Sarah Palin has become a giant inkblot test in American
politics.
This is neither her fault nor her virtue.
I cannot help but admire Gov. Palin's resolute capacity to
remain herself -- confident, eloquent, relentlessly optimistic --
in the face of a national campaign of hate and ridicule the likes
of which I cannot recall seeing. Ever.
Gov. Palin's appearance on "Saturday Night Live" this week was
remarkably good-humored under the circumstances. But Sarah Palin
has, whether she likes it or not, transcended the status of an
actual human being to become a symbol in American politics and
culture.
A symbol of what, exactly, is still being contested.
Sarah Palin means different things to different people. "I'd
rather be a symbol of sex than a lot of other things people have
symbols for," Marilyn Monroe once said. And the Democrats' insane
hatred of Gov. Palin has to do with the way she rebuts their
deepest assumptions -- that all that is young, cool, beautiful,
hip and groundbreaking must advance the cause of abortion rights,
gay marriage and liberal progressivism. How dare a woman be
young, attractive, glass-ceiling-shattering -- and conservative!
So they have responded in the crudest fashion, with relentless
personal invective and ridicule.
The New Republic suggests that Gov. Palin is seething with
resentment at her treatment by the urbane best and brightest of
Wasilla. As Sam Schulman noted in this week's Standard, "(Norm)
Scheiber spoke to various people from Gov. Palin's past, all of
whom have two things in common: Every one of them is smarter than
Palin and none of them has been heard of since their encounter
with her."
But Gov. Palin has also become a symbol of discontent in
certain intellectual quarters on the right. David Brooks, David
Frum, Kathleen Parker, George Will and the latest, the beloved
Peggy Noonan -- sweetheart of Reagan conservatives -- have joined
a chorus of concern about Gov. Palin.
Substantively, these critiques of her leave me cold. Why?
I acknowledge that people will read and respond to Gov. Palin
and her achievements differently. It is quite reasonable to
suggest she lacks the resume expected of a presidential
candidate, although two terms as governor of Arkansas for Bill
Clinton and one term as governor of Georgia for Jimmy Carter were
enough to insulate these men from any similar critique.
But when I think of Sarah Palin's achievements, I keep
recalling a woman friend of mine, the mother of a large family,
who was proposed for the board of a prominent New York charity.
Several men on the board looked at her resume as "thin" -- it
included more than a few years where she did nothing but care for
her children, as well as many other years of prominent community
service. My friend gained her seat partly as a result of the
intervention of a divorced woman, who said, "I can't imagine
being the mother of so many children and accomplishing all that
she has."
That's my honest reaction to Sarah Palin. I can't imagine
being the mother of five and accomplishing all that she has.
If the worst happens and Gov. Palin comes to assume the
highest office in the land, I have confidence she will rise to
the occasion. I believe this because of her past record -- Sarah
Palin always has risen to the occasion in an extraordinary way.
An 80 percent approval rating 18 months into office as governor
of Alaska is, in fact, extraordinary.
Who would you trust to be president of the U.S. and leader of
the Free World: Sarah Palin or Joe Biden? It's not a close
question for me.
May I gently suggest the public intellectuals' discontent with
Gov. Palin has less to do with who she is than with the
contemporary crisis in conservatism brought about by allegiance
to George Bush?
It is time -- more than past -- for a deep rethinking of the
conservative movement in America. But attacks by conservative
pundits on Sarah Palin represent more of a symptom than a step
forward.