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Yesterday, Eve pointed out that Dan Quayle speechwriter turned National Review blogger Lisa Schiffren took a swipe at the XX Factor bloggers -- something about the audacity of our dislike of Sarah Palin and love for Michelle Obama. (Je stands accused!) Was it a coincidence that I took a swipe at Schiffren the day previous? Methinks not. Either way, such slandering prompted some digging into Schiffren's backlog of neocrank opinion, and it seems we're in good company.
According to Schiffren, our new President is a communist.
Obama and I are roughly the same age. I grew up in liberal circles in
New York City — a place to which people who wished to rebel against
their upbringings had gravitated for generations. And yet, all of my
mixed race, black/white classmates throughout my youth, some of whom I
am still in contact with, were the product of very culturally specific
unions. They were always the offspring of a white mother, (in my
circles, she was usually Jewish, but elsewhere not necessarily) and
usually a highly educated black father. And how had these two come
together at a time when it was neither natural nor easy for such
relationships to flourish? Always through politics. No, not the young
Republicans. Usually the Communist Youth League.
Oh, and don't get her started on gay marriage. From "Gay Marriage, an Oxymoron," a 1996 New York Times Op-Ed (not available online):
[O]ne may feel the same affection for one's homosexual friends and relatives as for any other, and be genuinely pleased for the happiness they derive from relationships, while opposing gay marriage for principled reasons.
"Same-sex marriage" is inherently incompatible with our culture's understanding of the institution. Marriage is essentially a lifelong compact between a man and woman committed to sexual exclusivity and the creation and nurture of offspring. For most Americans, the marital union -- as distinguished from other sexual relationships and legal and economic partnerships -- is imbued with an aspect of holiness. Though many of us are uncomfortable using religious language to discuss social and political issues, Judeo-Christian morality informs our view of family life.
So, does this mean Schiffren's not going to come to my unholy gay communist slumber party?
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Anne, thanks for sending me to Jane Mayer's New Yorker essay "The Insiders." My lasting image from the piece is one of Gov. Palin hijacking two boatloads of conservative pundits and charming them with her wiles. This is the quick study Sarah Barracuda whom Alaskans know and love.
In June 2007, a shipful of opinion makers on a Weekly Standard cruise docked for a day in Juneau. In office only six months, Palin invited William Kristol, Fred Barnes, and Michael Gerson along with their families to a "high spirited" lunch at the governor's mansion. Mayer reports, "everyone was charmed when the Governor's small daughter Piper popped in." After lunch, Palin took her guests for a quick hop (by air) to visit a genuine Alaska gold mine. Ore was not the only thing twinkling. Gerson's impression of the hostess was "a mix between Annie Oakley and Joan of Arc." A "dazzled" Barnes told Mayer he found his new acquaintance "exceptionally pretty" and returned home to write her first national profile "The Most Popular Governor." Later, a besotted Kristol, who spoke of her on-air as "my heartthrob," ardently positioned her for the VP pick.
Weeks after the successful party, the new-as-snow governor intercepted another luxury fundraising tour, sponsored by the National Review. Palin threw a "special reception" at the mansion for the cruise's powerful "guest speakers" (check out this year's lineup here). The perhaps slightly bored pundits (magazine publisher Jack Fowler recalls, "There's only so much you can do in Juneau") happily attended the party and were equally impressed with their host. Fowler: "This lady is something special. She connects. She's genuine. She doesn't look like what you'd expect." Another NR editor later described the governor as "a former beauty-pageant contestant, and a real honey, too." One guest, historian Victor Davis Hansen, told Mayer he "was delighted that Palin described herself as a fan of history, and as a reader of National Review's Web site, for which he writes regularly." The novice governor and notorious horn dog Dick Morris also made a "meaningful connection." The strategist, who once advised a previous ambitious governor, told Palin to hang onto her "outsider cred."
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Melinda,
I'm so glad you posted on Christopher Buckley leaving the National Review. I was saddened to read his column in the Daily Beast saying he'd left. Also, I had just been conjuring up a post in response to your post and Ellen's from earlier today, in our ongoing discussion about intellectualism and what it is and why it's become a smear, and I think the Buckley story fits in. I especially appreciated Ellen for both calling me out on making intellectual a dirty word and for bringing me into the ranks of great thinkers (even though I spend far more time curled up with Sports Illustrated than with The New Yorker).
It was unwise and unfair of me to group intellectuals as a whole in with the condescending elites that bug me so much, and I admit I was probably thinking of someone like the gentleman Melinda worked for, who constantly reminded others of his genius. Haughtiness drives me batty, and so does what I perceive as intolerance. Which brings me back to Christopher Buckley. It's annoying when smarty-pants liberals say, "Why I don't know anyone who would vote for that imbecile George Bush/John McCain," and it's just as annoying when it comes from the opposite direction, when an angry mob takes on an individual who arrived at a different conclusion from them after much thought. (I've seen Rich Lowry's response, and I find it hard to believe that a great magazine like the National Review doesn't have room for both Christopher Buckley and Mark Steyn, who recently earned a huge victory for free speech in Canada.)
What made me especially sad was Buckley's assertion that the Republican Party was more "yurt" than big tent. The rest of you might laugh at me for thinking so, but I have always felt that GOP was a bigger tent than most outsiders gave it credit for. I know more pro-choice Republicans than I do pro-life Democrats. I know Republicans who are Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and some who are not religious at all. Some of us can't get too worked up about global warming, but that doesn't stop us from recycling and setting the thermostat at 68 in the winter. I've written a lot on this blog about how dismayed I am with our national discourse, about how divisive and bitter some have become. It hurts even more when those within my own party resorts to petty tactics and cruel words against one another.
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It's unbelievable that Christopher Buckley has been asked to clean out his cubby at the magazine his father founded—"briskly'' allowed to resign for the sin of endorsing Obama. Where the National Review thinks it'll find another writer who can throw around Jane Austen's favorite verb quite the way he does, I aver I don't know. (See? Not even close.) But apparently, even they can't have any damn intellectuals hanging around thinking outside the talking points. Isn't the point of any debate—political or otherwise—that you don't know where an open mind will take you? Hardly worth the trouble if you're required to wind up the same place every single time.
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