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The Left’s Ridiculous Reaction to Anything Involving Sarah Palin.

By: Josh LeGuern (Diary)  |  May 12th, 2011 at 11:02 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

This morning, I decided to post Sarah Palin’s excellent speech detailing her views on foreign policy on my Facebook page. Along with the video I typed, “I don’t know that Palin can win the presidency, but this is an excellent foreign policy speech.”

I posted it, stopped, and decided to delete it and repost it with this headline, “A very sound foreign policy statement. {Taking bets on how many people won’t even watch this and criticize it because of who’s delivering it.}”

I’m tired of having to accommodate the left’s narrative of Sarah Palin. As Yuval Levin noted back in November 2009, Palin has become the representation of all things they believe about the right, even if they’re not true:

“Palin was assigned every view and position the Left considered unenlightened, and the response to her brought into the light all manner of implicit liberal assumptions about cultural conservatives. We were told that Palin was opposed to contraception, advocated teaching creationism in schools, and was inclined to ban books she disagreed with. She was described as a religious zealot, an anti-abortion extremist, a blind champion of abstinence-only sex education. She was said to have sought to make rape victims pay for their own medical exams, to have Alaska secede from the Union, and to get Pat Buchanan elected President. She was reported to believe that the Iraq war was mandated by God, that the end-times prophesied in the Book of Revelation were nearing and only Alaska would survive, and that global warming was purely a myth. None of this was true.”

Indeed. Palin’s not a far right winger by any stretch of the imagination, most of her views fit nicely into the center-right mainstream, with some of her views drifting closer to the center than some conservatives might be comfortable with.

The truth is, Palin is merely a voodoo doll for how liberals feel about conservatives. Their views on Palin and conservatives are full of innuendos and stereotypes.

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COMMENTS

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  • Finrod

    I’ve seen some of the same kinds of stuff about Palin on here, even.

    • Bill S

      when I read the title of the diary in the “Member Diaries” list.

      • acat

        ..and pushed it very hard since they were already taking heat for not vetting the empty suit we now know as President Obama. Not vetting is an understatement – they were, as we’ve painfully discovered, just printing whatever they wanted about *both* candidates.

        What I’ve seen here on Red State is that the inverse is true – people seem to be assigning all kinds of good conservative views to her that run counter to her actual record. That is, some readers are treating Palin just as the media treated Obama.

        What I’d like to know from you, Bill S., is whether this is what you were meaning with your above statement.

        Mew

        • kestrel

          what “good conservative views” are ascribed to her that run counter to her record, and how this is so, with citiations and links please. I predict RS will lose more good commenters (such as JSobieski) if cheap, repetitive comments like yours here don’t stop, acat. Getting banned at RS is starting to seem like it would be no loss.

          • acat

            No need to make more work for the moderators.

            Mew

          • kestrel

            It’s here.

          • acat
          • redneck_hippie
          • http://www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com ColdWarrior

            CW

      • kestrel

        to start providing links and documentation for their statements. It’s time for those who claim that her record is a failure to start demonstrating, with citations, how this is so.

        There are those who continue to distort her record, despite the surplus her policies afforded Alaska and a list of accomplishments that includes substantial spending reductions, incentivizing and expanding drilling for oil and natural gas, investing in state savings, and a commitment to transparency, ethics reform, and tackling corruption…

        …the passion on the part of some to try to tear her down is like nothing I?ve seen in my lifetime. I don?t always catch a glimpse of the woman who scares the daylights out of them. But every now and then I do….

        A liberal Manhattan acquaintance of mine recently hit the nail on the head: ?The thing about Palin that?s so scary is that she actually means what she says. She actually believes it. And she?ll do it. She?ll make it happen.?

        http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/13/why-sarah-palin-scares-them/2/

        • powertothepeople

          It is no different from the few on here who claim Huck is a political god who did nothing but cut taxes all day long. Links are provided, they are ignored, the same people move on to another post making the same arguments and never answer the links provided.

          Same applies to Palin. Links were provided to back opinion and the only thing they would say in response is “you are a hater.” Most of us have better things to do that beat our heads on a wall especially when most Palin fanatics feel if you do not worship her, you hate her.

          • kestrel

            I notice that even the classy Mr. ?Up yours? Becker kept his mouth shut this time.

            One thing that I tell teens and young adults in person is, Practice NOT having the last word. Here’s your chance:

  • chbroussard

    In spite of all the barbs, hateful rhetoric, attacks on her family, and out and out lies, Sarah Palin just keeps on ticking. Though some feel she’s either not qualified or not electable, you have to hand it to the lady. She does not back down. And for that, she’s pretty high on my list of most admired women.

    • donr

      I like how she handles herself
      I would hate to be in a gun fight against her.
      I firmly believe Sarah will be the nominee of the Republican Party, reformed, or a third party.

      I believe she will reform the Republican Party.

  • aesthete

    “Palin?s not a far right winger by any stretch of the imagination, most of her views fit nicely into the center-right mainstream, with some of her views drifting closer to the center than some conservatives might be comfortable with.”

    She is center/populist-right in the McCain tradition more than anything else, at least judging by her record (though she has more of a libertarian streak on social/cultural issues than the more statist McCain, that’s for sure). It’s obvious why the left despises her: cultural bias, pure and simple. Less obvious is why the broad right is so enamored with her.

    • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

      I think that people in politics are guided by beliefs, but they are motivated by emotion, not reason.

      One of the biggest emotional factors for conservatives is the battered politician syndrome, We have seen it since at least the days of Ronald Reagan (and even before). The left control the media, (At one time they controlled literally all of the media) and they will bash and lie about any effective conservative.

      However Ronald Reagan, GW Bush, and now Sarah Palin have fallen into a special category of out right hatred.

      The emotional link between many on the right and Palin is one of Not wanting to see another of ours get savaged by the liberals.

      I think that is about 90% of this factor. These people seem to connect on a much more emotional level than with any other right wing politician in recent memory. They want to jump to her defense, and you see it here at Redstate as well.

      • edintexas

        “They want to jump to her defense…”. Most Conservatives would be ready to “jump to her defense”, no matter who the “her” may be (well, Pelosi, Sheila Jackson Lee and other far, far Leftists excepted). Troglodites that we are, we tend to defend women more readily than men. Drives the “NAGs” nuts – er – nuttier.

      • Common_Cents

        I think this is the difference between left/right when boiled down to its essence. Emotion allows you to rationalize “ends justify the means” whereas reason will not. The right needs to package reason with more emotion to reach new voters, something we are not very good at.

        Look at Barry’s campaign, completely devoid of reason, all hocus pocus emotion. His advantage was the totally complicit media as accomplice.

        We need to change the image of conservatism as “tastes bad, but is for your own good” to selling the benefits of it, appealing to the powerful motivating emotional drive.

      • acat

        Don’t be surprised if you get grief for it, by the way.

        Mew

  • 20jan2013
    • 20jan2013
    • audax
  • msctex

    Hate always plays a role in the Progressive movement and mind. Where Reason has lost a foothold, Hate ALWAYS finds a place in any mass movement. This is the same irrational, genuinely inexplicable Hate they aimed at Bush while he was in office, just redirected. They have made a sort of peace with Bush, and they will someday do the same with Palin, once she is for whatever reason no longer a perceived threat.

    The best way to explain what is actually at work here is to remember what happened between Gore Vidal and William Buckley in a debate. Vidal called Buckley every name in the book, and Buckley responded in kind. But after the debate, Buckley was livid and ready to strangle Vidal. But Vidal approached Buckley and said, “Well, I think that went very well, don’t you?”, or words to that effect. Buckley was stunned to realize Vidal saw it all as a mere manipulation of public perception, as opposed to any sort of genuine display.

    The point is, the Hate is harnessed by their leaders, but genuinely felt only by idiots dumb enough to believe in such people to begin with. It is quite real, but can dissipate in an instant, once the next threat presents itself.