House of Eratosthenes

Palin in Vanity Fair I certainly do think this is newsworthy. And it’s not because I’ve been lying awake at night, wondering what Vanity Fair thinks of Palin. It’s because the Vanity Fair piece changes the dynamics of what’s going on.

Huffington Post provides a helpful and quick summary —

Purdum explains the anonymity of the negative quotes about Palin to the staffers finding it painful, even privately, to reflect on the selection of Palin because:

There is ultimately no way to read [it] as reflecting anything but an appalling egotism, heedlessness and lack of judgment… They all know that if their candidate – a 72-year-old cancer survivor – had won the presidency, the vice presidency would be in the hands of a woman who lacked the knowledge, the preparation, the aptitude, and the temperament for the job.

Chuck Todd, filling in for Chris Matthews, pressed Purdum on these extremely harsh words, asking if Purdum actually had McCain staffers telling him this or if it was more of a read-between-the-lines of the staffers’ statements. Purdum demurred, saying he didn’t want to get into a discussion about sources, but he stated it’s safe to say that he had people from the McCain campaign saying words extremely close to those words that he wrote.

It’s not a flattering piece. Probably not a very informative piece either; “anonymous staffers” with such a swell excuse for staying anonymous…with the campaign now eight months in the rear view mirror? At times it swerves into sheer bigotry. Not quite so much the woman-bashing, which we’ve come to expect when the Manhattan crowd carps away about Palin — but — Alaska-bashing.

The first thing McCain could have learned about Palin is what it means that she is from Alaska. More than 30 years ago, John McPhee wrote, “Alaska is a foreign country significantly populated with Americans. Its languages extend to English. Its nature is its own. Nothing seems so unexpected as the boxes marked ‘U.S. Mail.’” That description still fits. The state capital, Juneau, is 600 miles from the principal city, Anchorage, and is reachable only by air or sea. Alaskan politicians list the length of their residency in the state (if they were not born there) at the top of their biographies, and are careful to specify whether they like hunting, fishing, or both. There is little sense of government as an enduring institution: when the annual 90-day legislative session is over, the legislators pack up their offices, files, and computers, and take everything home. Alaska’s largest newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News, maintains no full-time bureau in Juneau to cover the statehouse. As in any resource-rich developing country with weak institutions and woeful oversight, corruption and official misconduct go easily unchecked. Scrutiny is not welcome, and Alaskans of every age and station, of every race and political stripe, unself-consciously refer to every other place on earth with a single word: Outside.

So, of all the puzzling things that Sarah Palin told the American public last fall, perhaps the most puzzling was this: “Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.”

It sounds like some central character in a made-for-TV movie taking place in the Renaissance era, something about Britain pushing into the Americas, or into Africa, or some other kind of colonialism. Some bigoted snotty Englishman dripping with venom describing those naked savages he’s been reading about off in that New World. Just stereotype after stereotype after stereotype…can’t you just see it? Makes you want to crack it open to see what else he has to say about Alaskans. Their kids can’t read; they eat their boogers; they poop in buckets…

So why is this news? You’ll find out when you examine the motive for allocating so many glossy pages on such an unlikely subject matter. Up until now, you could claim to be a devotee to cold, rational logic — and still arrive at any one of a number of different conclusions about the Palin effect on the 2012 elections, and the 2010 midterms. Palin is an incompetent that will snuff out the Republican candle for good. Palin is a pure placebo put there to patronize stupid conservative women. Palin is the equivalent of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. Palin is a Manchurian Candidate. Palin is a Trojan Horse…

Many of those options were eliminated just now, if you claim to be following logic. At least, they have been, if you presume 1) Todd Purdum of Vanity Fair is not a conservative Republican (and I’m just going to toss that in the stewpot, it seems safe) and 2) he knows what he’s doing. Purdum’s piece waxes lyrically about what strengths our youngest governor seems to possess politically, but always in the context of intermingling a carefully compiled dossier of her shortcomings. And the strengths, the obligatorily-mentioned strengths, all seem to have to do with her ability to campaign, not to govern. Something in my gut tells me this fellow is not a Palin fan.

In sum: This is the enemy, begging Republicans to put a weapon away.

Purdum doesn’t want us to know any more about Sarah Palin than we already do. He wants her heckled and ridiculed into non-existence, because if she remains on the game-board it sets up a potential outcome he doesn’t find appealing. Before this latest issue of Vanity Fair, that was just an idea, one kind of fun to think about. Now it’s a near-certainty with some solid strategic evidence behind it.

For those yet still unconvinced, here’s a thought: How much sense does it make for anyone, outside of Republican campaign officials and maybe a blogger or two, to be talking about Sarah Palin right now — at all? Think on that one for awhile. The drama with her grandson is over, the kid’s born, Trig is over a year old, she’s running Alaska, Joe Biden is doing such a swell job in that position for which he competed with her. We’re about to celebrate our country’s 233rd birthday; it’s very ill, perhaps terminally. The Nork Nerd is getting ready to lob a cruise missile in the air to help us celebrate, kind of a “Nice Car, We’ll Come Get It When We Want It” note to leave under the windshield wiper. The print media industry is on the ropes. Reporters are getting furloughed, laid off, outright-fired. Our new hopey-changey Obama economy is a turd circling the toilet bowl, getting ready to take the big plunge. Why is the glossy-mag industry looking up North?

The only answer I can think of for that one, is they’re concerned she might run and they’re afraid of what would result from that.

Can anyone think of another one?

I hope you’re right about the Democrat Fear Factor. I think you probably are. Reaction to Palin was strong and positive and it took a massive effort by the media to do to her in a few weeks what it couldn’t manage to even hint toward wrt Obama in the previous 2 years … and still I don’t think the election would have been as close without her. McCain wasn’t really offering a clear alternative as far as rhetoric is concerned, and frankly I liked Palin’s rhetoric a lot more than I liked McCain’s.

And Biden. Joe Dufus Biden. Could we have possibly done worse for VP? I mean, in many ways I pray for the life of Obama. At least he’s predictable. Biden is an idiot loose cannon. I note that the press pretty much steers clear of him, and he of them. With good reason.
- philmon | 07/01/2009 @ 09:34
Biden is such a pre-canned rebuttal for any & all of this anti-Palin snark.

Just wait for them to get all the woman-hate, Alaska-hate, Midwestern-accent-hate and Palin-hate out of their system, perhaps just wait for them to take a breath, and say “yeah, it’s a good thing that distinguished elder statesman Biden got the job, huh?” Slight eyeball-roll and walk away.

It’s an easy-out, which defeats the mental stimulation that might have resulted from the discussion. But that was never there in the first place, so it’s all good.
- mkfreeberg | 07/01/2009 @ 09:38
I chased a few memeorandum links on this subject last night, one of them a piece written by… wait for it… Melissa McEwan (at Shakesville). You could have knocked me over with a feather, coz she literally beat the SHIT out of Purdum for his hit-job. Her last line was something to the effect of “Why am I defending Palin? Because that’s what feminists DO.”

I’ll be damned.
- bpenni | 07/01/2009 @ 15:34
“…they’re afraid of what would result…”

The way you know she is a good person to have out front and talking is that she makes Leftists bat-shit-crazy-frothing-at-the-mouth. Palin Derangement Syndrome – PDS to replace their BDS. She is certainly not perfect but conservatives need to stand up and call the smear campaign that is still going on for what it is. A wrong smear campaign.
- Robohobo | 07/02/2009 @ 00:57
They do seem to be putting an awful lot of ink into smearing someone who isn’t supposed to be a threat to their power. Tells you all you really need to know.
- cylarz | 07/02/2009 @ 02:58

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Palin in Vanity FairWednesday, July 1st, 2009

Palin in Vanity Fair
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009