People shouldn’t apologize for discussing Sarah Palin---but instead of debating the meaning of “rogue” they should be looking up “demagogue:” “A leader who obtains power by means of impassioned appeals to the emotions and prejudices of the populace” (American Heritage Dictionary).

“Bush’s Brain,” Carl Rove (agnostic) understood that extreme faith can be politically exploited. Sarah Palin now appeals to the extreme right-wing far more overtly than George W. Bush ever dared.

Sarah Palin represents a culture of victimhood. Palin spokesperson, Meg Stapleton, illustrates the Palin paradox of self-inflicted, intergenerational pain. While holding her newborn infant at a public gathering (to show family values before TV cameras?) Stapleton dutifully and angrily barked into the poor little tyke’s ear while aiming at someone who had apparently offended her boss.

Palin represents a culture of creative crisis. The following comes from Max Blumenthal’s “The Rogue Way: How Sarah Palin Became Indispensable and Destroyed the GOP” (TomDispatch.com 11-15):

A congressionally funded study of adolescent behavior, Add Health, found that White evangelicals like Bristol Palin lose their virginity around age 16---earlier than any group except Black Protestants.

A study by sociologists Peter Bearman and Hannah Bruckner found that over half of evangelical girls who pledge to stay virginal before marriage will have sex with someone other than a future husband. This study also disclosed that communities with the highest attendance at “purity balls” (vowing chastity until marriage) have some of the nation's highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases.

Abstinence education was mandated since 1995 in Lubbock, Texas---but gonorrhea rates there are now twice the national average and teen pregnancies are the highest in the state.

Blumenthal (author of “Republican Gomorrah...”) quotes Grace Van Diest, a middle-aged Alaskan delegate from Wasilla, at the 2008 Republican National Convention:

"So many families deal with the same issues Sarah Palin is dealing with, so we really can relate to what she is going through."

Van Diest told Blumenthal that each of her daughters went on "a date with their dad" to discuss their pledge to "keep themselves pure until marriage."

A letter in the Anchorage Daily News (“Haycox should review history,“ 11-28) says Stephen Haycox’s piece, “Palin’s anti-intellectualism dangerous,” misreads “conservative middle and lower classes in America.” The letter-writer, Randy Gibbs, claims it “isn’t a mistrust of education, it is a mistrust of the overly educated.”

So, Palin’s followers believe in “values” that don’t work. And, while Palin supporters don’t mind some education---they valiantly oppose any amount of book-learning which might enable “overly educated” persons to figure out for themselves that teaching abstinence and attending those suggestively-named “purity balls” promote neither abstinence nor purity. This makes the perfect constituency for a politician who constantly contradicts herself---and is certainly not “overly educated.”

What might Sarah Palin’s motivation be?

Just up the road from Wasilla, a Willow, Alaska “Willowbilly” says he knew immediately when Palin quit the governorship that her motive was “to form a third party.”

Of course Palin doesn’t have to spell these things out because her followers already get it. Other people are puzzled by the Palin phenomenon because they possess sufficient reason and logic to figure out there is something irrational going on---but don’t quite understand the popular appeal of carefully-calibrated, wishful, worshipful ignorance.

Republicans know instinctively Palin is stealing their extreme-right-wing base---and at a time when they really need the votes since they are now viewed as even more lowdown than liberal Democrats.

The Palin political movement is happening because politics in America has become suitably irrational---the extreme right is merely the most irrational segment of an irrational system.

The Republican political triumph was exploiting the blind zeal of the far right---but Republicans never could fulfill cultural conservative social values because that would have alienated everyone else. Palin explicitly makes conservative social values the cornerstone of her otherwise nebulous campaign---stealing away the Republicans‘ far right base and probably guaranteeing that Barack Obama (who now barely pleases anyone) will get a second term.

Rudy Wittshirk

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MESSAGE FOR THE MORALLY-ELUSIVE -

Phoenix wrote: “I guess you're right it is okay to attack adolescent girls if they dare to put out an abstinence message. Does that mean Obama's kids are game since they stood next to him on the podium? Stick to attacks on the Palin that's running for office.”

I obviously attacked adult hypocrisy---specifically that of “the Palin that’s running for office.” How slippery of you to deflect that obvious moral correction of adults into an “attack” on “adolescent girls.“

Deflecting my moral judgments is just additional adult hypocrisy. If the Obama girls went and got themselves pregnant out of wedlock---and then went on an abstinence tour---I would be “attacking” their mom and dad as well.

Keeping children deliberately ignorant about sex is a form of child abuse---I speak for the hapless Bristol Palin, not against her.

Foreign observer said: “If a person "believes" in the value of abstinence and (here is the catch) lives by it, then it works. I guess those cited in the studies you mentioned could not overcome their human nature or just didn't believe.”

Abstinence “works” whether you “believe” or not---assuming one can get a handle on good old “human nature.” If not, that’s what birth control is for. Again, I come not to judge Bristol but to expose the self-righteousness of adults who seem to believe that learned ignorance is godliness and a qualification for public office.

- RW

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RESPONSES TO RESPONSES:

TO CARPEDIEM:

I may be otherwise “delusional” but I thought I made it quite clear that Palin---while her influence has been desperately sought to help elect various Republicans (with varying results)---she is apparently headed for a third party candidacy.

However, crazy is never to be discounted. The Republicans may well seek her out for the presidential candidacy in spite of all her obvious shortcomings---they went for George W. Bush (and won) didn‘t they?

TO FOREIGN OBSERVER:

I thought I made it quite clear that, if Palin runs as a third party candidate, she will virtually guarantee Barack Obama’s reelection. Even if she runs as a Republican...

No, I am not “saying that Sarah Palin is the ‘Al Sharpton’ of the Republicans.“ I don’t know what that means.

And, yes, I am quite aware that people who have been heavily-highly educated (“overly” is code for people smarter than us) can be real butts with poor judgment. “The danger of excessive education” is just another code for “overly educated.“

TO BRIAN SWEENY (and all others who apparently assume I am an Obama man):

I made it quite clear: Palin running as a third party candidate would make an Obama reelection a virtual certainty. I didn’t say I was rooting for Obama.

I voted for Dennis Kucinich. Well, actually, I couldn’t vote for Kucinich because the media (conservative media? Liberal media? Corporate media?) decided that he would not be allowed to join in the televised debates early on in the running. My opinion of the Obama presidency will be covered in a future Iraq-Afganistan-Pakistan war blog and the upcoming economics blog (which won't have "23-parts!" It was a joke).

You need to discuss Palin’s political support with Phoenix, who apparently (and correctly in my estimation) reckons a fair amount of support for Palin from the “middle.” The “middle“ is, after all, an eternally-confused group that can’t seem to decide which is worse: Republicans or Democrats. But doesn't have the guts/vision to go for a real alternative.

Disregarding the role of The Supreme Court in the first election, my recollection is that George W. Bush and the far right actually boasted that he would never have been elected President both times without the high degree of support from the far right---especially the religious right. The votes of the base and the votes of the middle are all counted in the total. What will happen this time will be interesting in the pejorative sense of the word.

TO PHOENIX:

“Hitting below the belt?” I hope you meant that figuratively instead of literally.

Anyway, wasn’t that Bristol Palin standing there on the podium at the Republican convention? Didn’t she go on various TV shows with her weird abstinence message? She looks like a “public figure” to me.

Sarah Palin---like George W. Bush---is a target-rich environment. You suggest other target areas which I did not cover in my piece. Hey, I aim for “center of mass.”

Of course Palin represents more than extremists. But if you take away the extremist support from either Palin or George W. Bush there is no viable candidacy.

The "middle" just isn't nearly as exciting as the extremes (again, I mean "exciting" in the pejorative sense). I will, however, take on the "independent-moderate-middle-undecideds" at some point.

Hope that clarifies things.

TO BOB GREENE: Congratulations! You have successfully passed through the name-calling, personal insult filter on this here high-class blog. A real credit to your avatar.

- RW