First, go read this piece by David Brooks, one of many conservative gasbags given space by The New York Times.
No, I know it hurts, but try to read the whole thing.
Done? Okay. Now we can talk.
WHAT THE HELL IS THE DEAL WITH DAVID BROOKS? The title alone--The Palin Rebound--seems a bit off. After all, the debate just happened. There's no way of knowing whether there's a rebound on the way. Wishing doesn't make it so, Dave.
The I-know-better-than-you tone of Brooks' writing meshes perfectly with his world view. Of course he thinks Palin's tiresome litany of hockey moms, Joe Sixpacks and Main Streets speaks to her strengths, because Brooks is ever ready to deploy the exact same lineup of cliches. "To many ears," Brooks writes, "her accent, her colloquialisms and her constant invocations of the accoutrements of everyday life will seem cloying. But in the casual parts of the country, I suspect, it went down fine."
Wow. Could Brooks possibly be more patronizing? We're not "casual" here in the hinterlands, jackhole, we're just trying to hang on to whatever lousy jobs we might have, stranded as we are by the Bush economy, the economy Brooks never saw a problem with until very, very recently. And yes, even to us blue-collar know-nothings, Palin seems very, very cloying. Sure, she has admirers among the working class crowd, but many more detractors, who view her as pathetically unqualified for the job she seeks.
Despite his gushing about Palin's stance--"the fearless neighbor for the heartland bemused by the idiocies of Washington"--Brooks can't seriously believe this intellectual flyweight is competent to be leader of the free world, especially at this point in history. The Decider-In-Chief (who, I can't stress this enough, continued to earn endless hosannas from Brooks until very, very recently) pretty much drove the nation into the ground, and it needs someone, anyone, with a shred of competency to even attempt righting it again.
Surely, in his heart of hearts, Brooks knows Palin isn't that person. But that won't stop him from saying he believes it. Whores do what they're paid to do.
