The MSM's Palindrone

Even Peggy Noonan now apparently believes that the media attack on Sarah Palin and her family has been over the top. The mainstream media as a body now risk having their credibility destroyed, just as Dan Rather’s was last cycle.

Why? Why do they feel the need to act so recklessly?

It can only be taken as a measure of just how dangerous Sarah Palin is to the left. She is too perfect: young, intelligent, honest, principled, beautiful—and conservative. She is not a role model they want hanging around for the next generation or two. She could change everything, in the way Margaret Thatcher, or Ronald Reagan, or Teddy Roosevelt, did.

This ism ultimately, because Sarah Palin looks a lot like America; or at least, like America’s best self. She is a self-made woman; not the descendant of some great family. A small-town girl next door, born as far away as she could be from the centres of power. She did not go to the right schools, did not attend the right parties (that’s probably what they partly mean by calling her “inexperienced.” What that really means—and they sometimes say as much--is “we don’t know her. She is not one of us.”). She got no help from the old boys’ and girls’ network on her way up; instead, she challenged the party establishment. She is, in sum, the personification of American democracy, as it is supposed to work.

She is also a woman of the frontier; Margaret Atwood has argued, convincingly, that the frontier is the central image of American culture.

She is from a small town. Most Americans no longer live in small towns, but it is still where “American” culture runs most true and most distinct. Ask Walt Disney, who made “Main Street, USA” the centerpiece of his theme parks. The soul of France is in Paris; the soul of America has always been in Peoria.

As Peggy Noonan says, the left’s only hope is to kill her, and kill her quickly. Hence their illogical, self-defeating attacks: that she is “too inexperienced” (not a concept Obama supporters should want to highlight); that she is neglecting her family (not a concept feminists should want to promote), that she is a “hypocrite” because of the actions of her daughter (essentially opposite to the meaning of the term).

We will see if they succeed. My gut says they won’t.