Goodby, Palin

I heard tonight that Sarah Palin is re-commencing her “One Nation” bus tour this week, after breaking it off just a few days after she initially started it to vast fanfare three months ago. She has announced that she wants to tour our country’s historic state fairs, and will visit one state fair in particular. Guess which state’s fair, out of 50 states, it is? Iowa, the first state of the Republican caucuses and primaries—Iowa, where there just happened to be a Republican presidential debate tonight and where there will be an important Republican straw poll later in the week.

More precisely, she will visit the state fair tomorrow, Friday.

The straw poll will take place the next day, Saturday.

So Palin, not a candidate for president, in the most blatant and disgusting way imaginable, is seeking to step all over and distract attention from the people who actually have thrown their hats in the ring and are campaigning. This woman is not just grandiose and disturbingly egocentric. She’s sick.

Since September 1, 2008, while I have consistently criticized Palin and said she should not be vice president or president, I have also consistently defended her from unfair criticism and attacks. She has now made it much harder to continue defending her in any way. She’s an appalling person.

UPDATE: In its article on Palin’s announced visit to the state fair, the Washington Post reports:

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the current GOP front-runner in the presidential race, is scheduled to campaign at the fairgrounds on Thursday. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty are due there Friday, and a slew of other candidates are planning to make the rounds, too.

So Palin, with her ability to attract massive amounts of attention, is going to the fair the same day that the actual candidates Bachmann and Pawlenty are going to campaign there. I repeat: this is an appalling human being.

August 12

David H. writes:

She accepted the fair’s specific INVITATION to attend. She is running for president in her own way which is her right. Its obvious to me that you have absorbed the evil msm’s view of Sarah. You are harming the cause more than your helping with your elitist sneers of a good person.

LA replies:

Don’t tell me I’ve “absorbed” anyone’s view of her. If you’ve been reading this site for more than five minutes, you know that I have my own view of things, which I arrive at for reasons I give, just as I have in this case. And did someone hold a gun to her head and force her to accept the invitation? She receives hundreds of invitations, of which she accepts only a small number. If you are such an unthinking Palin adherent that you feel that my opposing her proves that I am under the thumb of the liberal media, if you share the general opinion of Palin supporters that that there are no reasonable criticisms of her to be made from the right, and that anyone who criticizes her must be on the left, then you are free not to read such a dishonest, liberal, sneering, elitist blogger as you believe me to be. I have lost readers before over my much milder criticisms of Palin in the past, and I am prepared to lose more over my much stronger criticisms of her now. But, based on her latest move, I have come to the conclusion that she is an appalling person and I have said so.

LA continues:

And by the way, I have said that I would vote for any Republican nominee pledged to repeal Obamacare, no matter how otherwise appalling that nominee might be, and that still stands. And I am saying that as someone who has not voted for the Republican nominee in 20 years. But I will vote for the GOP nominee in 2012, if he’s pledged to sign the repeal of Obamacare, because the necessity of repealing Obamacare transcends all other issues that would be immediately affected by that election.

Dan R. writes:

This is the last year for Palin. She must run a strong race or her stock begins to fall, and with Bachmann running well I don’t think she’ll even enter the race. If only Palin were what her deluded supporters on the right and her rabid detractors on the left thought she was.

August 13

Murray L. writes:

I want to remind you of a comment you posted last year titled “Me and Sarah”:

“The main thrust of the criticisms I’ve received over my November 8 entry, ‘Palin’s moronic remark about Reagan,’ is not that I should never criticize Palin or that any criticism of Palin is unacceptable. It is that my harsh tone was objectionable. I take the point. In the interests of comity and the avoidance of unnecessary divisions among conservatives, in the future, when I criticize Palin, I will strive not to use overly charged language.”

I took you at your word and found it both welcome and generous, especially in light of our contentious interchange. Now you say that Palin, “in the most blatant and disgusting way imaginable,” is drawing attention away from legitimate campaigners at the Iowa Straw Poll, that “This woman is not just grandiose and disturbingly egocentric. She’s sick,” that “She’s an appalling person,” that “this is an appalling human being,” and finally, “based on her latest move, I have come to the conclusion that she is an appalling person and I have said so.” Is there something that I’m missing in once again finding such characterizations of Palin over the top, or do you mean them as an example of “charged language” but not “overly” charged?

LA replies:

You’re right. That language is not within the range I said I would maintain in my statements about her. I have changed my position on how I would speak about her, because my view of her has changed. I regard her as reprehensible. She’s about nothing but herself.

And I further believe that people who support her and identify with her (as a “real” person, a “real” American) thereby commit themselves to defending this selfish and appalling human being.

At the Iowa fair last night, Sean Hannity was interviewing her supporters. They praised her as a person who “makes up her own rules.” They didn’t seem to realize that this is a description normally given to anarchists and criminals. Since when do Americans, let alone “conservatives,” support a person who makes up her own rules and is not subject to the rules and the restraints on one’s passions that other people are subject to? Is that what Palin’s supporters want in a leader? And these are “conservatives”?

One of the people interviewed by Hannity said that Palin reminded him of Howard Dean. Hannity, probably thinking of Dean’s image as an unrestrained character, a madman, said, “Oh, I don’t like that,” and ended the interview. Thus Palin’s allies in the “conservative” media cover up critical statements and critical truths about her. She is an unrestrained character. Sane and responsible people don’t look to unrestrained characters as their leaders. To the extent that Palin is in our faces, and the conservatives are committed to defending her, the entire conservative movement is led astray, as it was with its wholehearted, unthinking championing of Bush and his unrestrained spending and neocon-inspired Muslim-democratization policies. Many of them now have become critical of Bush and see his policies as ruinous. They weren’t critical of him at the time, they supported him to the hilt. I would like conservatives to avoid an even greater mistake with Palin.

I’m sorry if this puts you off. But that is my view.

Murray replies:

I am never put off by conversations in which I can expect a reasonable give and take over points of view with which I disagree. I am allergic, however, to intemperate language and rigidity of mind, no matter what political opinion is being expressed. Thank you for your opening admission and considered reply. In my reading of Palin, your points are open to debate, but, no, I do not recoil from your argument as you express it here.

JC writes from Houston:

I agree with you about Palin. In my opinion she is indeed nothing but an egotistical, crass publicity hound who can’t stand the thought of anyone else being in the spotlight. I’ve never been impressed by her speeches, which are full of trivial banalities. Whenever I hear her speak I get that chalk on a blackboard feeling. Even worse are her robotic, worshipful groupies who are completely enthralled by her cult of personality. They are the mirror image of the unthinking Obamaites.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 11, 2011 10:46 PM | Send