Responding to the argument that we should support Palin for the presidency because she drives the left crazy

James N. writes:

Re “The media’s Palin obsession jumps the shark,” you are slowly beginning to convince me that perhaps there is a better choice than La Pasionaria of the Yukon.

And yet.

Are you not in the least impressed by the fanaticism of her enemies? The NYT, the Washington Post, the enemedia? I sat behind two young lefties at lunch yesterday raving on and on about what Bill Maher had said about her, what they learned from Colbert, from the Daily Show, and they chatted happily about planning her assassination (in that slightly too loud fake pansy way that unites the left, all over the globe).

Perhaps they all see something that you do not? I’m not sure I can define “it,” the property she has that drives all the right people crazy, but I feel it, and I like it.

Sounds stupid, I know. Whenever I express something that makes it sound like my IQ just dropped 30 points, it does worry me a bit.

But there is more—maybe much more—to transformative leadership than policy ideas and position papers. Perhaps you are right, she will endorse Rick Perry, and all of Hollywood and Harvard Square can relax.

But allowing them to relax seems wrong to me. “Never do what your enemy desires, for this reason alone—that he desires it.” Bonaparte said that, and he knew a thing or two about transformation.

LA replies:

That is a standard position of Palin supporters: that one of the best things about Palin, and one of the top reasons to support her, is that she drives the left mad. I think that’s a whacky, destructive reason for supporting someone. I’ve written probably scores of entries pointing out the emptiness and irrationality of a conservatism which operates according to such a desire.

Tell me the good that resulted for our country or for conservatism from eight years of drooling leftist hatred against President Bush. Tell me.

And you’re taking the side of people who now want eight years of an order-of-magnitude more of that same drooling leftist hatred—against President Palin?

James N. replies:

Well, that’s a good point about Bush.

- end of initial entry -

Clark Coleman writes:

David Duke drives the Left crazy with hatred as well. Shall we nominate him for President?

LA writes:

Here’s one of the points I made more than once about conservatives who kvelled over the fact that the Democrts had become insane over Bush. I said: these conservatives WANT half the United States to be insane? They think this is a good thing? They think that it helps our future as a country, for half the country to be insane?

To the contrary, when half a country goes insane, that country is heading over the cliff. But the blind passionate partisanship of mainstream conservatives prevented them from seeing this.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 10, 2011 09:10 AM | Send