Hmmmm. I'm not sure I buy the argument here. Certainly the opposition to Palin is rooted in part in her gender and social class and the flags she raises about abortion and evangelical Christianity. But McCain's choice of her as a running mate was rooted in precisely the same things. Is one OK and the other not?

Of course, as you point out, none of this started with Governor Palin. Hillary Clinton faced her own eight-year witch hunt, during which she was accused of, among many other things, drug running and murder (making Palin's attackers look downright measured, at least by contrast). So the haters work both sides of the political aisle. That doesn't make it ok, of course, but it does provide some perspective that Mr. Douthat fails to acknowledge. And while Sarah Palin has certainly faced investigations, she has not yet endured anything remotely resembling the nearly endless Whitewater investigations of the 1990s.

As for the hatred Palin seems to engender, I'm sure part of it is, as the commenter above suggests, rooted in her gender and social class. But it would probably also have helped if her handlers hadn't chosen to introduce her to the world with such a nasty and contemptuous speech ("I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities").

Finally, it must also be remembered that Governor Palin went on the stump last year and accused Barack Obama of "palling around with terrorists", a charge that, in our current political climate, is far more damning than anything that has been said about her.

In short, I simply find nothing extraordinary about the way Sarah Palin has been treated by the media, new or old. Perhaps that in itself should be considered an even stronger indictment of contemporary U.S. politics, as practiced by both the left and right.

"...Governor Palin went on the stump last year and accused Barack Obama of "palling around with terrorists", a charge that, in our current political climate, is far more damning than anything that has been said about her."

It's also far more demonstrably true. Bill Ayers is an unrepentant terrorist--the only thing he regrets is not doing more--and while the full extent of his and Obama's relationship may never be known, Obama's political career began by traveling within Ayers' orbit in Hyde Park.

I agree with ScottF regarding the disgusting treatment of the Clintons by their political opponents, but an important difference vis a vis Palin is that the media elite is very much more on the side of her enemies than they were on the side of Dennis Hastert, Ken Starr, Jerry Falwell, et al., back in the 90s.

In short, I simply find nothing extraordinary about the way Sarah Palin has been treated by the media, new or old.

Well, I don't recall the media (blogs and late night comics included) savaging the children of any other political figure, a practice which has continued to the present, long after President Obama was elected.

That might be an example of extraordinary treatment, might it not?

Well, I don't recall the media (blogs and late night comics included) savaging the children of any other political figure...might be an example of extraordinary treatment, might it not?

no:

http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/000930.htm

In response to some of the other commenters on this thread, I'll simply quote directly from Camille Paglia herself (salon.com, September 22, 1999):

"While I probably should have some pity for the progeny of our imperial White House duo, I couldn't help but laugh uproariously at the wacky Web site, 'Is Webster Hubbell Chelsea Clinton's Real Father?'"

Laugh, uproariously. Wacky. Ha ha.

I'm not making this up: http://mobile.salon.com/people/col/pagl/1999/09/22/paglia/index1.html

So, really, the treatment of Sarah Palin and her family is anything but unprecedented. As for the elite media, I remember them luxuriating over nearly every tawdry detail of the Starr Report. They still giggle whenever anyone mentions unsmoked cigars.

In the end, our national media are neither liberal nor conservative: they are, instead, addicted to squeaky wheels and shiny objects, and will beat any story to death so long as it sells papers and bolsters ratings (thus the ludicrously disproportionate coverage given this week to the death of Michael Jackson).

The Clintons were good copy.

Sarah Palin is good copy.

For better or worse, that is how life now operates in this cable TV era of politics as entertainment. Sarah Palin, new to the business and cocooned in Alaska, had no idea what would come her way. Hillary Clinton, a lifetime political veteran, did.

That's apparently why Clinton could take it and Palin ultimately could not.

1)Sarah Palin is resented by many because she has succeeded–in a big way–without having an “elite” college degree or an advanced degree, and without even adopting the mannerisms of speech which signify such credentials. This seems to be deeply threatening to many people.

I suspect Palin is particularly disliked by members of the "lumpenintellectual" class--those who have invested time & money in getting an advanced degree (often in a not-very-rigorous subject) and now find themselves as poorly-paid adjuncts (if they are lucky) or working at Starbucks (if they are not). For these people, their possession of a degree and their self-identification as highly-educated are very important ego factors. The situation is much like that of washed-up aristocracy, with titles and heavily-mortgaged lands but no money, toward the
emerging commercial classes.

2)I'm not sure the American witch-hunts were any larger or scope than those that took place all over Europe and probably in other parts of the world as well.

David, I agree with what you say about the lumpenintellectual resentment. I was amazed, last fall, at the sorts of things I read about Sarah Palin on otherwise thoughtful academic blogs. On the history of witch hunting -- if you have time and interest, you might check out John Demos' book, The Enemy Within. He places New England in the long history of witch hunting, showing how the Puritans inherited the practice from Europe--but also how, by the time Salem rolled around, European witch hunting had pretty well been out of style for many decades. While Europe headed into the Enlightenment, the Puritans held onto this superstitious, parochial practice--and went nuts with it--at an anachronistic moment; they saw themselves as enlightened, as utopian, as exemplary, and yet they created a perfect intolerant unenlightened storm in 1692. It's hard not to see that as a formative moment in our national history. To the extent that we trace our national genealogy (part of it, anyway) to the grand concept of the city on a hill, we have to think of witch hunting as a distinctively American form of collective failure.

Erin...book sounds interesting...I'll try to find it.

Also, see Joel Kotkin's article on "gentry" and "populist" factions within the Democratic Party. Can be found by searching "kotkin gentry" at newgeography-dot-com.

Alex, I condemn what Limbaugh and McCain said (notice I didn't merely say "I don't approve" of what they said).

But I see a vast difference in the sheer number of attacks against Palin's kids, the nastiness (including sexual references), the breadth (if only the nastiness were limited to a few head cases), and the duration (the viciousness did not subside once the election was over).

Feel free to disagree (I strongly support your right to see the two situations as morally equivalent).

I think there are a couple of other lessons here. One is to know thyself. Palin doesn't have what it takes to succeed in politics at the highest levels, yet (still!) seems utterly oblivious to that fact. She comes across as foolish not just because of her ignorance and disfluency, but because of her lack of self-awareness. (I'm sure there are plenty of politicians who succeed reasonably well despite ignorance and a tendency to babble, but at least have some awareness that these are weaknesses and work to overcome them or at least cover them up.)

Another lesson is not to take certain cliches too seriously. It's as if I kept showing up at Olympic basketball tryouts even though I just don't have what it takes, and kept making a fool of myself, but kept coming back anyway because, by golly, in America anyone can succeed at anything if they just work hard enough. Well, it ain't necessarily so. My first drubbing on the court might elicit a bit of admiration, but the next would get me only ridicule, and the next only pity--which is where I suspect Palin is heading.

As for the "hideous and unspeakable costs of contemporary American politics," well, sure--it's a tough game. But the extra costs Palin has been paying--above and beyond those paid by other politicians--have been incurred not because she's a woman, or an evangelical, or a mother--but because of her stunning political incompetence, and her equally stunning lack of awareness of that incompetence. When you turn in a performance like she did in the Katie Couric interview you either pick up your game, get off the court, or get ridiculed by the spectators (and watch your team continue to lose).

What she needs right now is a coach honest enough and caring enough to take her out of the game.

I live in a pretty big city and work among elites: prep school, Ivy League grads who now work in government, business, education, and the media. Last year, I talked to many people who had legitimate and intelligent gripes against Palin (many of which are articulated on the feminist blog linked by Erin above), but far more of my colleagues and contacts didn't simply see Sarah Palin as individually unfit for office. No, they declared themselves opposed to All People Like Her: people from rural and suburban areas, people who went to state schools, people who hunt, people who go to church, and people who don't pay deference to the usual big-city pieties. Palin's specific flaws did not matter. She was openly declared "white trash" (and far worse things) in my office by angry elites who expected me to join in the chorus and expressed confusion when I resisted their Several Month Hate.

Of course, I grew up in a suburb, I went to a state school, as did all of my friends and family, some of whom hunt, go to church, and are too busy working to follow every dumb, wonky controversy. Some of them are Republicans, others are Democrats, but I learned last fall from my foaming-at-the-mouth coworkers and colleagues that my non-elite loved ones, by virtue of their class, are seen as subhuman trash. I also realized that by extension, my colleagues have no understanding of or respect for the extra work I had to do to achieve what they believed was theirs by birthright.

I'm not as discouraged from climbing the elite career latter as Douthat suggests I should be, but that's okay. As I move into greater positions of power, I'll remember which of my colleagues were capable of having a civil political disagreement versus the ones who flew into monstrous fits of rage at the mere mention of Sarah Palin. Apparently some people think it's normal to stand up in a workplace and bellow epithets that wouldn't pass most blogs' profanity filters.

Did I like Sarah Palin? Not particularly. I thought she was simplistic and pandering, as politicians often are. But her candidacy was useful to me in that it gave me a sense of what some of my co-workers say behind my back. In the end, the joke is on them, because when CVs come in from state-school graduates, I'll be giving them a closer look than the ones from Ivy Leaguers...and I won't be doing any more favors for my less civil colleagues.

J Remarque..."I'm not as discouraged from climbing the elite career latter as Douthat suggests I should be"...I'd say your odds of success are highly dependent on what industry you're in. If you're in manufacturing, software, energy, or transportation, then you're probably in pretty good shape--you have a reasonable chance of being judge according to your abilities and performance. If you're in financial services, especially investment banking, then things are more problematic--as is also the case in consulting. If you're in the "non-profit" sector, then you'll probably be laboring under an immense burden in competition with Trustafarians.

But the extra costs Palin has been paying--above and beyond those paid by other politicians--have been incurred not because she's a woman, or an evangelical, or a mother--but because of her stunning political incompetence, and her equally stunning lack of awareness of that incompetence.

The 'extra costs' Gov. Palin and her family have been paying now consist of six figures in legal fees from answering frivolous ethics complaints. Efforts on the part of her supporters to raise funds to pay her legal bills resulted in yet another ethics complaint. That is not the result of her 'incompetence'. That is the legal system and political culture in Alaska.

It is also highly unusual that the children of a former vice presidential candidate attract any attention at all and the bulk of the media managed to leave Chelsea Clinton in peace when her father was the sitting president. That phenomenon is not the result of Gov. Palin's 'incompetence' either.

A discussion of her legal problems is here.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124700261179807839.html

That is not the result of her 'incompetence'. That is the legal system and political culture in Alaska.

Yes, it IS the result of incompetence--political incompetence. No competent politican would fail to account for her legal system and political culture.

A year ago, Alaska had exactly the same ethics laws it has today, yet Palin was functioning quite well as governor. What has changed since then? Not her religion, not her political philosophy, not the ethics laws, and certainly not her sex. The key changes are that she has positioned herself as a national figure, thereby attracting the attention of the national opposition and exposing her considerable vulnerabilities at that national level. And taking that step up was an act of political incompetence--McCain's for not assessing her objectively, and Palin's for not knowing her own political immaturity.

As a result of that incompetence she has become vulnerable to the political attacks you mention--unable to function effectively in her legal and political situation. The opposition doesn't launch these kinds of attacks against a governor with a 90-plus percent approval rating. The national Democratic Party doesn't go out of its way to assist the locals unless you position yourself as a threat on the national level. And the national media doesn't pile on if you're only a local figure. Of course, it's possible to shut that opposition up--if you're competent to play the game at that level. But not if you can't give a coherent answer to Katie Couric on national TV.

I would say that not knowing these things is very much political incompetence. Yes, the media is unfair, the electorate is sexist, classist, hypocritical, etc., etc. But political competence understands all that and takes it into account. Palin (and McCain) didn't.

re the Wall Street Journal's cursory and shallow discussion of Palin's legal problems--a discussion that seems to be sourced only to "a confidant of the governor's," for another perspective, click
here. This opposing view is as one-sided as John Fund's, but at least has the advantage of not being mere stenography.