Reader retracts his strong criticism of my anti-Palin stand

LA to Anthony Damato, September 24:

I’m still planning to reply to your critical comment of early September about my position on Palin. It just hasn’t been the right time for it.

Anthony Damato replies:

Sounds like it was a comment worthy of lengthy reflection. I forgot what it was I even said.

LA replies:

You made a fundamental challenge to my whole position that I needed to reply to, but somehow I haven’t gotten around to it yet. I started a draft of an entry and gave it a title but haven’t written anything. Here it is:

On Palin, am I a Puritan living in a poetical dream world of Platonic absolutes?

Anthony Damato wrote (September 3):

I think your expectations are way too high for any person, or society to meet. The conservatism you seek is history. We know America never was the place we all imagine it to have been. Yes, it had its golden age perhaps right after WWII which best identified the American Ideal, but it was short lived.

The morality and character of this nation has changed for the worst, as it has for all civilizations before us.

For you to oppose Sarah Palin because her daughter is pregnant, is too prudish, even for me. I cannot blame her for her daughter’s decision. After seeing how truly impressive she is, I am willing to overlook her extended negatives. Is an out-of-wedlock child anathema to conservatism? Yes. Was a divorced man named Reagan in the same category? Yes. But he was a capable president despite real life contradictions to ideological affiliations..

You inhabit a world that does not now, nor ever has existed. A place where the human condition is trumped by lofty edicts of logic and pure reason. It is clearly evident that your ideals reveal a distinctly poetic streak that in many ways renders your brilliant insights crushed under the realities of the living breathing real world.

LA replies: [not written yet]

In the present, Anthony replies:

Funny how hindsight is 20/20. Reading my own reasonable sounding opinion, after reading your subsequent post on questions of Palin’s actual intelligence, that is, her lack of non-scripted candid talk on various issues, is making me feel pretty humble right now.

LA replies:

I’m not sure what your point is. Please explain.

Anthony replies:

My point is, she had me captivated. I simply feel at this moment that mostly all American political leaders for the most part have become, or view themselves as, movie stars. And stardom is not about the cold, hard truths of life, but about fulfilling other peoples fantasies. So, a real result of the media, glamour, persona of the 21st century is deceit.

LA replies:

Are you saying that you no longer think I was in a dream world etc. in my criticisms of her?

Anthony replies:

Yup.

- end of initial entry -

Gintas writes:

“My point is, she had me captivated.”

So she is not, after all, Dulcinea? Once again, you play Sancho Panza to another love-struck Don Quixote.

LA replies:

Me? Sancho Panza? That doesn’t fit somehow.

Also, Sancho, as I remember, for all his worries and complaints, never succeeds in persuading Don Quixote that his ideas are wrong.

Gintas replies:

It was a humble comparison. Did not Sancho humbly and simply speak the clear truth about things? Or did you mean you are not short and fat and donkey-riding?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 26, 2008 10:01 AM | Send