,

In  the first presidential trial  he was kicked out due to moral failing. In his second run he failed to get any  votes.   If he  becomes President, he will do so by historical accident, not the vetting process of a democratic contest.

Great commentary on some of the most ridiculous, cynical dreck I've ever read.  If I were someone who read this and agreed with one word of it, I'd be ashamed to admit it (ChanRobt - I'm looking in your direction).

GIve 'em hell Michelle.  Like you, I guess, I am one of those supposed elitist liberals who believe in diversity, a progressive tax code, and a secular state, but who have small town roots and experience.  I read more than I watch television (don't have one, as a matter of fact),  some of my best friends are college or university professors, and I have children with an Ivy league education.  I come from that part of small town American that actually believes that being smart and educated is a good thing, and I'm both grateful and proud that I do.

I also still live in small town America, kill my own meat when I want meat to eat (very rarely any more), and raise more of my own vegetables and fruit than most actual farmers.  When my care breaks down I fix it, and when I need something built, I build it.  Myself.   I have good friends who are farmers and blue collar laborers, and a daughter who has lived in the North, run sled dogs across the Yukon basin, and stared down a moose or two in the process.   I'll stack my "plain folk" credentials up against Palin's anytime -and remain defiantly liberal in the process.

So lay off the culture war schtick everyone - we ARE a diverse country, and no one metric defines any of us; Palin, Cottle, and myself included.

Oh gee, oh gosh, is Ralph Peters *the Ralph Peters* author and (right wing) media hero, who wears his "small town" upbringing like a medal. What a phony he is!

eweiss ,

"I spend a lot of time evaluating young people applying to graduate and post-graduate positions."

We are not evaluating young people applying to graduate and post-graduate positions."

"But they have been stellar performers throughout their adult life."

Can you tell us about Obama stellar performers throughout his adult life.

Brilliant people can  innovate being a community organizer or a hamburg flipper. His whole life is a life of a mediocre achievements .  

Michelle - this was the best post you've ever written. And that's saying something since everything you write is amazing.

You're clear headed, delightfully ornery and utterly independent - the best that TNR can offer us.  You give me hope for journalism, you really do.

Uh, Michelle -- would you be up for a marriage proposal, you fine-as-hell female specimen?

"Sarah Palin's one of us. She actually represents the American people."

I know and work with women who remind me of Palin.  Nice people, no better and no worse than everyone else.  But since when is ordinariness a qualification for high office?

I want to vote for leaders who are more capable and talented than I am.  Not Joe or Jane Average,

Who reads this tripe?  Ralph Peters - what a hack.

terrific post eweiss.  

Michelle,

Kudos from a fellow Chattanoogan (grew up in Brainerd, and had friends who went to Hixson High).  Keep hittin'  'em hard on this ridiculous BS.  

Let us never forget: only the stereotyped experience of the WHITE middle class is "REAL" American life. I have Alaskan cousins, but they would never be included amongst the REAL Americans. Sneering at Palin is coastal snobbery. Sniffing about the problems of my Aleut Indian cousins, well we don't really KNOW them... And African-americans? What do we really KNOW about them? Aren't they all subversive and Moslem besides? Hispanics? Deport'em.

Please spare me the inside-out classist bullshit. When I see conservatives starting to give a shit about the TRULY disadvantaged, then maybe i'll start buying their garbage.

Jacob, the point I was trying to make is that we usually hire people based on some combination of their accomplishements (their resume) AND how they perform in an interview - throw in the references for good measure. I agree that Obama's relevant experience is thin. So call that a wash. But like him or not, he has had the most intense public scrutiny imaginable for almost 2 years. Sarah Palin could be terrific, but she has had no scrutiny. Maybe she could sit down for a real interview or even take a few questions from her potential employers.  This is a pretty big job, and I think it is reasonable to want to get to know her a bit. As for the young people bit, of course they are not just out of college. I was only trying to establish the metric for evaluating talent. I am pretty sure the basics are the same whether you are applying for a paper route, college, or the US Senate.

jacobtl - Since when is being President of the Harvard Law Review a mediocre achievement?  Since when is being a tenure track Con Law professor a mediocre achievement?  Since when is being elected a US Senator a mediocre achievement?  Since when is being nominated by the Democratic Party as candidate for the Presidency of the United States a mediocre achievement?

You're right.  He may as well be flipping hamburgers.  No doubt your CV is more impressive.

Darn, too bad I got in on this so late.  Lots of good comments by the er, 'cultrl lite' (spelling errors intended).  I don't have much to add except sdemuth, tomeg, rozensen, blackton, and others with 'em, nice follow up to Michelle's on-target post.

basman,

I'll agree with you that that Hanson article is well-written, but I don't think it's well-argued.  I think Hanson implicitly relies on the mythology of good, salt of the earth (in Peters' more blunt terms, *real*) Americans in small towns and rural areas.    I say "mythology" not because said small town Americans *aren't* good people, but because they are no better and no worse an indicator of the "real" America than the people living in big cities and their suburbs.  Hanson argues that Palin understands *human nature* better than Obama in virtue of her background.  Human nature is every bit as much on display in the poor areas of Chicago or the campus of Harvard as it is in Wasilla.  Human nature is on display wherever humans are around to display it.

"Can you tell us about Obama stellar performers throughout his adult life."

This sentence is entirely meaningless, jacob.  Even if one can pretty much guess at what information it's demanding, the sarcasm that wanders around like the town drunk looking for a brawl makes the whole thing obscure.

Do you ever read what you've written before you hit 'submit'?

The Peters' piece can't be serious. It must either be satire, a cartoonish lampoon of conservative rhetoric, or an essay by the President of the local high school's Young Republicans.

Actually, his cartoonish mischaracterization of liberals manages to be more offensive than the imaginary cultural attacks on Palin.

Thanks, Ms. Cottle. You may not have meant to, but you reminded me not to get resentful about my own issues (quite different ones, but...) like I have a bad tendency to do. ^^ Thanks.

I did most of my growing up in a small town.  Very, very Republican, in an already very Republican county.  Fairly affluent, pretty rural, quite picturesque, lots of farmers, and also lots of folks who worked in the mid-sized city a half an hour's drive away.

It was full of wonderful, intelligent, kind-hearted people.  It was also full of parochial morons.  Kind of like New York, in fact, where I spent the middle third of my life in college and graduate school.  I've known plenty of Sarah Palins in my life, too--hell, I teach some of them--and while I might like her for a neighbor, I sure as hell don't want her or anyone like her near the levers of power.  Ever.

By the way, I'm not so big on the cult of "diversity" often preached here.  I think diversity is a virtue rather like sincerity--better to be sincere than insincere, but then, Hitler was sincere.  No, I prefer calls for tolerance, which is not quite the same thing, and which I find strangely lacking in the attitudes of many towards, not Sarah Palin, but Barack Obama.

Second in your class, huh?  And you actually have "colleagues"?  Lemme guess, you probably never even shot nothin either, right?  And you expect me to believe that you're not a member of  the liberal elite?  Heh!  Why don't you you go order another latte, or what ever the heck you freedom-haters like to do other than spend all of your thinking about lies to bash Sarah with!

"In  the first presidential trial  he was kicked out due to moral failing. In his second run he failed to get any  votes.   If he  becomes President, he will do so by historical accident, not the vetting process of a democratic contest."

jacobtl: Are you really so obtuse that you don't realize when you're arguing against your own position?  You asked for an argument that Obama was qualified, whereas Palin was not.  I gave you one, and responded with an argument about Biden.   Should I assume therefore that you agree with my argument vis-a-vis Palin, since you make the same argument about Biden?

Of course, if Biden becomes President because something happens to Obama, he will have gotten there by historical accident, rather than by a democratic vetting.  Sauce for the gander, and all that.  Again, you asked for a comparison of Obama and Palin.

But granting that either Biden or Palin would be selected, rather than elected, should they become Vice President and then President, let's stack their qualifications against each other, shall we.   One on one, if you had to pick someone to be President in waiting from these two, based on experience and knowledge of the issues, who wins?  No cheating now  - just compare resumes.  Let me know when you find the secrets in Palin's that lets her pull ahead.

I have nothing to add to this commentary other than to note (again) that Michelle Cottle rocks...

My point, PeteBeck, and I defer to your superior intellect since you have declared it, the Left's call for "diversity" does not go beyond skin color or certain chosen ethnicities.

Whenever the Left is faced with diversity of thought or opinion or even region, their first instincts are to sneer, tamp down, or, if threatened sufficiently, attempt to destroy.

The outburst against Palin from the Left have been ugly in the extreme.  She has been called "white trash," "redneck," "prostitute," "not actually a woman," "qualified only because she hasn't had an abortion," and much worse.

And these outbursts were from paid pundits and prominent Democratic politicians.  I can only imagine the sewage being spewed at the Koz.

If you deny that there is tremendous coastal urban prejudice against small town America, rural America, and even just "not L.A. or New York America," then you're not paying attention.

At times-- as now with Palin's emergence on the scene-- this bigotry is every bit as ugly as racial bigotry of old.

Sorry to come so late to the party but that pesky work thing keeps getting in the way of talk back...

I am in the middle of Rick Perlstein's Nixonland and this Palin editorial sounds EXACTLY like it was ripped from the fangs of Spiro Agnew and Pat Buchanan. Exactly. Same tone, same aggrieved sense of victimhood, same cynical embrace of manichaean messaging...

no wonder it appealed so strongly to jacobt1 and O'Channy...

you go girl!

can i agree if i am not a chick or a hick?

absolutely, don't give a rats ass where she came from

My choice to not choose here is all about where she and McCain want to take us all next.

thanks for simplifying the debate.

Michelle,  excellent post.  It's amazing to me how some of the commenters have so vehemently expressed dismay with your statements.  I think you're spot-on.  But I was born and raised in Boston (and live here still), so I guess I don't know shit about Real America.  (But I did have big hair for a while, so that may lend me some cred.)

I have nothing at all against people from small towns, but I do dislike small minds.  And judging from some of the more nasty rightwingish type comments on this thread, they are legion.

I have nothing at all against Sarah Palin as a person.  I don't care where she came from, I don't care about her family, I don't care about her beauty pageant past.  I don't care about her hair, her lipstick, her shoes, or her accent.  I do not oppose her on any of those grounds.  But I do oppose her policies and I do find her lacking in depth and breadth of knowledge and experience.  

And I find it extremely tedious being called a liberal elite or un-American based on the fact that I reject the ultra-conservative agenda.

It's not the small towns that I'm railing against - it's the small minds.  

sdemuth said:,

"One on one, if you had to pick someone to be President in waiting from these two, based on experience and knowledge of the issues, who wins"

Biden.

"One on one, if you had to pick someone to be President  from these two, based on experience and knowledge of the issues, who wins"

McCain.

One of the funniest things about the Peters article is that espresso shacks are ALL OVER in Alaska, including Wasilla, and Palin is a famous latte lover.

eweiss,

"Jacob, the point I was trying to make is that we usually hire people based on some combination of their accomplishments (their resume) AND how they perform in an interview"

When I interview people I ask questions relevant to their past experience.

I don't care what Palin thinks or knows about North Korea. She can't possibly have a clue. But I don't care. If she did an excellent job as a governor , proved to be a quick study and a great leader, she'll be fine as vice-president.

gennitydo said

"jacobtl - Since when is being President of the Harvard Law Review a mediocre achievement?  Since when is being a tenure track Con Law professor a mediocre achievement?  Since when is being elected a US Senator a mediocre achievement?  Since when is being nominated by the Democratic Party as candidate for the Presidency of the United States a mediocre achievement?"

Since when is being  managing general partner of  Texas Rangers baseball franchise a mediocre achievement? Since when is being elected a governor of a large state a mediocre achievement?  Since when is being nominated by the Republican  Party as candidate for the Presidency of the United States a mediocre achievement? Since when is being President  is a mediocre achievement

I think that Hanson’s piece might need a second read by some, if they wish to. It’s slyer than it might seem. He’s not really saying that Palin is more experienced than Obama or more qualified to be president than him. He floats around those propositions but does not really argue on that basis. Rather, he simply argues for his confidence in Palin and teases Obama supporters by comparing her to Obama in addressing what he claims are her strengths on the thematic axis of what constitutes wisdom. In doing that he rises above simple minded, middle excluding dichotomies between rural and urban or educated and uneducated. Rather, he contrasts those in order attractively to disallow the snide dismissal of either:

…I am not calling for yokelism, or a proponent of false-populism. Rather, I wish to remind everyone that there are two fonts of wisdom: formal education, and the tragic world of physical challenge and ordeal. Both are necessary to be broadly educated. Familiarity with Proust or Kant is impressive, but not more impressive than the ability to wire your house or unclog the labyrinth of pipes beneath it….

Hanson argues that Palin is tough enough. I don’t see how that proposition can be gainsaid, and I think he makes a good case for this claim.

His argument that Palin is more experienced than Obama is admittedly poorly made. There is no need for him to triumph Palin’s political success in Alaska over Obama’s rise through Illinois politics to his party’s highest office. And on my own second reading, some of his comments about the comparable challenges presented by moose hunting and snowmobiling are over the top. But the point he is driving to is not—and it undergirds his article—and that is the virtue of life experience being no *less important* (and I emphasize that phrase) than abstract learning, not that either of those binary opposites apply strictly to either Obama and Palin. But Hanson does venture the opinion that Palin in his words “understands the symbiotic world of word and the world of deed far more so than does Obama.” Isn’t this another way of saying that, amongst other things, her executive experience, of which Obama has none, compelled her politically to act and be decisive, whereas, as far as I know, nothing in Obama’s experience has had the like consequence for him.

I then think that Hanson does a creditable job in a short piece of contrasting what he calls “Word and Deed, Head and Arm”. Contrary to what some have suggested, Hanson does not romanticize what Alansp referred to as the “salt of the earth”.  Rather, as I suggested, he pleas for an appreciation of both modes of intelligence based on his own experiences in straddling both. I found this part of his piece particularly resonant, (probably in part because I can barely manage to change a light bulb.)

And I am sorry to say so, but this rings true as well:

“…hundreds…who seem to think that a fumbling nervous Obama in interviews, who grasps for a word and utters vacuous platitudes is "really" contemplative… but when a Sarah Palin seems nervous under scrutiny from a pseudo-professorial, glasses-on-the-lower-nose Charlie Gibson, she is clearly an empty head with an Idaho BA.

A Ronald Reagan knew more about human nature, and thus what drives the Soviet Union than did all the Ivy-League Soviet specialists that surrounded Jimmy Carter-much less the Sally Quins and Maureen Dowds of that age. We in America, unlike the Europeans, know this intuitively, grasp that a Harry Truman figured out the Russian communists far better than did the Harvard-educated aristocrat FDR.”...

I think this begins to go to the kind of wisdom successful presidential politics demands and it is not unreasonable to be concerned that Obama, now, does not have that kind of wisdom. (Maybe because I am just now reading What It Takes and am on the part dealing with Dukakis, and am so impressed by Dukakis’s intense and commanding intelligence, at how successful he was as governor of Massachusetts, and so struck by what a dud he was at the presidential level, that I keep wondering whether Obama will turn out to be another Dukakis or Jimmy Carter, men replete with academic intelligence, but lacking, at the ultimate levels, the political wisdom of a Truman or a Reagan.) (See also www.slate.com/.../2200587).

Which all brings Hanson back to his question what is wisdom in the context of politics: his answer—the ability to understand human nature, which he says requires two things: inductive reasoning to get empirical purchase on the world and a body of knowledge and experience to draw on for guidance. On this basis, Hanson contrasts Palin’s bucking the Republican establishment and “old boy network” and running Alaska as against Obama’s swimming with the current through Chicago politics, making do with Rezko and the good Reverend, never running and never having really done anything in particular that qualifies him to be president except win his party’s nomination, (which in itself I reject as a criterion).

Jaunty, this wednesday night it's Jersey Boys, baby!

jacobtl - I didn't maintain that W's achievements were mediocre.  You did maintain that Obama's achievements were mediocre.  Why don't you try defending your argument instead of misdirecting?

"It's not the small towns that I'm railing against - it's the small minds."

Amen!  As Lyn39 says, it's not where someone comes from, it's where they plan (or, worse, don't plan) to take us to.

But it's not about Palin.  She's an irrelevance.  It's about Obama and McCain.  Nobody doubts that McCain learned things about himself and about the nature of brutality in his years as a POW, and gave him the basis for leadership.  Nobody denies him the credit for that.

But that doesn't give him a ticket to the White House.

basman, your argument is long and articulate, but ultimately hollow.  If you are talking about human nature, also "the ability to understand human nature," and the experience that comes from dealing with difficult, confused, or challenging experiences in life, then Obama clearly has at least as much as McCain in the sense that sorting out your place in the world in a covertly racist society requires courage and thought, not the same existential courage and thought as you need in a POW camp in North Vietnam, but something not just academic either.  It's got more sweat and guts than this crap about Ivy League schools and law degrees.

And that's what we need now:  courage and thought.

basman - All this Truman worship is purely backward looking retrospective stuff.  Remember he left office with a 22% approval rating - quite a bit lower than our current President.  This largely because he nationalized the steel industry so maybe W will catch up before he leaves.

Good go. But I totally agree with Kerouac9. Until we get some photographic evidence of your high school hair we've got to assume we're in some kind of Scott Thomas Beauchamp situation here.

I demand this whole post be re-reported from start to finish!

Would someone please point out the obvious: that Joe Biden didn't attend an Ivy League school, nor is he part of the "intellectual elite", yet no one on the left is claiming that he isn't qualified to be president.

blackton writes, "...She is an Alaskan version of a Valley girl and is the type of woman I detested during my high school days because people like me were invisible to her..."

Hey, blackie, glad you finally came up with a rational reason to hate the woman.  You've revealed a lot.  Not just about yourself, but about all those other hystericals out there who so instantly loathed her.

Strangely enough, I agree a bit with Chan. There is quite a bit of dishonesty among some bits of the population where diversity is involved. I went to a small, fairly white college in the Midwest. I had a friend who was half-Ethiopian and half-Norwegian (looked more AA than Caucasian). She was always featured on college leaflets and promotional materials, as were many of the other non-white students. The college student senate had a spot reserved for a student who came from a "diverse background." Yes, the words were actually "diverse background." Because I knew better, even though not many folks from this college came from Texas, or were twins, the only requirement for me to be diverse was to be a different race. If I didn't have better things to do with my time, I would have ran for the student senate as the representative for "diverse students" just to force someone to tell me that I was less diverse than my black colleagues.

That being said, I HATE McCain's pick of Palin. Even if there has been some hootin' and hollerin' from some segments of the Left about her because she's pretty, or pro-life, or has hunted, or doesn't fit the stereotype of a feminist politician, there are PLENTY of reasons to be against her other than her not being another Hillary Clinton. Personally, I'm most aghast at her seeming willingness to ban books from a public library. (This is the same reason I didn't like Lieberman before he was on the Gore/Lieberman ticket.) Steps to curtail free speech and free access to information are strong negatives for me.

There are plenty of good reasons to be against Palin. We don't have to resort to sexist arguments.

(and good column, Michelle!  BRAVO!)

(correction)

It's perfectly fine to be against Palin because she is pro-life (a reason I'm not for her).

Saying "I don't like Palin because women should know better than to be pro-life" is much different than "I don't like Palin because I disagree with her stance on abortion." The first assumes that because she's a woman, she should take the liberal position on abortion, and couching dislike of her in those terms is a touch demeaning, in my opinion.

Same thing for hunting.

jacobtl said:

"One on one, if you had to pick someone to be President  from these two, based on experience and knowledge of the issues, who wins"

McCain.

---

That's the beauty of the President being elected: you get to make this judgment, along with 140 million others, and the final call represents a collective judgment.  We don't get the privilege for VPs - they represent only the presidential candidate's judgment as to who would make a better President-In-Waiting.

We've already established that Biden is a better pick by this standard than Palin.  How about Palin  vs - oh I don't know - two dozen or so senior, experienced people in the Republican Party?

Interesting, they are the ones from the real world, in opposition to snob elitists. But in the real world, a University of Idaho journalism degree will not guarantee a position near the top, and a computer illiterate seventy-two year old will hardly get an office job at all. Another fact from the real world: Alaska is not a state with low latte availability, by any stretch.

One of the most beloved Russian writers, Shukshin.  wrote a short story Srezal (Cut down to size). Boy, if you want to know about the psychology about American elections of late, you should read it...

The thing that bugs me most about rightwing anti-elite snobbery is that it's a pose. A lie. For example, I'm a recreational shooter. I shoot at ranges in Washington's Virginia and Maryland suburbs and surrounding areas. I participate in competitions that attract shooters from across the East Coast. And while it's true that most of my fellow shooters are conservatives, they're mostly upper-middle-class workers, most often in the skilled trades, and professionals. (That, and a lot of retired upper-middle-class tradespeople and professionals.) Yet I've never once met a conservative politician or journalist at the shooting range.

The truth is, the behaviors that conservatives like to cite as examples of "real America" tend to be expensive, and therefore tend to be markers of upper-middle-class status even within poorer communities. The salt of the earth doesn't hunt moose and own a vacation home and keep more than three cars and maintain a boat and race high-end snowmobiles, and their friends don't own airplanes, because for most working parents, any one of those activities would represent a commitment of all of their disposable income. "Real Americans" work hard and commute and don't have much time or money for social-marking hobbies or fancy toys, and recreation consists of watching their kids play sports or reading or watching a little TV in the evening. And they mostly live in cities or suburbs. In other words, "Real Americans" look a lot more like Barack Obama's family, and Joe Biden's family, than like John McCain's family or Sarah Palin's family.

The real snobbery here is citing expensive, limited-participation activities like hunting or snowmobile racing or vacation house owning as examples of "real America" and looking down on the vast majority who can't afford or lack the time to participate in such elite activities. And the lie is that conservative elites don't actually participate in these elite activities they praise anyway. Conservative talk about "elites" makes me want to reach for my revolver -- not to shoot anybody, but to see if this particular conservative knows how to handle a gun. Because in my experience, conservative politicians and commentators are the worst poseurs of all.

...basman, your argument is long and articulate, but ultimately hollow...

What every judge I have appeared before has said to me for over 30 years.

Michelle Cottle's first reaction to Sarah Palin, August 29th:

"Palin may be a varmint-hunting, moose-stew-guzzling NRA lifer, but she is still a woman--and an exceedingly delicate, feminine looking one at that."

Michelle Cottle's enlightened reaction to Sarah Palin, September 22nd:

"...not everyone--not even everyone in the media--objects to Palin because she is an un-ivied "rube." Some of us, in fact, don't give a rat's ass where she comes from."

sdemuth.

Democratic super delegates selected a very inexperienced and unaccomplished politician. Obama had to choose his running mate to compensate for the lack of experience. He chose a chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. McCain doesn't need a ranking member  of the Foreign Relations Committee. as his running mate.

Wondeful piece Michelle.  Although male (and so much of a comparison with Sarah Palin pretty much ends there for me), I grew up rural and in whatever class small farmers of that era were considered.  That background in and of itself doesn't automatically qualify me for anything.  I was blessed with a moderate amount of intellect and supportive parents and have managed to make something of myself and stay out of jail.  But that alone doesn't qualify me to be President.

What Peters is doing here is actually comical if it weren't so dangerous.  It's Palin's views and not her background that should be scrutinized and criticized.  It seems that the conservative mud machine wants to continue foisting these snobbery claims on those who criticize Palin instead of allowing an honest and complete critique of what she believes and what she might do as President.

I have a friend who is constantly berating the "political correct" lefties who he believes are destroying the ability to debate.  He is a very serious Christian (though I would venture he is not as serious as Palin in that regard) and is troubled over things like pluralism in terms of belief and rants about foot-washing basins for Muslim students and the like.  I told him a couple of months back in something that appears prescient now (blind squirrel meet acorn) that the problem with political correctness is that in runs both ways and nuts of any variety--left or right--are afforded succor and told that, in effect, their "opinion is fact."  

Same thing is at work here.  I don't read much of Peters, but I would venture to say that he, like many on the right, has poured more than his share of venom on what could be termed as overweening political correctness from the left.  Funny that he is employing the same protective technique here.

"Real American" is a code word, and if we weren't so screwed up about racial issues we would be able to be more open about it.  "Real American" means working-class white American, usually a believing Christian, who prefers to live around people who think and look like him or her.  "Real American" are Reagan Democrats and the descendents of the old southern Democrats.  The people that left the Democratic Party a generation ago, upon which Democratic leaders replied "don't let the door hit you on the way out."  

I grew up in this environment and wanted to get out when younger.  Now I'm seeing what's been lost.  I live in a multicultural suburb where no one knows their neighbors (see Robert Putnam on this consequence of diversity), and a home burgler alarm system is required.  I take a long commute to the city, working mostly among childless Ivy-league grads who live in the big city.  Which is of course , impossible for someone with kids -- private school is a necessity and too expensive.  

Yes, of course I see the advantage of diversity.  Excellent ethnic restuarants.  And more Democratic voters with whom I agree more on economic, foreign policy and many social issues.  Can't think of any others, can anyone else?  

There is a lot of strength, resourcefulness and sense of community and personal accountability out in the boonies, and in the white ethnic enclaves of big cities.  And I'm sure there is a lot of it in black, Latino, Asian and other enclaves as well.  In my experience, there is less of it in the diverse environments that are supposedly bastions of progress and the wave of the future, as well as in the enclaves of the highly educated - of any race - dominated by the non-religious.    

Again, I'm an issues voter, and I'm voting for Obama.  I don't know how many other Americans sensitive to thes cultural/social concerns that I express are "smart" enough to do the same.  I guess that makes me an elitist bastard as well.  

Rhubarbs -- your comments about guns being an upper class activity only holds true in places like the DC/Virginia/Maryland suburbs.  In Western PA first day of hunting season is a holiday with no schools in session.  

It's simple bigotry to claim that one group of people are the "real Americans" while everyone else isn't.  

I came from a run down crappy little beach town and now live in the big city because I worked my ass off to get here.  Not that my choice makes me any better than anyone else, it certainly does not.  But I am as American as the kooks and fabulous freaks I left behind - who are just as patriotic and accomplshed as anyone I know.  

The one thing I can identify with Sarah Palin with is her coming from a place of freaks - I proudly do as well.  I choose to live among them now in the city as well.  No one owns authenticity, it is not class based.

Besides, the worst part the phony worship of "small town people", whatever that is -  from the right wing media is that it reeks of patronizing dehumanization every bit as much as liberal racism does.  How can people stand to be treated that way? Ooooo look at the fun authetic small town folk!  Aren't they so cute?

Ugh! Either someone is qualified for a professional position or they are not.  Why should I hold anyone to a different standard of behavior because of their race or the size of the city they grew up in?  I shouldn't.

Throwing up class bigotry to make your case just makes you look like you're insecure about your credentials for the job.  Either stand up on your own two feet in  the meritocracy that is this nation, or step aside.  Welcome to America!

hey Channy, I don't loath her, not at all. In a strange way she reminds me (and a lot of other people) of my sister in law, a woman I care deeply about. I bare her absolutely no ill will personally, I just think she is (like my sister in law) completely unsuited to be President of the United States.

You forget, I also teach at University, I see the cliqueism, attitude in place of thought, immaturity, etc. and I can view it all with detached amusement (unlike when I went to college myself and was wrapped up in it). As of yet I haven't seen any evidence that she is ready to be President (and there is nothing wrong with that, the vast majority of people in America aren't)

McCain could have taken a Condi Rice or a Christie Todd Whitman, people who have clearly demonstrated ability and intelligence (even though I disagree with their philosophy). Not detecting any thought out political philosophy beyond ability to parrot rwtp, how the hell am I hysterical for pointing this out?

Yeesh, so much defensiveness about the whole Ivy-Leauge dodge.  Who cares where someone went to school?  I think its weird that Sarah Palin went to six schools for her BA, but its not really relevant and only a small part of the case against her, not THE case.  I've said for years I absolutely do NOT want my kids going to Ivy League schools because of all the paranoia, stereotyping and defensiveness it brings up in *other* people. Its a mark against them without a word out of their mouths - kind of like race or class.  

Again: what does someone believe?  Have they exhbited and ability to govern successfully?  Are they open minded? Honest? Do they have integrity in their dealings with co-workers?  Do they have expertise in anything?  Personally, I do not want someone whose only expertise is in biblical injunctions, but someone else may value that.  Either way, we have a right to know all of this.

And this is all that matters.  And the right knows it, hence the phony class dodge.  The oldest trick in the book.

hey Channy, I don't loath her, not at all. In a strange way she reminds me (and a lot of other people) of my sister in law, a woman I care deeply about. I bare her absolutely no ill will personally, I just think she is (like my sister in law) completely unsuited to be President of the United States.

You forget, I also teach at University, I see the cliqueism, attitude in place of thought, immaturity, etc. and I can view it all with detached amusement (unlike when I went to college myself and was wrapped up in it). As of yet I haven't seen any evidence that she is ready to be President (and there is nothing wrong with that, the vast majority of people in America aren't)

McCain could have taken a Condi Rice or a Christie Todd Whitman, people who have clearly demonstrated ability and intelligence (even though I disagree with their philosophy). Not detecting any thought out political philosophy beyond ability to parrot rwtp, how the hell am I hysterical for pointing this out?

Finally, the things I said above is in reaction to being called a snob, as though I am an elitist. It is this hack who is an elitist. Show me where Palin has herself lived up to her Christian ideals, what charity work has she done, hell at least Romney (as a Mormon mission), Huckabee (as a preacher), McCain (as a soldier) have all lived for something beyond their ambition. Palin has lived a life dedicated to her and her own.

Palin scares the hell out of this redneck hunter, latte hating, Budweiser drinking, SEC football loving Razorback fan.  This redneck wants to know about the plan to fix America's very serious problems.

At least Ole Miss lost last weekend.  Give 'em hell on Friday Barry!!!

What is elite? It can refer to your origins and/or your accomplishments.  The former can lessen the latter when your road to success was paved with gold from birth, e. g., becoming an exec in Daddy's big company, even if you worked your way up and are fairly competent.

Having Daddy's friends appoint you to an executive position, then flailing, is no accomplishment at all but rather a classic example of cronyism for the least deserving. I'm thinking of George W.'s tenure at Harkin Energy.  This is an example where elite is entirely inherited and not self-made.

Alan SP and Rhubarbs, you've touched on the conservative collective consciousness / posing / id that is the elite strawman.  If it's not necessarily real, what are their motives? I think mdichner provides the key when he says regarding Ms. Cottle "Second in your class, huh?  And you actually have "colleagues"?  Lemme guess, you probably never even shot nothin either, right?  And you expect me to believe that you're not a member of  the liberal elite?  Heh!  Why don't you you go order another latte, or what ever the heck you freedom-haters like to do other than spend all of your thinking about lies to bash Sarah with!"

Jdmichner's comment shows a strange resentment towards Ms. Cottle's academic and professional achievements.  I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that it's not due to naked jealousy.  Perhaps then he assumes that Ms. Cottle was to the manor born and therefore sailed through high school on the backs of governesses? Actually, some people get ahead through their talents, hard work and determination.

I thought meritocracy was one of the linchpins of American society, regardless of one's political persuasion.  Aren't we so much less classist and more mobile than say Britain? Folks, one shouldn't look at others' level of accomplishment and assume that it was handed to them.  If you do, then you'd fit in really well with Cultural Revolutionists who assumed that just because you had enough to eat (what passed for comparative wealth in China) you came from a long line of landlord saboteurs.

Blackton, you said better what I attempted to say on another post. ChanRobt, more important than whether or not Blackton is still hurting from high school, Sarah Palin never left high school.

Jacobt1, so are you but what am I?

Also, it's worth remembering what the conservigots were saying a month ago about Obama's cultural signifiers:

Obama took his wife and children to visit their grandmother. That proved that Obama was an out-of-touch elite.

... or ...

Obama took his wife and daughters to Hawaii for a short vacation on the beach. That proved that Obama was an out-of-touch elite.

Now, a month later, a woman leaves her children behind to go hunt exotic big game in Alaska with her husband, and that's held up as example of protean, of-the-people, non-elite ordinariness?

Taking the kids to visit grandma, or even taking the kids to the beach for a week, that's the kind of thing that every family that can afford to do it does. Not some families, not elite families, not rich liberal families, but every family. Honest to God, I don't know one adult head of household who would turn his or her nose up at the idea of taking the family to Hawaii for a week, or taking the kids to visit grandma for a week, if disposable resources allow.

But flying to Alaska to hunt moose is as elitist an activity as it's possible to imagine without leaving North America. That's something you do if and only if you have lots of extra money, unusually low concern for your children, and you wish to flaunt both of those facts as loudly as possible.

Seriously, you can take a family of four to Hawaii for a week for about $5,000 if you time it right and eat on the cheap. A week of guided moose hunting in Alaska for two is going to run closer to $30,000. So who's the out-of-touch elite, the guy who takes his kids to a popular vacation destination to see grandma, or the guy who writes newspaper columns and whose friends drop thirty grand to leave the kids behind and go on a hunting safari in the arctic?

I'm not familiar with jdmichner's other postings, so there's a possibility he's being ironic instead of sincere.  Either way, his post captures conservatives' underlying motives for creating the elite bogeyman.

PS I liked your post basman - if I were a judge, I would not call it or you windy but rather thorough and fair.  I concede Peters point on Obama's tendency to pause while answering being given a pass, presumably because of his education, while Palin's is not.  

There is context there, but I have been much more judgemental than I would be of Obama for the same behavior.  

She just scares me with those religious beliefs, its hard for me to get past them.  Fundamentalists of any kind - Scientologists, free-marketers, Islamisists, Christianist - all sound and feel the same to me.  

blackie writes, "...McCain could have taken a Condi Rice or a Christie Todd Whitman, people who have clearly demonstrated ability and intelligence..."

Much as I admire Condi Rice, there is something undynamic and indecisive about her personality.  She is an accomplished person, but not a natural leader.

Christie Todd Whitman is a "what's not to like" person.  No question she's competent and qualified, but pretty bland.  The female equivalent of the boring old white guys now so widely derided.

As The Natural himself, Bill Clinton, pointed out in the excellent interview he gave on The View the other day, Sarah Palin, is not to be underestimated.  She definitely has that X factor of great political talent.  

Love her or loathe her, the woman is a phenomenon.  She simply has more political zotz than almost any other practicing politician.

By the way, Bill Clinton really showed himself at his best on The View-- I think that's the interview in question-- when he beautifully summed up the events and forces leading to the current economic crisis.

the man managed to waste much of his intellectual and political talent.  I hope he creates an opportunity to redeem himself over the rest of his life.  He ought to stay out of election politics and devote himself to national statesmanship.

Fundamentalists of any kind - Obamists,  Progressivists, Scientologists, free-marketers, Islamisists, Christianist - all sound and feel the same to me.

Rhubarbs writes, "...A week of guided moose hunting in Alaska for two is going to run closer to $30,000. "

I'm sure that's true for a hunter who flies in from Dallas or Chicago.  I doubt if the locals, including Sarah Palin and her father, ever paid for a gilded guided moose hunt.

jacobtl - Obama also had the majority of the pledged delegates.  I think it is safe to assume that he would not have received the support of the majority of the super delegates if he had not won the majority of the pledged delegates.  Certainly many super delegates did not make up their minds until after the primaries were completed which indicates to me that they waited to see which candidate had received the most pledged delegates.

You still have not explained why you think he is inexperienced or unaccomplished.

Wandrey writes, "...She just scares me with those religious beliefs, its hard for me to get past them."

That's because you are a Militant Secularist, Wandrey.  Which is the new religion of the upper middle class urbanite.  

You are just as dogmatic in your beliefs (and un-beliefs) as you accuse the "Christianists" (where did that nasty term come from?) of being.

I wear it proudly Channy - you want to turn into Iran, like every lazy government that  lets fundamentalists take over through history, be my guest.  I will proudly fight that.  

Me, I'll stick withmy radical secularist buddies that wrote the Consitution.  As a Deist - not an atheist - who beieves that a firm separation of church and state is the most patriotic stand one can take - I'm in good company with them on both counts,

Tip of the keyboard to you, Michelle. Grew up on Signal Mountain, myself.

I'll consider respecting Palin when she actually holds a press conference. Until then she's a delusional little debutante in my book.

I'm sorry, but everyone on this board knows, or ought to know, the obvious.  We would *not* be having this discussion if the Repugs had nominated Romney and the Democrats had found a lice-ridden, one toothed, "Real" American hunter from the Appalachians to run for them.

If I recall correctly, Shurb's edudcational background was not a liability but an asset back then - he was to be our first MBA President, remember?  And, of course, much like the way the other MBA drove Wall Street into the ground, Shrub has performed as expected ...

The point is, Republicans and their enablers attack and make up arguments, whatever arguments they can find, to support their positions (see Palin), whereas liberals - true to form - wring their hands and try to understand and contextualise and see the big picture and admit weaknesses and ... (see Crowley).

What a sad spectacle: the party of Teddy Roosevelt - the real one, not the one of myth, the one who instituted meritocratic public service and enforced the Sherman Act - now reduced to praising Moose hunting not as a metaphor but as an experience valid in itself to run the country.

PS The First Ammendment was designed to protect religion from government meddling every bit as much as vis versa.

Tomeg, read the brilliant review of Stuff White People Like in the October Atlantic and you'll understand exactly what it is I despise and criticize.  

It is all the smug condescension and assumptions of the coastal urbanites.

And by the way, I'm by many measures one of "the elites".  Raised in the wealthiest parts of Chicago, Los Angeles, and Manhattan.  Rub shoulders with producers, directors, and movie stars (and before that, their kids).  

Provided with a first rate education.  Enjoyed a high paying career and a home in the best part of town.  Surrounded by very well heeled Democrat friends.  And have to listen to the widespread ignorance of the privileged which is every bit as dumb as any cracker can come up with.

So, Tomeg, sorry to trespass on your smug assumptions.  But I know very well and intimately the attitudes I find so risible.

Wandrey, the people who wrote the Constitution were nothing like the extreme secularists of today.

What the Founders took pains to prevent, was the establishment of an official state religion as existed in England and throughout Europe.

They did not find religious belief to be toxic.  And any number of presidents from Washington to Lincoln and right up through FDR, Jack Kennedy and Ronald Reagan were not embarrassed to invoke God in political speeches large and small.

Read some of Roosevelt's speeches and he sounds like a pastor leading a church in prayer.

What exists today in media and academia is extreme anti-theism of a variety that just a few decades ago would be seen as utterly bizarre.

I find it truly interesting and somewhat amusing at how almost every person posting to this has felt the need to qualify their Americanness with a brief history of where/how they grew up as a preface to where they are now. I think it's a very American thing to constantly have this discussion of what part of American culture is more authentic. Would jacobt or Chan consider either Thomas Jefferson or George Washington effete cultural elites? Is Teddy Roosevelt more American than Arnold Schwarzenegger?

Long before the modern stereotype of the coastal, city-living Liberal elite, the upper classes were far more conservative Republicans whose class conscious and condescension towards "others" for not being from the proper family, having not gone to the right Episcopal HS or preparatory boarding school, being tan from working outside and not part of the leisure classes was the norm. The fact is that so many monied Republican families of the East Coast modeled themselves after English aristocracy and the accompanying manners speaks volumes to the historical precedence set by the wealthy class.

The Republican party has, since the 50s, successfully convinced average Americans from the low economic spectrum to even those of rather well-to-do means that the "Liberal Elite" is out to get them This is perhaps the greatest scam perpetrated on the American people. Even your average Liberal feels the need to qualify their back-ground because of this fallacy having become part of the modern American myth. What is the "Liberal Elite"? It's a nebulous term for "others" that subscribe to progressive American ideals about equality, egalitarianism, meritocracy, social responsibility - both collectively and individually, and America's cultural milieu.

The myth of the rugged American individual was born out of necessity. The early rejections of Europeanness was a result of geography as much as it was the day-to-day necessity to survive and flourish as individuals, families, and towns. But within that necessity to survive was the desire to start again and build something unique, something American. This birth of the new was reflected not just in the architecture but in the developing American culture - which has always been a constant mix of cultures and ethnic backgrounds that were united in making their part of "America" work. Competing cultural and religious differences had to be but aside to make things work. I'm not suggesting it was a kumbaya moment everyday. But the underlying unifier was class. Today it still is class distinctions that Conservatives would like to never highlight. Their cry of class warfare was replaced by the fake culture war. The "Liberal Elite" is the perpetrator of these crimes according to Conservatives because when Liberals highlight the inequalities - whether racial, cultural, religious or economically, it becomes a threat - existential or otherwise to the Potemkin Village of "Values" that Conservatives have been defending. Those Conservative "values" tended towards economic authoritarianism and selectivity, policies, taxes, and laws that economically favor particular individuals, businesses or sectors of economy, denial of collective bargaining, fighting the standard 8 hour work day, fighting child labor laws, McCarthyism, domestic eavesdropping, poll taxes, Jim Crow laws, religious singularity, etc., etc.

The reality is that there is no singular ideal to which an American can claim his or her Americanness is cultural superior to another based on the sideline activities one does on weekends or weeknights. How many Cub Scout meeting one's son goes to, if their daughter joined 4H or the YWCA. I'm no more or no less American than anyone else who is an American citizen. What binds us, regardless of the political, social, economic or religious differences is that we consider America "ours" and that we call ourselves American. We ascribe to the existential and concrete ideals embodied in the idea of America through thick and thin and strive to live our own individual versions of the American dream.

I don't find religious belief toxic either Channy, I have never said that - you desperately need to paint me as one of your tired 60's villians morphed into some modern version.  Please try and look past your intellectual safety zone.

Manipulation of religion in the service of political goals, or vis versa, I do find toxic as did the Founders.  The Founders, especially Jefferson, also had a much more searching, questioning, intellectually rigorous view of Christianity than the Dobsons and Falwells could ever dream of.  

But this doesn't matter: people are welcome to adhere to any orthodoxy they'd like in the privacy of their own homes, communities and churches, its certainly none of my business.  They are even wlecome to being their sense of morals into the advocacy components of political life, they are wlecome to have their relgion inform those morals.  However, they must keep their religious views out of *implemented policies* that will affect those not of their religion. This is sacred, freedom defined.  

I quote Thomas Jefferson, in a copy of a letter I keep posted near my desk.  He was responding to a letter from the Danbury  Connecticut Baptist Association (!) who had written him with fervent hopes that relgious tolerance would sweep the land and just as important, that govenrment would have no say in how they worship (Congregationlists in Connecticut - the Chistiansts of their time - were constantly after the Baptists as devils and trying to get laws passed against them, often with success).  

"Believing with you  that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and NOT OPINIONS (my caps), I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature shall 'make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.'"

It goes on, in its typically brilliant manner, stating his reverence for the separation of church and state, both to keep govenment from being contaminated with religious doctrine - bascially opinions - and vis versa.  This was after Jefferson had written the Religious Freedom Act in Virginia, which became the basis for the first ammendment.  He truly is the father of this revolutionary perspective, which has made us stronger han any nation on earth.

The Congregationalists sent out flyers constantly, proclaiming that the evil Jefferson would immediately burn all bibles upon being sworn in as President.  

That's the thanks you get for sticking up for Baptists ;)  He didn't care a whit.

(I've now spent another lunch hour on Talkback - gotta go)

Michelle  --

Stop being so defensive about other people's defensiveness and THINK. Beyond the meritocrat's "I can't be called a snob because I left those rubbishy people behind" cliches. The bias shown by too many meritocratic, as well as genuinely aristocratic, liberals (or not-so-liberal Obama supporters) in the political media is hurting their cause. Or, at least, what they claim to be their cause. It may not be "fair" but Republicans can afford to play the class and tribal warfare game because they don't, and don't actually claim to, represent America's least powerful, less affluent, least influential and less educated constituencies. Democrats, who DO claim to represent the "common" man, can't. The Republicans don't make a point of, and take delight in, elite Democratic and liberal hypocrisy about class, race and gender in order to appeal to less powerful, less affluent and less educated voters -- they do so to justify the pursuit of their own elite self-interest at the expense of the less powerful, less affluent and less educated.  

The truth is, the recent hate-Palin obsessiveness is tribal and identity politicking at its worst. Indulged in most often by people who are simply dishonest about how much their own tribal interests and values diverge from that of most other Americans.

I won't vote for McCain/Palin because I don't agree with their ideology. But the more those in the political media and the blogosphere indulge in this kind of personal over-kill, the more they appeal to me on the basis of identity rather than policy, the harder I find it to "identify" with the Democrats. I can't help but ask: Can a party supported by people with the attitudes and bias revealed during this campaign actually represent the working people it claims to represent? And, can it effectively support the policies it claims to support?

Frankly, Keith Olbermann, Sandra Bernhard, Josh Marshall, Andrew Sullivan, Arianna Huffington, Marty Peretz, Joe Klein, Frank Rich, etc., etc., etc., and their various same-thinking employees, collegues, fans and website posters, DON'T  share my economic and political interests. I am not, actually, part of their "tribe." And, increasingly, I am uncomfortable being associated with them through my politics. The more they appeal to me to hate Palin and the tribe they believe she represents, the more I doubt the party they think they are promoting could really respect and represent me.

The questions I'm asking here are ones that the Democratic party really needs to start asking itself.

This question especially; are the class attitudes revealed so sharply in this campaign the real reason for the Democrats' failure to keep their promises to the middle and working class, and in doing so failed the poor who hope to move into the working and middle class, over the last 30 plus years? And, isn't it that failure, more than anything else, that accounts for their electoral weakness? Furthermore, when influential, elite (and those amibitious to join the elite)  commentators invite some Americans to disdain other Americans, aren't they ALL, whether liberal, neo-liberal, conservative, moderate or libertarian, just playing the same culture war game, for the same reason -- as a cover for and distraction from a long-standing failure to address, serve, and, most important, honestly report on the real economic interests of  America's middle class, working class and poor?

singlespeed, every nation has and always will have, an "elite".  

Certain people are and always will be smarter, richer, more privileged, and more likely to be in a position to wield power than the vast majority ever will be.

There is a Bell Curve of talent, productivity and intelligence.  And there is also a Bell Curve of luck and privilege.  They don't perfectly intersect.

I know dumb people with a lot of money and smart people with very little.  Sometimes being dull is an advantage in accumulating great wealth, because there are some very dull occupations that if someone has the temperament to pursue same, will yield a lot of money.

As much as America is more of a meritocracy than any other large nation, there are plenty of people of middling to small merit who enjoy disproportionate influence in our country.  That includes many in the news media and entertainment.  As well as in law and finance.

When such inequities are recognized, there will be pushback.  Which is why we now see widespread resentment against many who hold some sort of power over us.

As far as your reference to the old WASP elite, sure there was one.  The English were here first in the largest numbers, after all.  They earned their outsized influence by taking risks on an empty and dangerous continent.  And by winning wars against the French and the Spanish.  

But the WASP ascendancy was overtaken about two generations ago,.  There are still significant remnants of it.  And, not all to the bad.  

I would submit to you that WASPS did a damn good job with the nation for close to 200 years.  Though it's been a long time since they held a total monopoly.  The WASP elite was criticized in its day.  It was essentially overthrown.

The Coastal Urban elite enjoys outsized influence today, and it is being criticized for it.  It, too, I suspect, will be subsumed.  Especially as media becomes much more dispersed through new technology.

I don't bemoan the struggle.  Why do you?

Chan retorts:

"And by the way, I'm by many measures one of "the elites".  Raised in the wealthiest parts of Chicago, Los Angeles, and Manhattan.  Rub shoulders with producers, directors, and movie stars (and before that, their kids).  

Provided with a first rate education.  Enjoyed a high paying career and a home in the best part of town.  Surrounded by very well heeled Democrat friends.  And have to listen to the widespread ignorance of the privileged which is every bit as dumb as any cracker can come up with.

So, Tomeg, sorry to trespass on your smug assumptions.  But I know very well and intimately the attitudes I find so risible."

I see what I wrote about you was unclear, Chan, and apologize for any misunderstanding. The point I intended to make was while I do believe without doubt that *you are among the elite* exactly as you say and your history shows (no surprise to me), what I don't buy is that you are therefore also qualified to speak with authority on behalf of those who are not elite, about their livelihoods and experience of people like yourself - ourselves here at TNR.

No smugness, just a tiny stretch of imagination that your life experience doesn't qualify you for special awareness, understanding, empathy, and *certainly not identification* of and with the lives and perceptions of small town and rural people. It is patronizing - transparent, not credible, in a way insulting to our (your) intelligence and, if you will, taste.

Sorry, I probably haven't said it much better than the first time, perhaps though you get my point.

Wandrey, it is one thing to seek to outlaw another religion.  It is an entirely other thing to seek to outlaw practices, like unfettered abortion, which some religions abhor.  But which other people abhor strictly on ethical grounds.

We have untold numbers of laws that echo religious beliefs for the simple reason that many religious beliefs are also ethical beliefs.  Most of the Ten Commandments are echoed in American laws.  Even in Soviet and Communist Chinese laws.

What we are seeing now is widespread radical secularist intolerance for any religious belief if ever it is spoken in the public square, even in a public interest context.

The radical secularists would like to see religion entirely quarantined in churches and Sunday suppers.  

You need only look at a coin in your pocket to see that religious belief, broadly defined as belief in God, has long been woven into the national fabric.

Radical secularist would remove every last thread.  They may succeed.  

It's not so much her religious beliefs as the fact that she wants to impose them on the population - like her attempt at censorship and her anti-choice stance. I have no desire to live in a theocracy where religious law is the law of the land. Palin scares me because she is the "Christian" equivalent of the Taliban.  I use inverted commas because people who believe more in the dogma of Christianity than the example of the person they purport to worship, tend to be the only ones claiming the label nowadays.

Most Christians I know want to be able to practice their religion freely and want to live in a country that espouses the example of their religion - care for the most vulnerable, understanding of those who the dogma-experts deride and love. Those principles are progressive and tolerant. The intolerance personified by Palin, if allowed access to the highest office in the land, could take the US one step down from the banana republic the Bush administration tried to create, to a western version of the Taliban. I find that alarming and I wish more Christians would speak out against this travesty in the same way they expect rational Muslims to speak out against al Qaeda and other perversions of their religion.

"Jesus was a community organizer, Pontius Pilate was a governor."

And to the poster who said McCain beats Obama on experience and knowledge, I agree on experience, but knowledge? The man demonstrably didn't know a Shiite from a Sunni after all that experience and he thinks Iraq and Afghanistan share a border! Moreover, in a recent interview, he appeared to confuse Spain and Mexico. How much more experience will it take to get him past the fundamentals of foreign policy?  And can he get it by January?

I would also remind you, Wandrey, that your despised "Christianists" included:

The white churches of New England which drove the Abolitionist Movement;

the black churches of the South and elsewhere, which drove the Civil Rights Movement.  

The white churches of the North and some in the South which joined in the drive for Civil Rights.

And the Trinity United Church of Chicago which helped significantly to propel your own Senator Obama's career.

Your double-standard about when Christianity is acceptable and when it is not is breathtaking.

Jesus esmense, who needs to "think" - you said absolutely nothing of substance, just a bunch of ranting resentment of the media who didn't support Hillary.  

"Hate-Palin" means nothing either - there are plenty of legitimate reasons to question her qualifications and her stated beliefs are outside the majority of Americans.  

What, she has a right to waltz through the shitstorm every other candidate goes through because she's from a small town and is poorly eduated?  How patronizing towards people from a small town is that?  This country is a mertiocracy, either you can hack it for what you're running for or not.  She gets no free pass for any reason.

I find the priorities of the class resentment as poltical position beyind selfish. Either we're going to tackle the disintegrating economy, global warming, the destruction of the middle class, the destruction of our prestige in the world, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan with a clear head or we're going to sit around and be personally bitter than other people have more power than us and say mean things.  well boo frigging hoo.

tomeg writes, "...what I don't buy is that you are therefore also qualified to speak with authority on behalf of those who are not elite,"

I'm perfectly qualified so to speak because I've also spent good portions of my life outside the precincts I describe, and far away from the privileged people I described.

I have walked at different times in contrasting worlds.  And feel plenty well qualified to comment by way of comparative anthropology.

tomeg writes, "...what I don't buy is that you are therefore also qualified to speak with authority on behalf of those who are not elite,"

I'm perfectly qualified so to speak because I've also spent good portions of my life outside the precincts I describe, and far away from the privileged people I described.

I have walked at different times in contrasting worlds.  And feel plenty well qualified to comment by way of comparative anthropology.

There is so much hysteria here and abroad amongst Democrats.

Sarah Palin can belief in the sanctity of life without being the moral equivalent of the Taliban.

Meanwhile, the stories of her book banning and the rest turned out not to be based in fact.

the problem that Sarah Palin poses for the Left is that her very existence stands as a rebuke to Leftists.  

Most especially, the fact that Mrs. Palin lived by her beliefs and did not abort the child she knew had Downs Syndrome, evokes guilt in many women who had abortions solely for their own comfort and convenience.  She touches some deep nerve amongst many on the Left.  There's no other explanation for the hysterical reaction to her.

Chan, if you think that its religious people who are stigmatized, then try being an atheist in modern America.  Talk about lepers.  They have no access to poltical power at all.

This stance that the radical secularistrs (a hilarious notion) are somehow in any sort pf power position is positively delusional, right wing vicitimology gone mad.  

For all intents and purposes, we now have a rigid religious litmus test for the Presidency!  The people in power are clearly the religionists, who, as Christopher Hitchens so brilliant wrote, demonstrably ruin everything.

I'd like to stop that most predictable of outcomes, especially since my Constitution demands it.

Snobbery ... reverse snobbery ... what a pointless debate.  The reaction to Sarah Palin has nothing to do with her cultural origins or educational attainment and everything to do with her political orientation and her positions on a few hot-button issues.

Does anyone believe ... even for an instant ... that The New Republic and other elite-media outlets would be offering commentary on Palin's education, experience, and readiness for national office if her bio was as follows:

Small-town woman put herself through community college ... went to work as a social worker in law-income neighborhoods ... so moved by what needed to be done that she ran for mayor as a Democrat ... out-hustled her opponents and connected with the people she aimed to serve ... elected to multiple terms with a record of bringing social services to hard-hit communities ... saw corruption in state government and undertook a longshot campaign for governor ... won the race despite the efforts of Christian conservatives to shut down her social agenda, worked hard to clean up the ethical swamp and promptly set her sights on Republican fat cats with ties to Big Oil (that part of the bio we don't even need to change!) ... did all of this while raising a family and proving that women can have it all ... husband is content with staying in the background and helping with the kids ... and by the way she stood by her oldest daughter like a rock when she became pregnant out of wedlock, helping the child through the abortion and being open about the entire experience so that others could take comfort and guidance from the family's behavior under difficult circumstances.  

And then this woman is selected by a Democratic presidential candidate to be his running mate and to bring her values and steely-eyed determination to Washington.

Oh my.  We'd be in a frenzy of adoration.  In the eyes of our nation's elite, life itself would depend on the election of this ticket ... the most wonderful and improbable political development since Lincoln freed the slaves.  Scripts would be written and we'd be in pre-production on the made-for-TV movies.  The New York Times would be driving the last nails into the arguments of sputtering old Republican geezers -- the Grey Lady's editorialists scoffing at anyone who dared question the readiness of this lady to be vice president ... and pulling out historical precedents from Truman to Carter to demonstrate the irrelevance of foreign experience to foreign-policy greatness.

The woman in this alternative history would be the intellectual and media elite's most exquisite dream.  The woman Sarah Palin is their worst nightmare.  And the difference has nothing to do with the source of Gov. Palin's diploma, the cut of her hair, or the number of stamps in her passport.

esmense -- "Furthermore, when influential, elite (and those amibitious to join the elite)  commentators invite some Americans to disdain other Americans, aren't they ALL...just playing the same culture war game, for the same reason -- as a cover for and distraction from a long-standing failure to address, serve, and, most important, honestly report on the real economic interests of  America's middle class, working class and poor?"

I mostly agree, but with a couple of caveats.  First, these social wedge issues are real.  This diverse country has a lot of diverse ideas about right and wrong.  Sure, born-again Christian families deal with knocked up daughters and gay cousins just like secular America does, but they don't, for the most part, raise children who have abortions.  Also, Americans with conservative values have little or no control over a mass culture that is deeply hostile to their values, and they're more pissed about this than about the economic situation in their areas.    

Second, aside from the no-brainer of instituting universal health insurance, we really don't know what we should do to serve the working class' "real economic interests."  I, personally, tilt toward protectionsim and immigration restrictions.  But it gives me pause that at least 90% of economists, both conservative and liberal, insist these are really stupid ideas.  

OK ggeipel - I'll bite.  But I doubt any Democrat could dream of getting away with foisting her off on the public two months before election day and demanding that the press go away.  Let's be fair about all of the double standards in play here.

Wow, Wandreycer1

That post had absolutely nothing to do with Hillary.

The simple fact is, you can't have a "war" in which only one side indulges. The "culture war" is not solely a Republican invention. It is an indulgence of economic and meritocratic elites on both sides of the ideological divide. An indulgence that works against the best interest of the majority of Americans. Too much criticism of Palin is liberal culture war insult rather than legitimate policy and performance criticism. You can criticize political opponents without dismissively bringing their class (or religion, or gender, or region) into the discussion -- in fact, you can criticize them best when you don't.

The Dems, and those on the left in general, because of their claims to inclusiveness and representation of  the best economic interests of the middle class, working class and poor, should be, and are, held especially accountable when they indulge in class and culture war attacks.  

You can't disdain "ordinary" Americans in one breath and then claim to represent them in the next. Or, at least, you can't do so and still expect to enjoy wide popular support.

singlespped, I don't think any of us are trying to qualify our "Americanness".  We are simply giving some background on ourselves to provide some context on how and where our particular attitudes may have evolved.

Wandrey writes, "...Chan, if you think that its religious people who are stigmatized, then try being an atheist in modern America."

Oh, come on, Wandrey.  The dominant belief system in the media, entertainment, academia, all the influential classes that control most information-- their dominant belief is if not Hitchens style hostility to religion is at best bemused and condescending.  And most usually, very off-put by any notion of religion.

It used to be under the surface, but the attitude is very open now.  You see it most blatantly every Christmas.  Oh, I'm sorry, every Winter Break.

I find press bashing lazy - and I do indulge in it too - and the whole notion of "ordinary Americans" to be a phony construct created by people who need enemies to blame their problems on.  It has no objective meaning.

As far as criticism of Palin, almost all of it has been for her precord,  her dishonesty about it, her lack of applicable experience and her far right social views, which SHE makes front and center.  Do you really think she tried to ban books without knowing how far that would take her in Republican power politics? Please.

I have never read or heard any other type of criticism. This is all fair game.  But there's frankly not much else there - she was a mayor of a small town who had an administrator do all of the managerial and financial work which left her plenty of time for backbiting and gossip.  Almost every claim she's made about her record has been an easily disproved lie.  I have every right to know that. You know what's sexist?  NOT judging her for those things.

As far as regionalism, my mother is in Alaska right now. She goes every year.  She does not shoot wolves from helicopters.

As far as the culture war part of Palin - this was her main qualification for the VP slot. So fine, we have every right to know about this and make our own judgements on it.  She could be President so too bad if she doesn't like it.

SHE'S the one who parades her disabled newborn around like a Academy Award and forces her pregnant 17 year old into the spotlight, I'm not a liberal snob for finding that creepy. This one goes across cultures - either you're a mother who finds that sickening (there are lots of liberals, conservatives alike feel that way) or you are a mother who finds it adorable (ditto).   Is it fair?  Probably at some level no, its sexist  I've owned that. It is sexist.  It still grosses me out as a mother to no end.  To me, its sociopathic.

Either way, she makes her family and her views her whole shtick.  SHE does this, it is not done TO her.  She has used her far right positions to gain exposure - she is clever enough to know would get her very far.  

Which she's entitled to do, God bless America.  What she's not entitled to do is demand that she be judged by different standards than any other candidate when she herself has made her family and far right views her main marketing tools.  

Judging from the polls, I'm not alone.  "Ordinary Americans" know a line of bull when they see it.

I will try perhaps to offer a further thought or two anon, but I gotta' ask: where do all you prolific and wise dudes and dudesses get the time during the day for all this posting?

Chan - since when do Hollywood and academia represent political power?  Besides, your stereotypes are so tired. I work in academia and 90% of my co-workers are very religious.  I get many days off in the next couple of weeks thanks to them.  

My mother is a progressive evangelical Christian.  Very liberal, very religious - she is just as invested in the separation as I am.  

Your dichotomies just don't hold up or they don't matter.  There is a litmus test for poltical power in this country and it is here to stay.  Atheists are stigmitized are totally shut out of any political power.  End of story.

Chan...

I don't bemoan the populist struggle and intemperance for the shenanigans that the GOP has wrought economically upon the average American over the last 30 years. It's the falsity of their use of the phrase "Liberal Elite" I find dishonest. But you seem to imply that there's another struggle going on now. Between whom? "Liberal Elites" and the Common Man? Or is it really coastal Conservative elites versus coastal Liberal elites?

I don't care...really what one's "makeup" is whether one is WASP or any other acronym. My point was that the label "Liberal Elite" is a contemporary foil of the GOP elite to distract from the realities of what faces most Americans today. Again, the GOP of the last 30 years has done an excellent job of painting all Liberals as elites, while claiming the mantle as champions of the common man. For which the economic policies of the last 30 years have not been good to the average American.

Cultural conservatives, regardless of their political stripes of yore, had always bemoaned the "fall of America" because of flappers, bicycles, movies, jazz, rock and roll, consumerism, etc. etc. Whereas Conservatives with a capital C tend to bemoan a false loss of political, economic power to their enclave (despite having had near full reign for 30 some years).

I'm a firm believer in the meritocracy and the idea that anyone can achieve just about anything they set their mind to and that the meritocratic ideal still exists in America but I also know that the playing field of "fair play" only extends so far for many people. With money comes power and abuse of that power but with power also comes responsibility. I'm a firm believer that those who have earned (not inherited, but earned) their fortunes have a greater responsibility to America in that they, despite their protestations otherwise, should pay a proportionate tax burden. The idea that they're a tax-free fiefdom without social responsibilities to the society by which they profit from is a bit off-putting. I also think that inheritance taxes should be reasonable and fair but not so overtly favorable to the very wealthy but not penalizing to the middle class couples who leave a small estate or trust to their children.

I'm a left-leaning centrist with libertarian strains and what I have I have earned through hard work and suffered set-backs along the way. I make enough to do what I like but not enough that I'm jetting off on exotic beach vacations or hunting lodges. I'm a product of the working middle class. But I'm not religious, I fish and sometimes hunt, I don't like NASCAR, I love Monty Python and good books.

I'm not fretting about the comeuppance that the GOP should rightly receive this election. Not because of the supposed "culture" war but because of the economic policies, foreign blundering and social policies that drain much from our country's greatness.

"You can't disdain "ordinary" Americans in one breath and then claim to represent them in the next. Or, at least, you can't do so and still expect to enjoy wide popular support."

The only person to immediately and without reservation defend Sarah Palin was the Democratic nominee for President.  He did so with passion, personal investment and class.

He was crapped all over by the supposedly morally superior small town girl for doing so.  This was her introduction to the American public and it was vulgar.  She could have thanked him and *then* layed into him,  this is a Presidengtial campaign after all, but she did not.  She would have made alot more points with people besides the partisan howlers had she done so.  

This choice of hers had nothing to do with small or big town values, she's just like Guiliani in this way -  mean spirited, people like he two of them come from all backgrounds.  This choice represented her *personal values*, not her culture's, not her small town background, hers alone.  Even in my crappy broken down town I grew up in, we learned our manners.  

Barack Obama is not disdaining ANY Americans but McCain and his crew of Rove's ghouls.  Sarah Palin is not Everywoman.  

This is more nonsense from people with nothing else to say because the real issues are too hard to deal with.  I'm not afraid of saying that.  Because I want our nation to be accountable to its highest ideals and I'm not buying the manipulative dodges of culture wars and resentment - I am now a snob - so fricking be it.  

Hmm... Wandreycerl

Hate Palin all you want. This country has much bigger problems than what kind of mother she might be or what religious views she might hold. No one is going to win my vote by such appeals.

Here's the deal: Over the last 30 plus years, as a result of automation, globalization, union suppression and political preference for the interests of the financial sector over that of manufacturing and Main Street, and the elevation of the consumer interests of the meritocratic class over even the most basic survival interests of everyone else, we have transitioned from a consumer economy supported by solid job growth and rising wages (based in productivity gains) to a consumer economy supported by easier and easier credit and more and more unsustainable levels of personal debt. An economy in which productivity growth no longer leads to rising wages, income disparity is at record levels, and the average per capita wage, and, increasingly, even the average “household income,” no longer, without huge amounts of debt and reliance on ever more questionable credit instruments and practices, even begins to support middle class expectations of homeownership, affordable access to healthcare and education, and secure retirement. It is an economy in which the middle class is dwindling, working class wages have been declining for decades, and even the average wages of the educated middle class have stagnated (and, most recently, started to decline). And, of course, as such, an economy in which the poor find entry into the working and middle class increasingly impossible.

A consumer economy, in other words, that no longer supports mass consumption. A consumer economy that has been relentlessly working for its own demise.

Would we have reached this state of affairs if even ONE party had been consistently and strongly supporting the best interests of the broadest number of Americans, the middle and working class, over the last 4 decades? I don’t think so.

Would we have reached this state of affairs if the meritocratic elite, including those with influential voices in the media, had felt their OWN INTERESTS threatened by an economy that was working against the economic interests of the vast majority of "ordinary" Americans (by that I mean, people who, whatever their party or ideology, have no power to influence political events beyond their individual vote?) I don't think so.

"The media," in all its many elite and corporate aspects, wields huge influence and both political and economic power. It is absurd for any American to say it should not be held accountable for how that power and influence is used.

Wow, what singlespeed said much better than I ever say anything.

wandrey writes, "...SHE'S the one who parades her disabled newborn around like a Academy Award and forces her pregnant 17 year old into the spotlight, I'm not a liberal snob for finding that creepy. "

Yes you are.  Every politician trots out their families.  That's been an American campaign tradition at least since the television age.  

Is she supposed to have stashed her 17 year old daughter in the closet and the baby, too?  Where's all that Liberal inclusiveness?

cbgislington quotes, "Jesus was a community organizer, Pontius Pilate was a governor."

This is typical of the dumbass aphorisms of which the Left and soft headed Liberals are so fond.

Jesus was a charismatic religious proselytizer and prophet.  As he went out of his way to say, his purposes were not political.  Nor, were his purposes the material well-being of his followers, but the spiritual.  Jesus was a far-cry from the modern meaning of "community organizer".

Yes, Pontius Pilate was a governor.  And he found the local, parochial affairs of the Jews quite fatiguing.  

So, is ever governor since-- Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Reagan, and thousands more-- a Pontius Pilate?

Oh, by the way, today is the first day of the rest of your life.  You are who you're looking for.  And, hang in there, kitty.  

What passes for profound on the Left is monumentally hilarious.

No Chan, this is not political.  

It is sexist of me, I admit that - but I assure you its not political.  I have spoken to several women in my volunteer work for Obama with every intention of voting for McCain who found that stuff really creepy too (which suprised me).  

Yes, the baby should not have been on that stage at all and if Jesus Christ himseff offered me a golden seat on a  chariot straight to heaven, I would still never take a job that would put my pregnant 17 year old in that position. Never.

I work with a group of African American mothers and their children in my work as a social worker (a more anti-abortion group does not exist)  and I heard from a few of them on this as well.  And they aren't political in the least.  I've had to harrang them to even register to vote for Obama.

Anyway, esmense is right - this doesn't matter, its distraction, which is why they picked her.

I thought your last post was excellent esmense.  But I do not think that the media is as powerful in that way as it used to be.  

I must go to work.  Again, I liked your last post a great deal esmense.

PS Chan, in this way I am a musty conservative in case you have't noticed, not a snobby liberal.  Liberal inclusiveness my ass.  This is gross, unmotherly behavior in the extreme.

ggeipel,

Firstly, the so-called "media elites" *did not* tout ensemble categorically dismiss Palin (though most were taken off-guard by McCain's decision mainly because the smart money was on Lieberman or possibly Pawlenty, and most were not tuned in to the strong social conservative push for her - it was a surprise and a shock to the MEs [Media Elites] and a good many in the Republican Party, who after all were being asked to ratify McCain's choice). Cable liberal reporters and pundits, not to mention the left hemi- blogosphere did react inappropriately in many cases, but I don't think many people take these news/entertainment organizations and individuals very seriously. A lot of liberals, myself among them, were embarrassed and turned off by the overreaction and ridicule. But, I hardly take these folks as representative of (again so-called) left elites, though your opinion may differ strongly. The fact remains, though, that the best journalist writers, after recovering from initial surprise, took a wait and see approach and started digging.

As to Palin's qualifications and record, a resume is a resume, some are more credible, some less so. I think it was entirely fair to ask questions and be skeptical. Alaska is undoubtedly one of the least well known states, and its politics have with some reason been regarded as ingrown and corrupt. I still haven't heard from very many sources other than those Alaskan, what lies behind the stated record. I just took her qualifications for office as at least adequate, pending confirmation from a wide diverse (yes, the D-word) number of sources.

What I've heard to date, (again mostly from other Alaskans)  re: data and info other than what's on Palin's paper resume has raised at least as many questions as answers.

If a Democratic Presidential candidate picked somebody for VP who few people had ever heard of other than h(is)er supporters and detractors, I don't think the party as a whole would jump for joy as the Republicans did for Palin. We'd be asking lots of questions ourselves, despite the impressive printed resume.

The McCain campaign has worked hard to block any further inquiry into Palin's life, saying it's disrespectful and intrusive. Sorry, that doesn't pass anybody's smell test for a candidate for Vice President of the United States.

Wandrey writes, "Chan - since when do Hollywood and academia represent political power?"

From the time Clark Gable took off his shirt and revealed no underwear to the time Murphy Brown had a baby and revealed no husband, the influence of Hollywood on popular attitudes has been clear.  Let's just say, at the very least, it's soft power.

Meanwhile since academia, which is overwhelmingly Left, has a lot to say about what our children are taught from K through grad school, it is disingenuous to say academics have no power.  And, they frequently move back and forth between the academy and government.

wandrey writes, "Besides, your stereotypes are so tired. I work in academia and 90% of my co-workers are very religious."

I'll accept you anectdotal evidence, wandrey.  But those religious colleagues of yours are not the ones most often quoted, published, or who appear as talking heads.

G66 says:  "Also, Americans with conservative values have little or no control over a mass culture that is deeply hostile to their values, and they're more pissed about this than about the economic situation in their areas."

Well, I'm sorry about that, but I have some values too -- for example, about wealth distribution, public services, foreign policy, the environment, and the glorification of stupidity in American life -- and I find mass culture in this country deeply hostile to them.  But I don't find myself so pissed about them that I subordinate every other aspect of politics to that subjective resentment.  Living in a large and diverse and democractic society means that your values won't always jive with the currently fashionable ones, but you live with that because there are other advantages to our system and other qualities in our national life that make it worthwhile being here.

The idea that the pissedness of conservative Americans amounts to some kind of privileged sensibility that needs to be continually comforted and assuaged, if not indeed deferred to (curious how "deference" was demanded for Palin, wasn't it?), is itself enough to make a normal person pissed.

Ok, I'm a woman, and I MARRIED a blue-collar Alaskan, if it's credentials you want. I hate Sarah Palin, he hates Sarah Palin, my polar-bear loving stepdaughter hates Sarah Palin. And: reverse-snobberry is really really really embarassingly patronizing and fetishy.

"From the time Clark Gable took off his shirt and revealed no underwear to the time Murphy Brown had a baby and revealed no husband, the influence of Hollywood on popular attitudes has been clear."

Ah, but Channy, I'd always thought the key momemt was the fetching Maureen O'Hara with no underwear in that Tarzan movie -- but clearly there's no accounting for taste.

However, I'd note that from the time John Wayne made Jack Palance pick up the plate and the food in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence" to the time Tom Hanks revealed he was an English Lit professor to dampen down a potential mutiny in his unit in "Saving Private Ryan," the influence of Hollywood has been remarkably in tune with a range of popular attitudes, but has tweaked them slightly too.

Wandrey, while I typically enjoy and agree with your posts, and typically don't agree with Chan, I have to second his objection to your comment that Governor Palin is parading her Down's syndrome child and pregnant teenager.  When my mom was in college in the '50s, there were a couple of co-eds she didn't see return her sophomore year.  When she asked where those girls were, she understsood by the snickers exactly what had happened to them.  Do we want to go back there? Should Bristol have been sent up the river to an understanding aunt? Should the governor feel so ashamed of her retarded baby that she stashes him away in an institution?

Basman, LOL. I have a job I hate that happens not to be keeping me too busy lately. Hopefully they're not recording my key strokes.

irony, in the original Hollywood days when the immigrant Moguls were keen to establish their "Americanness" as well as put out a commercial product, they strove to reflect American values as they interpreted them.

Since the mid-60s, Hollywood has been much more interested in influencing and affecting American politics, attitudes, and values.  Obviously, they remain plenty interested in making money, too.

But, anybody who doesn't think Hollywood doesn't have a far Left axe to grind, doesn't watch the Oscars.

irony, I don't know if you got my reference, but when Clark Galbe took off his shirt in "It Happened One Night" made in the early 30s, revealing he didn't wear an undershirt, sales of undershirts tanked.

It was something of an epiphany for Hollywood and its observers.

ChanRobt,

You remind me a little of those folks, back in the raging p.c. identity wars, who would testify to having black friends, or gay friends, or whatever, as a means of proving their own authority.

This is silliness. Get out into America. Spend time in a small town. And you will find there as much of a pageantry of humanity as you find on a single Manhattan block.

Yes, some on the left foolishly indulge in self-serving stereotyping about moose-hunting (though no self-respecting moose-hunter would sympathize with Palin's blitzkrieg on Alaskan wolves), turning their opponents into strawmen and straw-women. But the GOP made such cultural stereotyping a centerpiece of its debate, producing such absurdities as Rudy Giuliani sneering at Barack Obama's cosmopolitanism.

basman, itzik, old pal,

Of course the roots of wisdom do not thrive in books alone. Any student of American literature knows that our wisest writers, and many if not all of our wisest politicians, were well-acquainted with saltwater and dust as well as with Shakespeare's folios. The dichotomy, however, is a false one. And I find your arguments articulate, yes, but also full of contradiction.

Is the governor of Montana not better acquainted with the practical world than Palin? Is his preference for Obama therefore more or less wise? Similarly, you compare Obama to Dukakis at the same time that you point to Palin's gubernatorial experience as her primary qualification.

If you have not, and I'm guessing that you haven't, please at least read Obama's first book before passing judgment so quickly upon him.

Lastly, if you read in more detail about Palin's assault on the Alaskan old boys, I think you will find that it is less heroic than it might first appear--fueled as much by personal vendetta as by principle, compromised by her expediency and accommodation, and executed in the context of a petro-kleptocracy. She had much to gain, little to lose, and having won office has purchased her popularity with oil profits even while taking more Federal money per capita than other states.

Note: Alaskans during the Palin administration received a $1200 bonus in oil money *on top* of the "permanent fund" goodies they already receive, without paying state sales tax or state income tax; meanwhile, under Palin's watch, Alaska still receives more federal handouts per capita than any other state. And now, today, we learn that Americans will be paying $2300 per taxpayer to bail out Wall Street. Yes, Palin has acted executively, but has she acted wisely? Prove it.

Chanbot: "Meanwhile, the stories of her book banning and the rest turned out not to be based in fact."

Nonsense. Let's look at "the rest", shall we? She initially supported the bridge to nowhere and never said "no thanks" to the funding for it.  Fact. But on the campaign trail she lies. She is being investigated for using her position to be vindictive when state employees didn't get involved in her family drama. Fact. (McCain has now flown in Washington lawyers to deal with that and she's avoiding going back to face the inquiry.)   She used lobbyists to get more pork per capita than any other governer in the nation. Fact. She is an expert on liberating our federal tax dollars, sometimes for useless projects (see: dairy farms that benefit friends and redundant call centers). Fact. On the campaign trail she lies and says she's against earmarks. She tried to make rape victims pay for their own rape kits and believes they should be forced to give birth their rapists children. Fact. And that's just the stuff I remember! What's not based in fact?

Oh yes, and she asked about getting books banned and about organizing protests to effect that. Fact. Are her supporters really so gullible that they believe it's a rhetorical question asked by all new governors?

Accusing people of hysteria because they think she would support a Christian theocracy is easier, I suppose, than explaining what she's said so far to support the separation of church and state. My opinion is supported by her public statements, which I'm sure you're familiar with - but I can post links.  What's your accusation of hysteria based on?

Many people "live their principles" but that does not qualify them to be President of the United States.  McCain has chosen a running mate with no interest (until now), education or experience in national or international affairs, and who has acted in ways (pork, government waste, agent of intolerance, tax-and-spend as entitlements) that are the antithesis to what he used to stand for. Sorry, I don't believe the minor in political science counts for very much given the magnitude of the job she's applying for.

I notice you haven't commented on my challenge to McCain's "wisdom and knowledge".

Good on you, Ms. Cottle.  I live in New York but was raised in a small town in northern Illinois.  There's a lot that I still respect about small town America, e.g., sense of community, determination, kindness, independence and personal values.  When I return to northern Illinois, I'm always struck by how similar Americans really are in their concerns for their families and their hopes for the future.  Shortly after having escaped the WTC on 9/11, I drove through Illinois farmland and was moved that each and every rural mail box had an American flag.  We were one country...I thought that it would last for more than the few moments that it did.

I am sick to death of the divisiveness that the Rethuglicans use every two and four years to drive wedges between people who have more things in common than things that keep them apart.  We need someone who will start playing the "better angels" of all of our natures and knock off this self-serving divisiveness.   Look where it's gotten us.

"Since the mid-60s, Hollywood has been much more interested in influencing and affecting American politics, attitudes, and values."

Channy -- "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence" was 1962 and "Saving Private Ryan" was 1998.  "In the Heat of the Night" was 1966 and "Dirty Harry" was 1970.  "Ice Station Zebra" was 1969 and "Walk the Line" was 2006.

What politics, attitudes, and values were the subject of attempts at influence in those movies, do you think?

cbgislington writes, "...Many people "live their principles" but that does not qualify them to be President of the United States."

No disagreement there, cb.  I think there are plenty of legitimate issues that opponents of the GOP, of McCain Palin and of Palin herself can raise to back up that opposition.

My characterizing many of her opponents as being hysterical is the incredible over-the-top shrillness of the opposition.  Calling her a "prostitute," and "not really a woman" and "redneck" and "white trash".  

Plus the infamous "her only qualification is she didn't have an abortion".  This not from Koz bloggers but from supposedly legit pundits and politicians.

It would have been more than sufficient to say that she's not qualified for the job based on her experience to date.

Imagine the uproar if some pundit had called Obama the black equivalent of a redneck or white track.  Or condemned the Obama's from bringing their beautiful children on stage at the convention.  (See wandrey.)  Or raised all the scarlet letter kind of stuff brought up over the pregnant daughter.

Or, as SNL did the other night, raised the satiric possibility that Obama was indulging in incest.  I realize that skit was actually lampooning the NYT reporters.  But they wouldn't have gone near that joke if it were Obama.

You can make plenty of reasonable criticisms of Palin.  The nature of the attacks on her, went way beyond the pale.  They were hysterical.

cbgislington writes, "...I notice you haven't commented on my challenge to McCain's "wisdom and knowledge".

gis, you cited two gaffes he made.  Our campaigns last two years or more nowadays.  Few candidates go that long without making a factual gaffe.

Wisdom isn't about a given fact.  It's about having the right instincts and the right judgement.  On major issues of life and death, and the security of the nation, Obama's gaffes have gone far deeper and raised questions about his judgement.

ironyroad, it is the cultural assumptions and political written in and between the lines of dialog, the choices of bad guys and idiots, and into the plots of tv shows and movies that are permeated with agenda.

For starters, there have been at least half a dozen Iraq movies released in the last several years, all of which branded America to one degree or another as the general equivalent of nazi hordes.

The polemics in those cases were so thick and unsubtle, that nobody went.

satyendra - you have a point of course and I'm not advocating for my position, I'm chagrined by my feelings about this.  I'm a failure as a feminist. I'm a musty conservative when it comes to motherhood.

I don't think this alone has much to do with Sarah Palin's qualifications, such as they are, for the VP slot.  But this stuff, in addition to the amazing amount of lies she told and her vulgar attacks on Obama after he gallantly defended her, all added up to my simply distrusting her. It was a gestalt.

I want to be clear that there is no shame at all in being the mother of a disabled newborn or a pregnant teenager. None.  I have worked on public heath issues with young people for many years.  I am utterly without judgement and only want the best for all involved.

But my inclination is towards total privacy and dignity for children, who have no say in where they will be taken and in Bristol's case, how their most private personal information will be used.  My position is one of a Mama Bear entirely.  Let's just say that Sarah Palin and I have very different takes on what Mama Bear means, that's all.  

I am not saying my position is right, only that it was visceral and that I am not alone. Lots of mothers felt the same way, with  the same unease at our own feelings I might add.  Like I said, I spoke with a few Republican women who expressed deep unease with Sarah Palin's use of her kids as props - women who will gladly vote for her.  I also spoke with Democratic Moms who saw no problem, so its NOT political.  

She brings her motherhood to the table as a main qualification so as a mother, I'll go ahead and say my piece on it.  i wish her children all the best and Sarah Palin as a mother as well.  We all have to do this our own way. The sexism that informs my views is unfortunate and real.  It's been a humbling experience going through these judgmental feelings. But not for the pregnancies or any component of them, only for what I perceive to be a reckless indifference to the children's right to privacy, autonomy and dignity.

ChanRobt:

"This is silliness. Get out into America. Spend time in a small town. And you will find there as much of a pageantry of humanity as you find on a single Manhattan block.

Yes, some on the left foolishly indulge in self-serving stereotyping about moose-hunting (though no self-respecting moose-hunter would sympathize with Palin's blitzkrieg on Alaskan wolves), turning their opponents into strawmen and straw-women. But the GOP made such cultural stereotyping a centerpiece of its debate, producing such absurdities as Rudy Giuliani sneering at Barack Obama's cosmopolitanism."

unh-huh.

CORRECTO

...Imagine the uproar if some pundit had called Obama the black equivalent of a redneck or white trash.  Or condemned the Obama's for bringing their beautiful children on stage at the convention

CORRECTO

...Or, as SNL did the other night with Palin's husband, Todd, raised the satiric possibility that Obama was indulging in incest.  I realize that skit was actually lampooning the NYT reporters.  But they wouldn't have gone near that joke if it were Obama...

Turning in a more positive direction, as I watched NBC Nightly News this evening and listened to Main Street's reaction to the Wall Street bailout, a delicious thought came to me: We might soon witness the renaissance of the social welfare state. Who woulda thought?  Hee-hee....

Hee-hee  P;

Correction:

Hee-hee  ;P

"The dominant belief system in the media, entertainment, academia, all the influential classes that control most information-- their dominant belief is if not Hitchens style hostility to religion is at best bemused and condescending.  And most usually, very off-put by any notion of religion."

"It used to be under the surface, but the attitude is very open now.  You see it most blatantly every Christmas.  Oh, I'm sorry, every Winter Break."

The person who would say such a thing is simply not to be taken seriously.

A simple test: Is it conceivable that an open atheist could be elected president today? Absolutely not.

Our popular culture may be irreligious, to the point of bothering any number of religious believers, a few of whom actually have more in common with Christ's disciples than with the Pharisees, but our politics is suffused with de facto religious tests. That's not an arguable statement; it's a fact. (To a lesser extent, that is also true of much of American business life, and most public school districts are hostile environments for open atheists. Sure, Hitchens sells a lot of books. But for every Hitchens, we have a dozen Rick Warrens.)

As to the "war on Christmas" BS that Chan mindlessly parrots, the origin of "Winter break" is not anti-religiosity. "Winter break" and "happy holidays" and the like have their origin precisely in EXPANDED respect for religious faith. The terms were originally meant to allow for the inclusion of respect for Jewish (and later for Muslim) believers who celebrated dimly understood holidays of their own at or around the times of the major Christian holidays. The point was to avoid inadvertently offending or excluding Jews by saying "Merry Christmas." And since many school districts also started trying to make their Christmastime breaks coincide with at least part of Hanukkah, "Winter break" came into use.

Basically, if one was in school, or on a PTA, during any portion of the 1970s, one would know all of this through direct experience. If one wasn't, then one should consider getting the facts before falling for media-driven hysteria over imagined bogeymen. Of course, if one were smart enough not to fall for media-driven hysteria over deliberate falsehoods, then one wouldn't believe half the stuff Chan asserts hereabouts, but the "war on Christmas" BS is particularly galling. Especially since the celebration of Christmas itself would have been regarded as deeply un-Christian by Christian followers for most of the faith's history.

As a fellow, non-Ivied Appalachian who has been sick of Palin-mania for a long time, all I can say, Michelle,  is you go girl, and amen, sister!  Bravissima!

"Oh blah blah blah."

That's quite a counter argument, Michelle.

No, Michelle, you were never a woman like Sarah Palin. Don't flatter yourself.

tomeg, you attributed to me something said by Nippers.

But for Nippers' info, I've spent a decent amount of time in small towns in Maine, the Midwest, and the West.

That doesn't make me Thornton Wilder.

wandrey writes, "...But my inclination is towards total privacy and dignity for children, who have no say in where they will be taken and in Bristol's case, how their most private personal information will be used."

Look, wandrey, the facts of Bristol's pregnancy were out within a couple of days.

As, I said earlier, it is very much the tradition in the modern campaign era, for the candidates to show up on stage with their entire family for the big moments.

Had she left Bristol home or the baby, they would have been conspicuous in their absence.  It would have been asked if she were ashamed of them.

If she had left the entire brood home, it would have been asked if she had done that so she wouldn't have to show the two "compromised" children.

If Bristol or her boyfriend were humiliated up there, they sure didn't show it.  We hardly live in an era where single pregnancy or teenage pregnancy is stigmatized.  Quite the contrary-- it is in varying degrees celebrated.

Once all the publicity blew up, which it inevitably was going to do, humiliation would have been to keep Bristol and her paramour in the closet as if they were ashamed of them.  Then you really would have seen a firestorm about Republican hypocrisy and cruelty to women.

P.S. I have heard next to nothing since the convention about Bristol's pregnancy or any treatment of it as a scandal.  It faded fast as any kind of an issue.

tomeg writes, "We might soon witness the renaissance of the social welfare state. Who woulda thought?  Hee-hee...."

Uh, after the bailout, there's not going to be much money for social welfare for awhile.  Not till they sell off all those houses, or the mortgages that go with them.

Channy declares:  "ironyroad, it is the cultural assumptions and political written in and between the lines of dialog, the choices of bad guys and idiots, and into the plots of tv shows and movies that are permeated with agenda."

Agreed.  Duh.  Now tell me what you think the assumptions and political choices written in to the movies I mentioned were.  What was "the agenda" behind "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence" (1962), "Saving Private Ryan" (1998), "In the Heat of the Night" (1966), "Dirty Harry" (1970), "Ice Station Zebra" (1969) and "Walk the Line" (2006).

All Hollywood, all popular movies at the time and in many cases since then, and all in the time frame you designated yourself.

Ralph Peter's column does miss the mark.  Rudi Giuliani is a New Yorker who likes to dress up in drag, yet he s a true blue American hero.  Liberals turned New York City into a bankrupt, crime-ridden basket case, and Rudi make it a world-class city again.  And then came 09-11.   Rudi was America's mayor.  How sad it would have been it some gutless liberal had been in charge.  And Rudi is not alone among New Yorkers.  After all, he was elected twice.

The issue isn't rednecks versus urban dwellers.  The issue is that most liberals no longer believe in the great Anglo-American liberal political tradition.  They are so consumed with neurotic white guilt, and at the same time so complacent in their affluence and privilege that they can't understand that they are sawing off the branch they are sitting on.  They spout garbage about all cultures being equal.  Tell that to the woman in Iran who has been condemned to be stoned to death for adultery.

Liberals support all the special interests that stand in the way of progress: the racial victimologists addicted to federal handouts and special privileges.  The Neanderthal teachers’ unions and educational bureaucrats who have ruined public education.  The greedy trial lawyers.  The feckless foreign policy of the Clinton administration that led to 9-11.   The elevation of global warming from a problem into a millenarian cult.

Rednecks versus sushi eaters is not the issue.  The issue is that liberalism is morally decadent and based on false  premises.

Rhubarbs writes, "...The person who would say such a thing is simply not to be taken seriously.  A simple test: Is it conceivable that an open atheist could be elected president today? Absolutely not."

Well, gee, Rhub, at the risk of being taken even less seriously, I would say that, no, an ostentatiously atheist candidate would have a big handicap against being elected.

That hardly disproves my point.  The people of this country are still religious, and still mainly center-right.

What I said is, "...The dominant belief system in the media, entertainment, academia, all the influential classes that control most information..." is anti-religious.  

That's the problem, the people with the biggest megaphones are quite different in their attitudes and beliefs from the majority of the people who ought to matter more and be treated with more respect.

Come back, Rhub, when you have some logic to your argument.

"The feckless foreign policy of the Clinton administration that led to 9-11."

Why?  Because the Clinton administration invaded the wrong country on wrong premises and got us into a military and diplomatic mess that will take years to put right?

Rhubarbs writes, "...As to the 'war on Christmas' BS that Chan mindlessly parrots, the origin of "Winter break" is not anti-religiosity. "Winter break" and "happy holidays" and the like have their origin precisely in EXPANDED respect for religious faith. The terms were originally meant to allow for the inclusion of respect for Jewish (and later for Muslim) believers who celebrated dimly understood holidays of their own at or around the times of the major Christian holidays. The point was to avoid inadvertently offending or excluding Jews by saying "Merry Christmas." And since many school districts also started trying to make their Christmastime breaks coincide with at least part of Hanukkah, "Winter break" came into use.

Rhubarbs, I've been alive and conscious since soon after WW2.  I know the whole sorry history you are reciting.

Look, America is culturally Christian.  It was founded by Christian Puritans (yes, I know, they didn't believe in pagan Christmas trees and such.)  And Catholics in Maryland, etc.

There are today 5.5 million Jews in the United States, 1 million of whom practice no religion, many more of whom are cultural Jews not observant.  Statistics for Muslims are less precise, but probably about 2 millions.

Since the total population of the U.S. is now about 300 million, that's 7.5 million divided by 300,000,000 or 2.5% of the entire population is not either culturally Christian or observant Christian.

Why should the entire national culture, overwhelmingly Christian, have to defer entirely to a tiny minority of people?

That tiny minority is in every way enjoying complete religious tolerance and freedom.  Certainly in return for that rare freedom, they could defer slightly to the dominant culture and traditions without take offense or having their feelings hurt.

I grew up in a community that was about 90 to 95% Jewish.  In the 50s and 60s and even the 70s, schools still pretty much openly celebrated Christmas as Christmas.  Even my predominantly Jewish public grammar schools and high schools.

The overwhelming number of Jews in the school were neither offended nor intimidated by this.  They were intelligent enough to fully understand that Christmas was being celebrated in a cultural context, not a religious one.  Santa Claus and the tree and the gifts, as you point out, are not Christian in the pure or original sense.

What I resent is a combination of political correctness and hostility to our Christian cultural legacy that seeks to erase it from the national culture.  That is the tyranny of a fanatical minority.  And by that, I don't mean Jews or Muslims, I mean fanatic secularists.

It is absurd, that in an effort supposedly not to "offend" a tiny minority, a different rabid minority would be working so assiduously to erase the national culture of the vast majority.

It is you, Rhubarbs, who is anti-historic, not me.

Bulbman 1066 wrote, "The issue isn't rednecks versus urban dwellers.  The issue is that most liberals no longer believe in the great Anglo-American liberal political tradition.  They are so consumed with neurotic white guilt, and at the same time so complacent in their affluence and privilege that they can't understand that they are sawing off the branch they are sitting on. "

Bulbman, that is a brilliant piece of prose and sums up exquisitely the fatuous death wish and national suicide this mindset is bringing upon us.

More such, Bulbman.  And published more widely.

Thanks, Michelle, for speaking for all of us out here who aren't wealthy, urban ivy leaguers yet staunch democrats. For the record, my mother grew up in a small town in northern Wisconsin and learned to shoot in the high school rifle club. She's a lifelong democrat.