The conservatives’ undisguised intellectual cowardice

In the four or so days since Sarah Palin’s barely-keeping-her-head-above-water interview with Katie Couric, there have been only two, reluctant, non-substantive references to it at the Corner. Two days ago, Kathryn Jean Lopez mentioned it—but only in defensive response to a reader who had pointed out that that the Corner had been completely silent about it. And yesterday Peter Robinson wrote this:

When Sarah Met Katie [Peter Robinson]

From a reader, commenting, again, on my column for Forbes this week:

I desperately want Sarah Palin to continue to be an asset to the ticket. Having said that, I don’t see how you can possibly publish the statement “In just under a week, she had mastered the interview format” with a date of September 26th. Did you not see the Couric interview? I would suggest that she has not only not mastered the format but is, in fact, regressing.

No, to be honest, I didn’t see the Couric interview—I had to file the column before the interview aired. Do the emails in my inbox make me eager to watch the interview on YouTube? No they do not.

What a perfect expression of the chestless “conservatives” who inhabit NRO! Robinson, without embarrassment, states that he doesn’t want to see a Palin interview in which Palin did not do well. He publicly admits that he doesn’t want to know an unpleasant truth. What a man! What an American!

Meanwhile, over at Powerline, that website that follows like a bloodhound every twist and turn in the campaign, that is constantly on the lookout for any unfair statement about McCain or Bush, no matter how deeply buried it may be in the back pages of the Washington Post, there is no mention of the Palin interview. The Powerline guys don’t care how it makes them look that they ignore a significant story that is tough for their side. They don’t care that it makes them look like intellectual cowards.

What ought they to have done? At least grapple with it. At least acknowledge that this was not a great performance by Palin. They could have said something like, they’re not happy with it, but she’s a newbie on the national stage and she will steadily grow more assured. Their refusal even to say that much suggests that they themselves don’t believe it. So they’ve hunkered down, hoping that no one notices how unimpressive their VP candidate was.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 27, 2008 11:49 AM | Send