Palin Envy, a freudian diagnosis for our cojones-challenged GOP establishment?

“I’m interested in the gratuitous disparagement of men whose looks and personal style fail to track the masculine stereotype,” Ann Althouse (above) took Rush Limbaugh to task this morning over his sissy-laced rant about Wikileaker Julian Assange: “I like Rush Limbaugh and have defended him many times, in front of people who tend to hate you if you say anything good about him, so I think my opinion on the subject has special weight … And let me invite Rush to … diavlog with me about the so-called chickification problems that plague our world today.” Video here.

“Loved this that you told the Big Guy,” we wrote in the comments of Althouse’s incandescent, must-experience video-post “Here I am listening — for the first time — to Rush Limbaugh talking about me“:

“To say men are like women when they’re being cowardly and weak. I don’t like it … Also, some chickification is a good thing. Women have a lot to offer. Think about it.”

Exactly. As we wrote a few months back about the so-called feminization of our culture:

It isn’t “feminization” at all, but, rather, postmodern, identity-politics “feminism” — one of a cascade of unfortunate byproducts of the Gramscian march through the institutions — that has given us an increasingly impotent chattering class of credulous Chris Matthewses of both sexes.

Twittering this morning about the latest effluence from that impotent chattering class — MSNBC’s “house conservative” Joe Scarborough’s Journolist/Cabalist temper tantrum about Sarah Palin’s “anti-intellectual”‘ and “dopey dream” of being president, and how come nobody’s paying attention to me!? (h/t Dan Riehl) — we stumbled upon this seductive metaphor from Lisa B:

Now we have a new psychological disorder in addition to Palin Derangement Syndrome. Palin Envy is rampant! Paging Dr. Sigmund Freud!

As we said in response:

Your Freudian “PALIN ENVY” is brilliant, by the way, given the cojones-challenged state of our GOP establishment.

Crossposted at sisu,  Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Sarah Palin’s words: “A realness that’s not common in the political world”

“While most politicians today focused their criticism on Wikileaks for releasing a quarter of a million classified State Department documents, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin instead took aim at the Obama administration for the leak,” reports CBS News. The incident “raises serious questions about the Obama administration’s incompetent handling of this whole fiasco,” she disintermediated the “lamestream media” this afternoon via her Facebook page. (AP photo)

By Sissy Willis of sisu

“Like George W. Bush, Sarah Palin has somehow turned a lack of genuine accomplishment, an absence of curiosity about the world around her and an apparent inability to communicate in complete, declarative sentences into a strong image of a plain spoken, no-nonsense, ‘I’m one of you’ populist,” writes bemused Johns Hopkins Professor of Political Communication Dave Helfert, signaling to his Huffington Post readers that he is a member of the tribe. “Somehow,” indeed. Where’s your own intellectual curiosity, Prof. Helfert? If you’re looking for engagement with “the world around her,” try tuning in to the Discovery Channel Sunday nights for “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.” Instead, the author parrots the Journolist/Cabalist playbook:

The Republican establishment isn’t going to have a lot of luck trying to bring her into the fold. She is not going to be muzzled, controlled or eclipsed. They know she wasn’t trying to promote the Republican agenda with her somewhat bizarre Facebook endorsements. She was promoting Sarah Palin. Their only hope is to find someone who can shine as bright as she does, but with substance.

We guess it depends upon what your definition of “the Republican agenda” is, not to mention “substance.” The HuffPo writer correctly senses the GOP establishment’s Palinophobia but hasn’t a clue as to what motivates Palin herself. It’s the constitutional conservatism, stupid! As for us Country-Class rubes clinging to our guns and religion out here:

When they do focus on politics, they tend to make judgments using the same criteria they do on everything else. Does it make sense? Does it waste money? Is it going to make my life better or worse? Does it agree or conflict with my values? Do those people in Washington understand what’s important to me?

Do YOU understand “what’s important to me” sir? It’s about something larger than ourselves, the Founding Fathers’ exceptionalist vision of Governor Winthrop’s Shining City Upon a Hill. We recommend Jedediah Bilah’s must-read report of her exclusive telephone interview with Governor Palin as a palate cleanser:

She said “To study what has happened since then – especially in the 60s and 70s when a lot of women decided to hijack the term feminism – they hijacked the idea of women’s rights, and I believe that they started making women feel like they were victims, and that is a disempowerment. That makes women, especially our young women, feel that they are not capable, smart enough, or strong enough to take on all that life has to offer, unless somebody helps them out and does it for them. In this case – with liberals – unless government does it for them” … Yeah, women do, I believe, have to work harder to prove themselves … It makes us better people and it makes us stronger and it makes success even more worth it.”

Has Sarah whetted your intellectual curiosity yet, Dave Helfert & Company? Jedediah concludes:

What has left a lasting impression on me from the interview is that Sarah Palin’s words – whether you agree with them or not – carry a realness that’s not common in the political world. Everything seemed entirely unrehearsed, and there was a spontaneity in her responses that reflected a desire to tell me what she actually thinks, not what she thought I wanted to hear. There was something raw about her patriotism, something blunt about her honesty, and something fierce in the seemingly casual way she talked about having taken on “the good old boys.”

Crossposted at sisu, Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Graceful in defeat, Bristol Palin shows “everything worthwhile comes through effort”

“Bristol Palin saved her best performances for last,” says Gretchen Carlson of Fox and Friends. We happened to doze off just as “Dancing with the Stars” was about to start last night but hope to catch up with that — not to mention Sarah Palin’s new book America by Heart — later in the day. See below for details. Above, Bristol “dances in a creme dress with dancing partner Mark Ballas” Monday night. (Adam Larkey/ABC)

By Sissy Willis of sisu

“You’ve apparently bought the media spin. I suggest you do a little research of your own before repeating the shopworn talking points of the Palin haters,” we replied to commonrabble in the comments of Hillary Chabot’s latest Boston Herald report on Bristol Palin’s “Dancing with the Stars” adventure. (Previous reports here and here.) Here’s what we wrote:

Bristol won the admiration and respect of a lot of us out here in television land by her gritty determination and “girls-just-wanna-have-fun” spirit, proving what her mother twittered last night in a note of appreciation: “Congrats Jen, Kyle, Bristol et al for proving competition is GOOD! Remember: ‘They’re going to criticize anyway, so you might as well dance!’”

As one of reporter Chabot’s local quote sources for all things Palin, we were amused to read that “Tea Party blogger Sissy Willis … sat glued to the TV last night and faithfully voted for Palin.” We had in fact voted the night before and fallen asleep just before the show started last night, waking up only moments before the rousing revivalist hysteria of the finale, where Bristol came in a respectable third. The show’s producer, cited by Cubachi yesterday in her perceptive “Bristol Palin and rooting for the underdog,” calmly explains what was really going on:

You see her gradually unfolding and unfurling and all, as a performer. I can assure you that she’s really enjoying doing it. It’s not like she doesn’t want to be here. Far from it. I think she just feels uncomfortable with a lot of the things you see on our show — wearing tiny costumes, being over-the-top. She just feels slightly embarrassed doing it. She just doesn’t come from this world. I think that’s one of the things that’s absorbing about watching her.

“As for the Suffolk professor’s insinuation that Sarah isn’t showing political substance,” we emailed Herald reporter Chabot this morning, referencing another of her local quote sources, a Suffolk University political professor who “said Sarah Palin must show some political substance to balance her flashy TV allure”:

That’s reflexive anti-Palin boilerplate, one of those lies that becomes perceived as truth through repetition. The professor — and others — should check out Palin’s WSJ op eds, Facebook challenges to the President and her new book, America by Heart, for a little original research to give heft to their pronouncements.

We’re planning to purchase the book later on this morning for reading on the way over the river and through the woods to Goomp’s Down East for Thanksgiving. A few excerpts from Jedediah Bila’s excellent review to whet your appetitie:

She stresses the importance of a strong American work ethic that “gives you wings” and rejects a culture of entitlement: “Everything that is worthwhile comes through effort. There is no free lunch. Anybody who tries to tell you otherwise is selling something – usually something paid for by your tax dollars.”

Woven through it all are her belief in American exceptionalism, her reverence for our military, her prioritization of personal responsibility, and her confidence in the fact that “The American people have a principled wisdom that all the lawyers and academics and schooled-up ‘experts’ in D.C. fail to appreciate.”

Crossposted at sisu, Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Gramsci’s long march through the institutions ends at the water’s edge

The naked truth: The conservative Swiss People’s Party “has produced a provocative anti-immigration campaign in which a photograph of naked young models wading into Lake Zurich is contrasted with an image of headscarf-wearing Muslim women bathing in filthy water.” Arresting imagery meant to warn what will happen to the country if immigration is left unchecked. In our view they could have skipped the secondary image of the covey of covered crones and let the lake-wading lovelies stand alone as an in-your-face message to those who would impose Sharia law on a free society.

By Sissy Willis of sisu

Oh, the irony. Antonio Gramsci turns out to have been right all along, but not in the way he envisioned. The slow statist creep of the Marxist philosopher’s “long march through the institutions” that was to have empowered the great unwashed at the expense of the powers that be seemed to be going so well, as we wrote five years back in “The Tocquevillians strike back“:

While America slept — or rather, while it was going about its business — Gramscian thinking, like sewage leaking out of a cracked drainpipe into the surrounding soil, has seeped into major sectors of our civil society — the law, foundations, universities and corporations among others. Fonte provides horrifying examples of how “major American social policy has come to be based not on Judeo-Christian precepts nor on Kantian-Enlightenment ethics, but on Gramscian and Hegelian-Marxist concepts of group power.

The grievance industry and its handmaiden political correctness, enabled by big-government initiatives from both sides of the aisle, had zombified great swatches of the electorate to enable the forces of darkness to enter the temple:

The theory claims that the ideas of the ruling class come to be seen as the norm; they are seen as universal ideologies, perceived to benefit everyone whilst only really benefiting the ruling class.

Then came Angelo Codevilla’s palate-cleansing revelation that it was neither statist democrats nor nominally limited-government republicans who gave a darn about the electorate. It was the Ruling Class vs the Country Class. Enter stage right the Tea Party and Barbara Bush’s unmasking when she revealed her contempt for you and me. And now the cascade of outrageous intrusions on our Bill of Rights.

Crossposted at sisu,  Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Barbara Bush vs Sarah Palin: “Sarah is all class”

“Barbara Bush Should Shut Up,” says Dan Riehl. Oh no. Not our Bar. Painful to acknowledge, but after a lifetime of embracing the former first lady’s persona of outspoken authenticity, we have to admit she no longer speaks to us. See below for details. Above, GHWB and Barbara in a Larry King interview that will air Monday.

By Sissy Willis of sisu

“I think they really hate that she not only is who she is, but she’s happy not to be like them,” twittered Kurt Schlichter earlier this afternoon as we were reading the entrails of the once proud Barbara Bush’s fall from grace in a forthcoming Larry King interview where the wife and mother of two former presidents stoops to give that “force of nature,” Sarah Palin, some ill-advised, unsolicited advice:

“I sat next to [Palin] once. Thought she was beautiful,” Barbara Bush scoffed said. “And she’s very happy in Alaska, and I hope she’ll stay there.”

And to think we once admired Bar Bush for her classiness. As Dan Riehl put it so eloquently, “Barbara Bush Should Shut Up,” while Pat Riccio twittered rhetorically:

“Palin’s never said one bad word re GWB, yet every former Bush official attacks her?? Y? Snobbery? Entitlement?”

“Both of those,” we responded:

Plus, I’m start’g to think, FEAR of the “force of nature” that is SarahPalin –> back to our Founding Fathers’ vision. [See Sarah's latest Facebook entry, "An Exclusive Sneak Peek at 'America By Heart,'" for details]

“I agree! They saw what she accomplished in AK with GOP reform. They fear she’ll do it nationally,” twittered Daria DiGiovanni with this heartwarming personal testimonial to Sarah Palin’s worth:

Sarah is all class. Last year I sent her a copy of my novel with a note inside. She sent me a signed thank you.

It’s one of my most treasured things. She didn’t have to do that, but she took the time. Appreciated my kind words to her.

It was my own novel. In her note, she referenced the title and thanked me for my kind words. At time she was still Governor.

It isn’t that we Palinistas necessarily want Sarah to run for President. As we blogged a couple of weeks back:

We predict that over time, as the authentic Palin “brand” becomes better known amongst our fellow Americans, her “numbers” will rise. Presidential candidate or kingmaker, time will tell.

Meanwhile, Kurt Schlichter captures the conscience of the king/maker :

I think she’s a classy, smart lady. I dunno if POTUS 2012 is the right move, but I want her dealing pain to libs and RINOs.”

Update: Michelle Malkin Buzzworthy link!

Update II: This just in from our imail correspondent:

I’m so disappointed in the Silver Fox. Henceforth, I shall refer to her as the Old Bag.

Crossposted at sisu,  Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Dancing with the Stars: “If you’ve got a favorite couple, you’ve gotta pick up the phone”

Popularity or talent? “Dirty Dancing” star Jennifer Grey — Joel’s daughter — and professional dancer Derek Hough performed a romantic Viennese Waltz on “Dancing with the Stars” in September (above). They’ll compete with Bristol Palin and partner Mark Ballas and another couple in the finals next week.

By Sissy Willis of sisu

“And this is supposed to be a conservative culture warrior?” sniffs Mona Charen, adding her voice to the chorus of fuddy duddies convinced that Bristol Palin’s controversial “Dancing with the Stars” adventure is yet more proof, were it needed, that Sarah Palin lacks presidential gravitas:

Cheezy would be several steps up for this one …

The momma [sic] grizzly was apparently unfazed by — or, equally disturbing, unaware of — the indignity.

We’d never watched the show — let alone taken the time to vote for a favorite — till a fearless Bristol Palin threw herself into the arms of professional hoofer Mark Ballas last September and danced her way into the hearts and minds of us Tea Party types who admire her Mama Grizzly gritiness and girls-just-wanna-have-fun ethos. The ethereal Jennifer Grey, above, has an admirable gritiness of her own and a delicate, sylph-like presence on the dance floor that electrifies the competition between her and the more down-to-earth Bristol.

Oh, the humanity. Jon Stewart himself, no friend of Sarah’s, said it best a couple of weeks back:

She’s a 20-year-old girl, ferchrissake. Maybe both sides now can give their complaints a rest.

“But now the joke is on the show’s producers, as they fear Bristol is actually going to win this thing,” warns pop columnist Rob Shuter, mindlessly purveying the “lamestream” media’s narrative of choice:

“This will be a disaster for the show if Bristol wins,” one TV insider tells me. “Any creditability [sic] the show had will be over. It will go from being a dancing competition to a popularity competition where whoever has the most rabid fan base will always win no matter how little talent they have.”

The glitzy, soppy sentimental prime-time secular revivalist show that is “Dancing with the Stars” is designed to generate buzz in the culturegap between heartfelt sentiment expressed through votes from the Country Class out here in televisionland vs. the puffed-up numerical (1 to 10) pronouncements of a pontificating panel of professional Ruling Class judges in the studio.

Forget the fact that controversy generated by popularity vs. talent is what DWTS has always been about. It’s the ratings, stupid. But for some a chance to pick at the scabs of Palin Derangement Syndrome trumps all. Then comes the show’s executive producer, Conrad Green, to put things into proper perspective. “I’m kind of mystified about why everyone is finding this such a bizarre thing to happen,” he told Inside TV:

It’s about improvement, it’s about where people go. Bristol’s our most improved dancer. People threaten to leave the country if the next government wins the election. They tend not to. At the end of the day, they should be mobilizing their friends, getting their children to vote, talk about it in the office, you know? Make those calls. It’s a pretty easy process. It’s very easy to influence the results of this show if you’re passionate about it. The fans have always had a say in the past about who wins, and frequently someone wins who they don’t agree with. I haven’t always agreed with the person who’s won. Everyone has their favorites. That’s the nature of it. Get involved!

It’s a microcosm of what happened on 11/02/10. You remember. Even as the powers that be tried to ram their candidates of choice down our throats, we Tea Partiers let them know we had minds of our own. As Bristol’s partner Mark told Greta on Fox this evening, “If you’ve got a favorite couple, you’ve gotta pick up the phone.” And we did. Cubachi explains:

America roots for the underdog. Bristol has blossomed from someone who has no dancing experience to a star. Or is the liberal media worried that Bristol is winning the hearts of America, while they tried to systematically destroy her and her mother.

Crossposted at sisu, Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Sarah Palin’s Alaska: “Shoot to where it’s going, not to where it’s been”

“Shoot to where it’s going, not to where it’s been,” Sarah Palin counsels a reluctant daughter Bristol trying to get the hang of shooting clay pigeons in this scene from The Learning Channel’s “Sarah Palin’s Alaska, taunting “We’re not going to stop until you get one.”

By Sissy Willis of sisu

“I think that the left is not going to like it, NOT because she comes off poorly, but because she comes off so humanly and well,” says Melissa Clouther, who attended one of the preview screenings of  “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” premiering tomorrow night at 9 p.m. on TLC. USA Today reports the show’s producer Mark Burnett, “who has dealt with outsized egos of celebrities such as The Apprentice‘s Donald Trump, says he was surprised by the Palins’ casual nature”:

“If you knew nothing about the political world, they’re like any other relatable family,” Burnett says. “They’re genuine, fun and, if there’s one thing people can take from the show, normal. They didn’t take themselves too seriously, which is a nice quality and makes for an authentic show.”

“Mom. Take your prom hair back home,” Dancing With the Stars sweetheart Bristol gave back in kind. Like mother, like daughter, her own woman. As we wrote a couple of weeks back, even Jon Stewart was smitten.

No surprise to us die-hard types who fell head over heels for Palin’s fierce determination and authentic American voice long before the “lamestream media” moved in for the kill, foolishly imagining they’d managed to slay the Mama Grizzly with their fanciful narrative spinfire. Burnett’s words call to mind those of Saturday Night Live Executive Producer Lorne Michaels way back in October of 2008 before Palin Derangement Syndrome had fully set in:

“I think Palin will continue to be underestimated for a while. I watched the way she connected with people, and she’s powerful.”

“Don’t retreat. Just reload,” Sarah counsels doubting Daughter Grizzly.

Underestimated “for a while”? We guess it depends upon what your definition of what “a while” is. It’s been two years, a nanosecond in terms of the nation’s electoral politics but an eternity for us Palinistas who lived through it. Googling back, we discovered that Daniel Henninger had his finger on the pulse of what our betters on both sides of the aisle were up early on:

The stoning of Sarah Palin has exposed enough cultural fissures in American politics to occupy strategists full-time until 2012. We now see there is a left-to-right elite centered in New York, Washington, Hollywood and Silicon Valley who hand down judgments of the nation’s mortals from their perch atop the Bell Curve.

And the disintermediation goes on:

“Open Letter to Republican Freshmen Members of Congress” on Facebook

Crossposted at sisu, Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Saudi womanhood behind the wheel at last!

By Sissy Willis of sisu

According to Wikipedia, “Women are forbidden to drive in Saudi Arabia per a 1990 fatwā (religious ruling).” So what’s a Sharia-compliant gal to do when she wants to run down to the mall to pick up a few things but there’s no male relative to chauffeur her?  Share the joy of the monarchy’s “First  Woman Driver (Sharia Approved).” It may not be quite up to speed with Female Formula One, but in its way “Saudi Arabia’s Sharia-Approved Car for Women!” refuels the venerable woman-driver joke with a fresh burst of energy. Enjoy the ride!

Crossposted at sisu, Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Who is Sarah? Ceci n’est pas une Mama Grizzly

“Unpleasant taste in mouth, dry mouth, morning drowsiness, dizziness, headache, symptoms of the common cold.” The eerie incantations of “possible side effects” in TV ads for “sleep aid” Lunesta are enough to give you insomnia. Beyond fear of lawsuits should something go wrong, could it be the manufacturers’ intent to trouble our sleep so we’ll go out and purchase their product? The snake-oil spin continues at their website: “How Lunesta may work.”

Here we go again. “Speaking for a large number of Republicans … let me suggest a career move that better utilizes your talents and abundant charisma” than running for President, suggests storyteller Myra Adams in “Why Palin should run for Oprah’s Couch instead of Obama’s Chair in 2010” at PJM. Channeling her inner Karl “gravitas” Rove, the author spins a frothy concoction, apparently unaware that Palin is disintermediating her and the rest of the “credentialed gentry” on both sides of the aisle.

That Lunesta image above called to mind Magritte’s “The Treachery of Images,” an illustration of a pipe captioned “This is not a pipe.” Wikipedia’s interpretation resonates in today’s epic battle for the narrative that answers the question “Who is Sarah?”: “No matter how closely, through realism-art, we come to depicting an item accurately, we never do catch the item itself.” In the case of the Mama Grizzly, few even come close.

First a couple of examples of the Adams schtick to get the flavor — tasty, but it doesn’t stick to the ribs — and then a bit of analysis:

PRO: You [Sarah] can continue Oprah’s book club and make unknown authors famous.

CON: You will be forced to read big boring briefing books by unknown policy wonks …

PRO: Your only economic stimulus will be boosting ad revenue on Sarah!

CON: Dealing with trillions of debt and a slumping dollar reminds you of that boring econ class.

Two tired Palin “narratives” — she’s illiterate and don’t know nothin’ ’bout policy, economic or otherwise — are trotted out one more time to display the writer’s bona fides as a member of the Northeast Corridor fuddy-duddy tribe. But while Ruling Class effetes navel gaze, Country Class warrior Sarah Palin herself has been doing her homework, and she’s dancing circles around those who would accuse her of being just another pretty face. Yesterday she caught the seasoned eye of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, who praised her critique of the Fed’s latest round of quantitative easing. Oblivious to Palin’s deft [Elizabeth Scalia's felicitous word choice] embrace of the panoply of media old and new, Myra Adams wraps up her “argument” for Sarah as talk-show host with self-satisfaction at her own cleverness:

Every day you can positively influence our nation and the world.

But Palin has been “positively influencing our nation and the world” as a standard bearer of constitutional conservatism for some time now. Oprah may have been a kingmaker among the politically unsophisticated when she endorsed Barack Obama four years back, but kingmaker or Leader of the Free World, Palin’s message of American exceptionalism has the potential of reaching a far broader and deeper demographic.

Crossposted at sisu, Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

The course of true love never did run smooth: Rove and Palin, together at last?

“What is overwhelmingly indicative of the power of Palin’s persona is that [not only is] a network willing to have a show centered around her and her state, but also that liberals, and some of the establishment, are ankle biting,” wrote the ever-ahead-of-the-curve Cubachi the other day, asking rhetorically ” Why do they care if she is as irrelevant as they seem to think she is?” Now the Father of all Ankle Biters, Karl Rove himself, is beginning to see the Northern Lights (photo above of the aurora borealis above Bear Lake, Alaska).

By Sissy Willis of sisu

“Are you and Governor Palin getting along?” Sean Hannity playfully taunted Karl Rove with the other night. We’d missed it Thursday and just caught the exchange in wee-hour reruns this morning. One more notch on Sarah Palin’s love belt? Even as a willfully fact-challenged, illiterate Chris Matthews death rattles “Have You Ever Been an Eyewitness to Her Actually Reading Something?” Karl Rove reads the tea leaves and begins to see the light:

ROVE: The other night [election night] she took a picture of me, and Brit Hume and I were studying Alaska for Dummies, consciously. During the break, we were over there reading.

HANNITY: So this media stuff about, you know, your comments that maybe she shouldn’t be doing the documentary?

ROVE: Well, look. My job is to, sort of, comment on those kind of things, and look, I understand she’s an unconventional politician, and I may be coming at it from a conventional perspective, but you know, I didn’t mean offense by it, and I’m sorry if she took it, and I did — the other night, she laughed when she saw Hume and me studying Alaska for Dummies, and I hope to go there in response to her travelogue on the Discovery Channel.

Did you hear that? The Discovery Channel’s “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” the “reality show” Rove dissed just the other day as lacking “gravitas,” is now a “travelogue.” How ’bout that. It’s been a long time coming, but as Sarah wrote in her latest tweet:

I am sure God keeps no one waiting unless He sees that it is good for him to wait – C.S. Lewis.

Unlike the dim-witted, dustbin-of-history-headed Chris Matthews, the brilliant if late-to-the-the-party Karl Rove is teachable. Welcome to the Tea Party, Mr. Rove! We’re pouring.

Crossposted at sisu, Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.