Billy Paultz Reconsidered

I was sure I had already posted this, but apparently not…

It’s the definitive takedown of Sarah Palin made all the more so because it’s by a conservative former Reagan staffer, and because it appeared in the Wall Street Journal. 

It’s all good, but here’s a money passage:

” ‘[It’s said that] The elites hate her.” The elites made her. It was the elites of the party, the McCain campaign and the conservative media that picked her and pushed her. The base barely knew who she was….

“She makes the Republican Party look inclusive.” She makes the party look stupid, a party of the easily manipulated.

“Now she can prepare herself for higher office by studying up, reading in, boning up on the issues.” Mrs. Palin’s supporters have been ordering her to spend the next two years reflecting and pondering. But she is a ponder-free zone. She can memorize the names of the presidents of Pakistan, but she is not going to be able to know how to think about Pakistan. Why do her supporters not see this? Maybe they think “not thoughtful” is a working-class trope!

“Turning to others means the media won!” No, it means they lose. What the mainstream media wants is not to kill her but to keep her story going forever. She hurts, as they say, the Republican brand, with her mess and her rhetorical jabberwocky and her careless causing of division. Really, she is the most careless sower of discord since George W. Bush, who fractured the party and the movement that made him. Why wouldn’t the media want to keep that going?