Why Does Sarah Palin Drive Stupid People Crazy?

Evidently, there is something about Palin that drives her critics crazy. But if they can pause for breath, they might take a lesson from history as to the wisdom of mocking a political figure for a supposed lack of intelligence. The caricature of Eisenhower as Donald Duck did not stop him from twice defeating, in Electoral College landslides, the cerebral Adlai Stevenson, the darling of the intellectual crowd. The Georgetown set's view of Reagan as "an amiable dunce" did not keep voters from giving the Gipper landslide wins over Jimmy Carter, a nuclear engineer known for his propensity to micromanage, in 1980, and Walter Mondale in 1984. And Bush won re-election over John Kerry in 2004 despite being pilloried as Cheney's puppet. NationalJournal _

Although I virtually never think about Sarah Palin without being prompted, I cannot help but notice the high level of criticism that Palin continues to receive -- from all directions. Whenever I trouble myself to look deeply into the criticisms, there is one thing that stands out regardless of the ideological standpoint of the critic: lack of substance, sometimes referred to as stupidity. Palin's critics are virtually always missing the crux of their own arguments -- and getting it wrong. Some of these critics were born stupid and will always be stupid. But a lot of the brighter critics who go bonkers on Palin are clearly letting their emotions get in the way of their thinking. And others -- on both left and right -- who go insane at the mention of Sarah-cuda simply lack enough insight into their own reflexive bigotry to ever penetrate to the essence. Still others -- such as the matronly right-wing intellectuals who sputter and spit at the thought of the former Alaska governor, are simply jealous of the cold-weather huntress' ability to seemingly live a life full of challenges and pain -- and still focus on the simple pleasures of children, family, and a huge, beautiful outdoors.

Yep. Sarah drives them to the brink of stark, raving madness.

Sarah Palin irritates, agitates, angers and annoys some of the self-appointed finest minds of America to a point long past reason. She has been the target, since the night she walked on stage to speak at a Republican convention, of some of the most savage commentary that the great republic has seen since Richard Nixon.

The great difference, of course, is that Nixon earned some of his venom. He practised political hardball. He was a remorseless partisan with an appetite for political vengeance

And he received some he did not earn, by virtue of a personality -- secretive, bitter even in success, humourless, cold and anxious -- that made him, fairly or otherwise, a target for the cruellest and most unrelenting attacks. But in any event, he was the President. He had been in politics for a full generation. For those determined to hate him, there was a large field to till.

But Palin is not the president, nor has she been. She's been a presence in American national politics for only about two years. She is a cheerful human being, with a large family, an apparently easy-going and normal husband. She has a personality that would sell corn flakes -- if not grow them. What career she had in Alaska, she earned. She's at home indoors and out, radiates human warmth, seems to have some balance about herself, and has displayed over the last year or so a considerable fortitude under an avalanche of mockery and hatred. For the final stroke of this cameo I should note she is smart -- smarter than 90% of the people who make a point of how rock-stupid they know she is.

She, by rights, should be queen of the feminists. All that self-reliance, her takeover of Alaska politics, the rocket ride to a Vice-Presidential ticket, a public career she blends with her family life-- these seem gold-standard credentials for a real feminist. But official feminism derides herewith an unspeakable intensity. Her early critics were not beyond the inane claim that she was somehow not really a woman. _NationalPost

I am very unlikely to ever vote for Sarah Palin as a presidential candidate -- unless she is running against an incompetent clown such as Barack Obama. I am certain to never contribute funds to a Palin campaign. As I said, I do not think about Palin unless someone else brings her up in a particularly cloddish manner. Then, it is the critic that appears the moron, not Palin.

Understanding The Sarah Palin Effect in National Post

Palin is no Puppet in National Journal