The Blog Formerly Known As Vote '08

Apparently those conservatives who have (rightly, in my view) raised doubts about the ultimate efficacy of Sarah Palin as a candidate are getting some flak - major flak - for doing so.

Kathleen Parker wrote this column last week, in which she said:

“Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.“

& for this stance those who believe Palin can do no wrong were not happy, to put it mildly. From her latest column:

Allow me to introduce myself. I am a traitor and an idiot. Also, my mother should have aborted me and left me in a Dumpster, but since she didn’t, I should “off” myself.

Those are just a few nuggets randomly selected from thousands of e-mails written in response to my column suggesting that Sarah Palin is out of her league and should step down.

…

Such extreme partisanship has a crippling effect on government, which may be desirable at times, but not now. More important in the long term is the less-tangible effect of stifling free speech. My mail paints an ugly picture and a bleak future if we do not soon correct ourselves.

The picture is this: Anyone who dares express an opinion that runs counter to the party line will be silenced. That doesn’t sound American to me, but Stalin would approve. Readers have every right to reject my opinion. But when we decide that a person is a traitor and should die for having an opinion different than one’s own, then we cross into territory that puts all freedoms at risk. (I hear you, Dixie Chicks.)

Parker’s not the only one.

Here’s an excerpt from the latest column by BeliefNet’s Rod Dreher, who criticized the Palin choice recently on Larry King Live:

“I did get this morning an e-mail from…a very thoughtful young conservative intellectual. He writes:

“I have to say your actions of the last week have cast serious doubt on your qualities as a man and as a christian. Even if all you say about Palin is true (personally, I believe it’s far too early to tell), to say so on national television fails a minimal decency test that any christian always has to set himself. Never mind Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment, it is just really poor judgement to openly attack another person whom you have never met. How do you square that with love your neighbor like yourself? Are we not supposed to set a standard for others. Isn’t that what being a city on a hill is all about? I fear your behavior is indicative of the total crisis of faith in which the conservative movement finds itself right now. And it makes me really, really depressed.”

Ah. So, if I, in my professional role as a columnist, blogger and commentator, criticize the public acts and statements of a conservative politician — even if what I say is true — well, then I am a bad man and an indecent Christian. To attack openly a person one has never met is immoral — a standard that would make the practice of opinion journalism (for one) impossible. I wonder why I’ve never received from this reader a comment attacking my integrity as a man and as a Christian when I was criticizing Barack Obama on this blog, or anybody else but Sarah Palin? I wonder if this reader has applied the same absurd standard to his own commentary about Obama? I wonder if this fellow is in the habit of passing judgment on the state of other people’s souls based on their analysis of a politician’s qualities?

As for Reagan’s 11th Commandment — “Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican” — that bit of dubious bit of strategic wisdom (the leftist version of it is, “No enemies to the left,” which the mainstream French left, during the Cold War, used to justify its turning a blind eye to what the Communists really represented) is a proverb useful to political hacks, not to commentators. In fact, if you want to cite an example of a “total crisis of faith” among conservatives, you could hardly do better than the missive above, instructing conservatives critical of the vice presidential nominee that it’s their duty as Christian men to pretend that what we plainly see doesn’t exist — this, for the sake of the Cause. Since when is loyalty to anything other than the truth done anybody any good? Did conservatives’ who knew better withholding criticism of George W. Bush’s failings serve the country, or the conservative movement, well? I’m only surprised the reader didn’t tell me that it was my obligation as the Empress’s subject to lavish praise on her new clothes.

UPDATE: And you know what we get with this kind of thing? Eight years after conservatives embraced Bush as the embodiment of all that is just and Right(-wing), and eight years after loyalty to the Cause trumped all criticism of the man, even useful criticism, we have gotten to a state in which conservatives are running around saying they never liked him, that Bush was never a true conservative. Why? Because he failed. Had Bush had a successful presidency, they’d be singing a different tune. We’re bound and determined to make the same mistakes with Palin, it seems.”

& finally, conservative commentator (& major Palin critic) Andrew Sullivan ties the argument up in a bow:

“There is something very sick about a political movement that cannot tolerate the mildest of criticisms from within. American conservatism has stopped being a discourse or a tradition or a party. It has become a religion of sorts, and dissent - even on pragmatic grounds - is regarded as heresy. That’s how movements go astray. They cannot criticize themselves or acknowledge failures.”

They’re all right.

Regardless of your beliefs, you should remember what makes this country great.

It’s not the “correct ideology.”

It’s the capacity to tolerate a multitude of them.

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