The late William F. Buckley once said that “liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.” This quote has been racking my brain recently with Sarah Palin’s return to the national stage. Like most liberals, I’ve been preconditioned to question my own criticism of a conservative figure like Sarah Palin. Am I being an elitist by attacking this woman and ridiculing her oversimplified utterances dressed up as substantive policy declarations? Or is it perfectly okay because Mrs. Palin has put herself out there on the national stage, and thus deserves to have her views questioned? On Feb. 6, the National Tea Party Convention was held in Nashville, Tenn. After seeing Palin’s speech, I’ve decided that she is a fair target for critique.
This convention was billed as the first large gathering of this vague so-called movement that formed last year in opposition to Barack Obama’s policies. Movements often start at the grassroots level with participants who are devoted to it, but with the Tea Party Convention, Sarah Palin was reportedly paid $100,000 to address the attendees, who themselves paid $549 a piece in order to attend. This says two things. First, Mrs. Palin is not a true believer in this Tea Party movement, but an opportunist who is using these people to further her political ambitions while at the same lining her pocket. Second, it says that the convention was a farce, attended by conservative elites who could afford to fork over $549 and not by the “real Americans” Mrs. Palin so cynically claims to represent.
In her speech, Mrs. Palin lobbed many verbal darts. She derisively asked the American people, “How’s that hopey-changey stuff workin’ out for ya,” mocking the 69 million Americans who voted for a new path in 2008. She attacked the administration’s decision to use the term “overseas contingency operation” instead of the word war, as if the words used to describe security operations affect America’s actual national security. Mrs. Palin intentions were clear with this attack: She was trying to make the president appear weak, while knowing full well that President Obama has, much to the dismay of many, increased American troop presence in Afghanistan and drastically increased the number of drone attacks on the Afghan-Pakistani border that kill dozens of innocent Pakistanis every month.
Mrs. Palin, who is rumored to not even know why North and South Korea were separate countries, continued with her assault on President Obama’s national security policy: “And to win [the war on terror], we need a commander in chief, not a professor of law standing at the lectern!” The president routinely signs the letters sent to the families of soldiers and operatives killed in war, and he recently decided to send 30,000 more troops into the Afghan war zone. I do not think he needs a lecture on being a commander in chief from Mrs. Palin, who thinks that Vladimir Putin “rearing his head” over Alaska illustrates her own national security expertise.
Mrs. Palin’s playbook is an old one. It is the same one used by George Wallace and Spiro Agnew. They attack and attempt to paint their political opponents as aloof, intellectual snobs who do not represent everyday Americans.
But what Mrs. Palin fails to realize is that America has changed considerably since the days of Agnew, Nixon and Wallace—that in the America of 2010 we do not want lame slogans of yesteryear. Instead, we want politicians and leaders who will solve the health care crisis, implement policies that will usher in new decent-paying jobs for the unemployed, while at the same time keeping America safe from whatever threats may arise.
Mrs. Palin, on the other hand, speaks in bland terms. She offers no specific, just bumper sticker attacks. She alleges that the President lacks experience when she quit halfway through her first term as the Governor of Alaska. She divides the American people against each other by claiming that some are “real” Americans, thereby implying that others are not. And she outrageously exploits reasonable concerns about President Obama in order to advance her political career and make money.
After her performance at the Nashville convention, members of the establishment press, like David Broder of The Washington Post, claimed that Mrs. Palin is a force to be reckoned with and that she represents a sizable chunk of the American public. I even heard one cable news commentator state flatly that she better represents the views of the American people than any other public figure. On Feb. 11, however, The Washington Post and ABC News published a poll that found that 37 percent of the public view Mrs. Palin favorably, while 55 percent of the public view her unfavorably. Moreover, an astonishing 70 percent of the public believe that she is unqualified to be president.
In her speech, Mrs. Palin said that the Tea Party movement is “a lot bigger than any charismatic guy with a teleprompter.” Well, it also seems that Americans are a lot smarter than an absurd former governor with crib notes on her hands.
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