House of Eratosthenes

The folks who would perform home-self-surgery with rusty spoons to make sure someone with the letter “R” behind his name wins the next election…and toward that goal, desperately want the party to move to the “center.” And for that reason, Sarah Palin absolutely cannot win the nomination. Which means she cannot be considered. She’s dim, she’s dopey, she’s “unqualified,” she’s bad at Trivial Pursuit, she’s too good-looking, she’s a dumb ol’ girl. What we need to do is repeat 2008 all over again and nominate some “maverick” who votes with democrats a whole lot of the time. Because, y’know, that worked out so well.

The party means everything. The party must win. And so we have to get the party to stop acting like the party it’s supposed to be. Otherwise, who knows, maybe “we” will win, but the guy representing us might…reverse the growth of our bloated government, let people keep their guns, start treating illegal aliens like they really are illegal aliens, put our poor people on the path to financial health rather than giving them more social programs, and just generally, y’know, act like people are worth a damn and are supposed to be here doing something worthy.

I don’t typically address these people because I don’t know if they’re friends or foes. It seems the only way they agree with me is in this perception that we share a common enemy. They want to see more people elected with that label. The letter R. I’m not even on board with that. After the shenanigans pulled in New York, the party apparatus ranks high on the list of people & groups I don’t trust. So the Frumistas are supposed to be kindred spirits with me, disagreeing with me on this fundamental principle, and that one and that one, but laboring shoulder-to-shoulder with me to elect people I don’t trust anymore.

And with all the hubbub about Sarah Palin’s book, Rick Moran saw another opportunity to light into her one more time but this time put out some effort to show some calmness and cool-headed-ness about it. Very light treatment to her density and stupidity and vapidity. In fact, where he did give that treatment, he qualified it thoroughly…

[T]here is an undercurrent of anti-intellectualism that undergirds her anti-establishmentarian shtick. She has made her shallow, depthless understanding of the world into a badge of honor, and indeed, her supporters push the idea that this is a positive good, that having a president as unversed in nuance as they are of policy and programs would be kind of neat. Sure would be a switch from all those brainy establishment elitists who don’t want to roll back the New Deal and Great Society, making this country into a true conservative paradise.

This is not to say that Palin is stupid. She’s intellectually lazy. I wouldn’t necessarily call her incurious in a George Bush sort of way but neither would I refer to her as possessing the innate intelligence of a Ronald Reagan who actually did change the narrative about himself. Reagan had an active, curious mind and the good sense to reach out to experts who educated him, as well as filling in knowledge gaps by reading voraciously. Palin does not seem to have that spark, that drive, that hunger for knowledge that anyone as ill informed as she admits herself to be should possess. Therefore, I hold no hope that she can transform herself into a reasonably well informed politician.

This, too, ranks high on the list of people-and-groups-I-don’t-trust. Know why? Because horror of horrors, Rick Moran said something bad about Tundra Princess?

No, because it’s a phony argument.

If the argument to be made is “Stop it with the Palin nonsense…she’s not reasonably well-informed, and she can’t win” then the solution to the concern would be to go ahead and enter her name as a serious candidate, and at the 2012 GOP convention she’ll receive the vicious clobbering she so richly deserves. And then a nominee will emerge who has a much better chance of taking on Obama.

That isn’t good enough for the Frum/Moran crowd. That isn’t even close to good enough for them.

They do not want Sarah Palin to not be nominated. They do not want her to make room for someone who has a better chance. What they want, is for her to not be considered. Any further. As of right now.

Phony, phony, phony, phony, phony.

Commenter buquet (#45) gave more credit to this concern about intellectual capacity, and addressed it very well…

I think some of the “anti-intellectual” comments about Sarah Palin and the Tea Party crowd miss the point. Most people I know just want to see some common sense in Washington. We have an “intellectual” as President who surrounds himself with “intellectual” advisors (about half of whom seem to be Marxists or former Marxists). They are rapidly moving to gain more and more government control over our lives and freedoms.They are also spending money in absurd quantities that will ultimately diminish the standard of living for most middle-class Americans. I am convinced that it doesn’t take a great mind to be a great President (although I wouldn’t object). Common sense conservatism and practical decision-making abilities are much, much more important as our current President is making so painfully clear.

On the decision to “drill baby drill,” we have a simple situation. A superpower nation is sinking rapidly toward third-class status because its own environmental rules forbid it to make use of its own resources, and those rules should be repealed.

On the decision to invade Iraq, we confront someone dangerous, who’s been in command of dangerous weapons on-and-off for a quarter of a century, who thinks he’s too good to honor the treaties that were supposed to make him safe.

On the decision to limit emissions of carbon dioxide, on the other hand, we confront a chemical. A chemical we make when we breathe. The idea that it is somehow dangerous is more a religion than science — it is a religion that says humans, by their very nature, are a toxin upon the planet.

On the War on Terror, we are forced to fundamentally re-define, perhaps for the first time since the Civil War, what it means to fight. How wars are engaged. How armies should be tooled up. How enemies are defined.

Buquet has it completely right. How do our “intellectuals” handle these issues? They hold hands and jump, together, into this “Bizarro” world in which everything is the opposite of what it really is — then they make decisions that will impact other people, by the hundreds of millions, but not them. The simple things are made complicated. The complicated things are made simple. The dangerous things are made safe. The safe things are made dangerous. Terrorism is a “nuisance,” all the respectable scientists agree we need to tax ourselves 1% of our GDP to save the planet, Afghanistan needs to be given more time so we do the right thing, Kalid Shiek Mohammed has to stand trial in Manhattan, we have to make it easier for illegal aliens to vote and get more benefits…the list goes on and on.

It is frequently said that Washington DC is a strange place. Persons all up & down the ideological spectrum murmur, in disapproving tones, about this otherworldly place that seems to sit in its own universe, from which these laws radiate outward to bind and ensnare the rest of us “real” people. Why is it like this? Because we vote that way. We keep electing these damned “intellectuals” who pretend safe things are dangerous, dangerous things are safe, complicated things are simple and simple things are complicated. And they listen to fat moviemakers who can’t even keep mustard off their shirts who go around saying asinine things like “there is no terrorist threat.”

This is a Pogo moment, folks: We have met the enemy and he is us.

We move through this in stages. First stage: There are no wrong answers. We stop believing two and two are four. If you say two and two are five, there must be some alternate perspective through which the problem can be viewed…perhaps some life configuration I’ll never understand, and when you view it through that lens maybe two and two are indeed five. By extension, if you say three, or thirty-three, there must be some other walk-of-life by which that makes sense as well. Ultimately, all answers are correct…

…the next stage of deterioration is the one in which “four” becomes the one answer that can be wrong. Look at all the rest of us working so hard to empathize with others, to try to explore all these corridors and back-alleys through which two and two might add up to five. And here you are, Mister Knuckle-dragger. Probably speak no other languages but English. Probably never been to a foreign country. You probably drink non-organic milk and eat non-organic vegetables. Four. Sheesh! What a rube. No nuance.

In two steps, we enter the Bizarro world. First there are no wrong answers, then the right answer is the one wrong answer possible. At that point, everything has to be upside down. It is the age of the “intellectual”: Safe things are dangerous, dangerous things are safe, complicated things are simple and simple things are complicated.

How do Presidents greet Emperors? They bow way down.

What’s the perfect gift for the Queen of England? An iPod.

What do you do when you’re all out of money? Spend it real fast.

How do we treat terrorism? As a nuisance.

How do we support the troops? By voting for the 87 billion before voting against it.

How do we commemmorate the fall of the Berlin wall? Send Hillary. The President’s a busy man.

What do we do about Afghanistan? I dunno…and don’t ask me again, you’re not involved in the process! Need more time.

Seriously, what can we do to jump-start this economy? Stimulus, and a decidedly un-American nanny-state health care plan. Right now.

What is our national heritage? We’re cowards about race.

Haven’t we done anything good, ever? Sure, we elected Obama. Now let the apologies begin. For us, not for Him.

Drill baby drill? Only in your wallet.

Isn’t that a tax? No.

But my dictinary says so. I don’t care, it’s not a tax.

This intellectualism stuff arrives at the cost of common sense. And it’s pretty easy to see why. In politics, all positive personal attributes must find a way to manifest themselves. You cannot have intellectualism without a manifestation of the intellectualism. And the manifestation of intellectualism is — two and two are five. Some answer has to be given, to each question that comes along, that deviates from what would be patently obvious. Two and two cannot ever be four.

This is why the Frumistas are outside of my circle of trust, and they’re going to be staying out there for a long time. They don’t ever address this. They just say “intellectual.” Republican party needs to be more intellectual. But meanwhile, the intellectuals make bad decisions because that is their job. They must oppose common sense. And the Frumistas, in turn, end up opposing common sense. They don’t have to prove anything to us about their ability to make correct decisions, not even once-in-awhile. We, on the other hand have to prove to them that we can oppose common sense. All the time. Don’t even consider Sarah Palin, not even for another minute, not for another second. The Frumistas are getting all agitated with us.

And they’re not pleasant people. Moran, at his own spot, you’ll notice began to be outnumbered. He remained civil. But he did predict in his own paragraphs that he’d be subjected to some kind of abuse by the Palinistas like me, and it didn’t happen. Once again, the Palin folk were expected to exclude others, to insult others, and it didn’t happen. But the poison did come back ’round the other way. Quickly. And reliably.

Our blogger friend down in New Mexico is the classiest of the bunch. He’s not dished out any poison like this, ever. The nastiest thing I think I’ve ever heard him say about Palin, was “what’s all the fuss about?” and he honestly wants to know. But that’s an exception and not a rule. He is not a fair representation of the rest of the Frumistas. A more typical representation would be this from michael reyolds (#33)…

Me? I’d send her money. I love the idea of her being the face of the GOP. You’re really not getting this: Democrats are laughing and doing their best to epoxy Palin onto the GOP. The more times we can say Palin’s an idiot and Palin is the GOP, the better.

The “Palin is an idiot and the democrats want the GOP to nominate her” thing deserves a special mention.

Moran says Palin is not like Reagan. He’s wrong. Somehow, he does not remember Ronald Reagan’s time in office the same way I do. The two figures, Reagan and Palin, are indistinguishable in the way they address a crowd, how they relate to that crowd, how polarizing they are, what they do intellectually with the readin’ and the writin’ in their off-time (to the best I can see). And in the insults hurled at them and what they do to bring ’em on, they are absolutely identical.

Palin is not being called a dimbulb because she’s a dimbulb. That’s quite easy to see. Even for an “intellectual.” I see perhaps scores, maybe hundreds, of dimbulbs every single day. I feel no urgency in pointing out each one that comes along. There is no importance attached to noticing each one…not the same importance attached to, say, swiveling my noggin around to catch a glimpse of every lovely female with a nicely-endowed chest. Truth is, I have no idea how many twits I see everyday and neither do you. Until they get in our way it isn’t an issue that is worth any energy.

Sareh Palin’s dumbass-ish-ness, somehow, is worthy of an expenditure of energy. Vast, vast amounts of energy.

That isn’t how you treat a dimbulb. That’s how you treat a threat.

The Frumistas, drawing on the words of people like “Michael Reynolds,” say the Palinistas are playing right into the enemy’s hands. It is they who are playing into the enemy’s hands with this “intellectual” nonsense. They are playing into a battle plan the democrat party has been deploying for forty-five years now. It has served the democrat party very well during that time. If the newest Republican is non-threatening, ignore him; if he’s a threat, but can be portrayed as a lightweight, portray him that way and call him an idiot; if neither of the above two apply, call him evil. An effective, simple plan…but too simple. Its time is coming to an end. The anxiety that “intellectualism” feels to demonstrate itself, by consistently selecting the wrong answer to every question that comes along, is bringing down acute pain upon people and with the debt our government is racking up, common sense says it’s bound to get a whole lot worse.

The plan will, out of necessity, be retired. It is unavoidable. And there will be some disaster that will happen to the democrats that will make this retirement absolutely imperative.

Hopefully, that will happen in 2012. This is not a certainty. But it’s a possibility; there can be no reasonable disagreement with that.

It is the Frumistas who need to join the rest of us…if, indeed, they are lusting after the prospect of the democrat party getting pummeled. Me, I don’t care about such things anymore. Like tens of millions of others, I’m just fatigued by all the nonsense. A return, please, to common sense. To recognition, where it counts, that dangerous things are dangerous and harmless things are harmless.

Right now, there’s only one person who’s showing any promise of delivering such a return. Out of all the generals who are fighting that enemy of common sense, there is only one Grant, only one Patton. Only one general renowned for stirring up real, old-fashioned fear, real trembling in the enemy’s breast.

That George Patton general happens to be a girl this time ’round — if she chooses to return to the battlefield. A church-going girly-girl. Deal with it. Deal with it, or get out of the game and go home.

Thanks for the kind words and the linky-lurve, Morgan. I remain agnostic to mildly unimpressed about Miss Alaska. We (small-c conservatives and the Not-Obamas) most certainly could do worse but I also feel we might could do better. It’s awfully damned early to speculate about 2012, innit?

All that said… I truly believe you Palinistas have a long, hard row to hoe. A cursory glance at Memeorandum’s current page… specifically articles about the poll numbers… tend to validate my feelings. This is a PR war more than anything and your side is losing, at this moment in time.
- bpenni | 11/17/2009 @ 14:26
She’s got Robin Hood appeal, m’friend. Heap big huge Robin Hood appeal.

By which I mean…since she has obviously been relegated by the second of those three boxes on the bottom of my chart, the thing that’s been proven beyond any reasonable dispute, which nobody wants to discuss anywhere — is that she’s made it past the first of the three. Unlike…oh…everyone else. No need to call Mitt or Rudy dumb. They don’t matter.

Also, although the Republican party establishment can obviously get along just fine without her, and the libs are clearly terrified of her — her rating among conservatives who actually work for a living is exactly on the other end of the gas-gauge, an astonishing three-outta-four. The point is not that she is amazingly popular with the “right” crowd…I suppose we all are…the point is that there is a y-a-w-n-i-n-g chasm between the people who make decisions for the Republican party, and the people who make it go. She is merely symbolic of this.

Like I said: We aren’t particularly enamored of Arctic beauty queens. We’re just plum tuckered and worn-out from all the nonsense. She’s merely symbolic of that, too.
- mkfreeberg | 11/17/2009 @ 14:33
“Sarah Palin’s dumbass-ish-ness, somehow, is worthy of an expenditure of energy. Vast, vast amounts of energy. That isn’t how you treat a dimbulb. That’s how you treat a threat.”

Well, in all fairness, the two need not be mutually exclusive perceptions. A dimbulb put in a car and asked to drive to the hospital is no less a dimbulb, but he becomes a threat once stress beyond his capacity to handle is placed upon him. Assume the dimbulb is dim enough not to know how dim he is, and that threat magnifies tenfold; assume everyone else around the dimbulb is too dim to call him on his dimbulbery, and the threat magnifies a thousandfold.

The irony is that the very people who believe Palin represents this kind of threat — a strain of stupidity so contagious and dangerous it can cause a much-feared “madness of crowds” — are the ones whose utter lack of ability even to perceive their own leaders’ patently obvious errors of governance, let alone call them on it, is magnifying the damage of those errors a thousandfold.

That said, I would not take Memeorandum’s poll showings without a grain or two of salt. Ed Morrissey over at HotAir.com has some comments on how skewed those can be, too.
- Stephen J. | 11/17/2009 @ 14:47
“Left”, “Right”, “Center”, and “Tent” size.

Here’s the deal. I think the Republican tent is plenty big. And in recent years it has moved to the center. And it is losing.

A bigger tent means more potential for conflicting goals. What has happened is that they have moved their tent to the center, to the left, even, and left a ton of voters — out in the rain. They need to pull up stakes and come back and pitch it where the voters are, rather than trying to compete with Leftist for Leftist votes — never mind that that is a complete sellout of their supposed principles in the first place.
- philmon | 11/17/2009 @ 14:48
As far as Palin is concerned, I like her because we are pretty much in agreement in our visions of America, and she’s out there putting it in some pretty plain language.

I doubt she’s a dimbulb. You know, they all thought Reagan was a dimbulb, before and during and even for a while after his presidency. When he died, most of those people gushed about him.

She was naive about how partisan the national press is, and wasn’t really prepared for the whole “gotcha” thing.

As her dad said, she’s reloading.

She may not run. I think we’re talking 70/30 no-run now by my rectal derivation. As long as she brings out forces that move the “R” party to live up to its name (the one that understands we are a Republic, not a Democracy) …. I’m good. I’ll vote for Hoffmann for freakin’ president if it comes to that.
- philmon | 11/17/2009 @ 15:38
Me? I’d send her money. I love the idea of her being the face of the GOP. You’re really not getting this: Democrats are laughing and doing their best to epoxy Palin onto the GOP. The more times we can say Palin’s an idiot and Palin is the GOP, the better.

I keep hearing this over and over again from the Left. In particular, I keep hearing it from several of the liberal posters over on one of my other favorite blogs, moonbattery.com.

It strikes me as a crude attempt at classic reverse psychology. Deep down, they’re terrified of Palin because she’s a bona-fide conservative who doesn’t fit the mold of the old, desiccated pasty-white guy. She’s young, dynamic, attractive, and horror-of-horrors, is a woman who climbed into power in AK (and then onto the national scene) not because of the feminist movement, but rather in spite of it.

The overt frontal assault to destroy Palin, that the Left made during (and immediately following) the 2008 presidential campaign, failed miserably. She stepped down as governor so they could no longer damage Alaska with their pointless FOIA requests and whatnot, but unfortunately for them, Palin is STILL popular on the Right and STILL a potent figure on the national political stage.

What liberals who say things like this are really trying to do, is get us Palin lovers to think to ourselves, “Hmm…if the Left WANTS us to like Palin, maybe they know something we don’t – namely, that she will ultimately be harmful to our party. Better de-couple from her immediately.” If they can get us to collectively do that, then the Palin threat will have been ended and they can go back to painting us as the party of reactionary, wrinkled, desiccated old white guys.

Sorry, left-wing amateur psychologists…It’s not happening and it ain’t gonna work. We see right through this crap – we’re not as stupid as you people think we are. We like Palin and we’re not booing her off the stage, at least not until she decides what she’s going to do in 2012.
- cylarz | 11/18/2009 @ 13:13
Me? I’d send her money. I love the idea of her being the face of the GOP. You’re really not getting this: Democrats are laughing and doing their best to epoxy Palin onto the GOP. The more times we can say Palin’s an idiot and Palin is the GOP, the better.

I keep hearing this over and over again from the Left. In particular, I keep hearing it from several of the liberal posters over on one of my other favorite blogs, moonbattery.com.
It strikes me as a crude attempt at classic reverse psychology. Deep down, they’re terrified of Palin because she’s a bona-fide conservative who doesn’t fit the mold of the old, desiccated pasty-white guy. She’s young, dynamic, attractive, and horror-of-horrors, is a woman who climbed into power in AK (and then onto the national scene) not because of the feminist movement, but rather in spite of it.
The overt frontal assault to destroy Palin, that the Left made during (and immediately following) the 2008 presidential campaign, failed miserably. She stepped down as governor so they could no longer damage Alaska with their pointless FOIA requests and whatnot, but unfortunately for them, Palin is STILL popular on the Right and STILL a potent figure on the national political stage.
What liberals who say things like this are really trying to do, is get us Palin lovers to think to ourselves, “Hmm…if the Left WANTS us to like Palin, maybe they know something we don’t – namely, that she will ultimately be harmful to our party. Better de-couple from her immediately.” If they can get us to collectively do that, then the Palin threat will have been ended and they can go back to painting us as the party of reactionary, wrinkled, desiccated old white guys.
Sorry, left-wing amateur psychologists…It’s not happening and it ain’t gonna work. We see right through this crap – we’re not as stupid as you people think we are. We like Palin and we’re not booing her off the stage, at least not until she decides what she’s going to do in 2012.
- cylarz | 11/18/2009 @ 13:13
The irony is that the very people who believe Palin represents this kind of threat — a strain of stupidity so contagious and dangerous it can cause a much-feared “madness of crowds” — are the ones whose utter lack of ability even to perceive their own leaders’ patently obvious errors of governance, let alone call them on it, is magnifying the damage of those errors a thousandfold.

For someone (and for a group of people) who obviously thinks Palin is a “dimbulb”, you sure are putting an awful lot of energy into making sure she doesn’t become our party’s standard-bearer. Here’s an idea, Lefty…if you really think that, why don’t you go back to kissing Obama’s ass and stop worrying so much about who we’re going to send out to fight against Him in ’12? (Unless….you’re terrified of this woman. As I suspect.)

And to think, on Morgan’s anniversary day, I wrote that this was the one decent blog where I didn’t have to put up with sarcastic, tiresome moonbats hanging around in the comment threads. Perhaps I spoke too soon.

Good golly, I’m tired of you people and your sanctimonious preaching about Palin.
- cylarz | 11/18/2009 @ 13:20
What liberals who say things like this are really trying to do, is get us Palin lovers to think to ourselves, “Hmm…if the Left WANTS us to like Palin, maybe they know something we don’t – namely, that she will ultimately be harmful to our party.

Well, they’re wrong on just about everything else … why would we believe them on this?
- philmon | 11/18/2009 @ 13:23
Incidently, my pre-ordered copy of her book shipped Monday night 🙂
- philmon | 11/18/2009 @ 13:24

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