Christian Hartsock
Sarah Palin vs. the golden calf of bipartisanship
By Christian Hartsock
As Sarah Palin delivered her shot-heard-round-the-world speech in St. Paul and effectively united and rallied the unity-lacking Republican base overnight into a glorious partisan euphoria not experienced since the 2004 election (nor much less expected for 2008) — Democrats scrambled to dig dirt against her in a feverish panic reminiscent of the Sanhedrin fabricating a case to justify executing the Christ, or the Clinton administration ransacking FBI files to justify firings of White House Travel Office employees. (Pardon any unfair indignity towards the Sanhedrin in comparing them to the Clintons.)
As desperate circumstances call for desperate measures, the same establishment media that expatriated MSNBC's David Shuster for "picking on" Hillary Clinton's daughter (by using the term "pimped" in the same sentence as her name) immediately began picking on Sarah Palin's daughter over her pre-marital pregnancy — somehow managing to assume a position of moral supremacy on the issue of premarital sex. (Nevermind their preferred candidate's legislation for kindergarten sex ed.)
But aside from the Democrats' rather adorably amusing attacks on Palin's lack of experience (this from the same party that has deified a clinically narcissistic opportunist who has spent his entire first and only term in the senate running for president); aside from their bizarre detour from "How Dare You Question Hillary's Strength Because She's a Woman?" to "Shouldn't Palin Be in the Kitchen Cooking Dinner for Her Husband or Nursing Her Five Kids?"; and aside from their holier-than-thou finger-waving at Bristol Palin's sexual activity — the Democrats' soundest claim against Palin is her "divisiness."
And on that point they are undeniably correct. Palin is, in fact, divisive. That's why we love her.
After Palin's RNC address, Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton whined that, Palin's speech "was written by George Bush's speechwriter and sounds exactly like the same divisive, partisan attacks we've heard from George Bush for the last eight years."
When a Democrat calls you "divisive," it should be taken as a compliment. This is to say that the term "divisive" in the liberal lexicon denotes an obstinate refusal on a Republican's part to kowtow in submission to their demands. If a Democrat asked you to wash his feet and you said "no," don't be surprised if The New York Times runs an editorial tomorrow morning defaming you for being "divisive."
To poke into the specifics of Burton's invocation of George W. Bush — liberals have spent the past eight years grumbling against Bush for promising in 1999 to be "a uniter, not a divider" — yet not jumping every single time they snapped since then. It was in President Bush's most glowing moments of leadership that he stubbornly repudiated the hegemonic left, and in his most pathetic moments that he caved into pressure and played Mr. Nice Guy. The George Bush that Republicans enthusiastically cheered for at the 2004 Convention is the George Bush who literally gave press cameras the middle finger; who told the world they were "with us or against us" after 9/11, who dared terrorists in Iraq to "bring 'em on," who when asked by David Letterman if he was sorry for calling a New York Times reporter an "asshole" replied, "No, not really."
It was not the George Bush who apologized publicly for being rude to terrorists by saying "bring 'em on," nor was it the George Bush who called John Murtha "a strong supporter of the United States military" after Murtha's incessant claims of defeat in Iraq.
Note the media's and the left's cuddly reverence towards John McCain all previous years up until he became the storm cloud over their Kool-Aid-soaked Obamamania parade. Indeed, McCain was revered as a "maverick"; a refreshing antidote to the poisonous partisanship of the Bush White House; even a dream running mate for the John Kerry ticket. Now he is the object of liberal hobgoblinism; the subject of endless discussions of senility — which serve to echo similar liberal cautioning over the dangers of senility during Ronald Reagan's 1984 run for re-election at the age of 73 (just a few years before he won the Cold War).
They loved McCain because he represented compromise. And after having to listen to the eardrum-endangering liberal hysteria against President Bush's "divisiveness" and "extremism" the past eight years, the GOP nomination of John McCain may as well be a charitable gesture on the Republicans' part, if not even a white flag implying a move towards the middle. Democrats ought to be speechlessly grateful towards Republicans — but like a coward shooting an a man who has dropped his gun to give the surrender wave — the Democrats have anathemized McCain with the same venom that has come to be so typical of them.
But Sarah Palin has served them the knockout punch — and at the risk of plagiarizing a term of his coinage, let's just say Barack Obama is now officially one bitter American.
Indeed, our favorite lipstick-clad pig embodies the sobering and valuable reminder that razor-sharp division with the Democrats is essential to Republican party unity. Not only that — it is essential to the stability of the United States.
It could be statistically substantiated that the general American public is most happy with Republicans when they act like Republicans — and least happy with Republicans when they act like Democrats. What's more — they are happier with Democrats when Democrats act like Republicans. Democrats act like Republicans when they need to win an election, while Republicans act like Democrats when they are intimidated by the mainstream media.
Note that the last time the Democrats had a majority of Americans on their side was 32 years ago. The only two occasions upon which they have won presidential elections since then (out of nine total) were in 1992 with a 46% popular vote and in 1996 with a 43% popular vote — and on both occasions, the GOP was running "electable Republicans."
John McCain's famously maverick skills in the art of compromise were put to task last month when he found himself in the position of having to compromise not with the Democrats this time, but with his own party. The product of the compromise was Sarah Palin, and because of her, his base is now solidified and strongly behind him.
The character in a Robert Frost poem contends that "good fences make good neighbors" — implying that less association with a neighbor renders that neighbor more tolerable. So it is in politics. Having been inundated with sensational rhetoric gushing over the supposedly requisite need for "unity," Americans have obliviously erected an ideological idol — the Golden Calf of Bipartisanship. We seem to have been duped into believing that the path to progress is acquiescence to the Democratic agenda — somehow forgetting the precious disparities that put liberals and conservatives at odds in the first place — the fact that the conservative agenda is categorically antithetical to the liberal agenda — and should be. Making room for compromise only shuffles us into the compromised values that define the liberal agenda. The appeal of Obama's quixotic promises of ecumenical unity and peace are just delightful — if only he didn't sound so much like the anti-Christ.
Tellingly, Barack Obama prides himself on his approach to the nuclear Iran crisis (that being the "Gee Whiz, Mr. Ahmadenijad, Before You Nuke the Jews Into Oblivion Why Don't We Sit Down and Talk Things Over?" approach) — as opposed John McCain's (that being the "Bomb-Bomb-Bomb, Bomb-Bomb-Iran" approach). Liberal doctrine manifestly embraces negotiation with evil as an option. Conservative doctrine doesn't. And this explains why any concessions made across the aisle can only harm our party.
Furthermore, just as it is probable that Mahmoud Ahmadenijad's nuclear ambitions will be more deterred by bombs dropping over Tehran than by tea party invitations from Barack Obama, the Democrats' presidential ambitions are less deterred by Republican willingness to play the bipartisan game, and have already been deterred by McCain's choice to drop the bomb on them — the bomb called Sarah Palin.
Palin represents a sword of division with a party and a political agenda that we should be divided from. The pejorative implications that have been contemporaneously associated with the term "division" ought to be reconsidered. Division is often a healthy virtue to be upheld, and Republicans ought to remember that when Democrats accuse them of being "divisive" — it is most likely that Republicans have a majority of the American public united behind them.
And this November, I believe they will.
© Christian Hartsock
As Sarah Palin delivered her shot-heard-round-the-world speech in St. Paul and effectively united and rallied the unity-lacking Republican base overnight into a glorious partisan euphoria not experienced since the 2004 election (nor much less expected for 2008) — Democrats scrambled to dig dirt against her in a feverish panic reminiscent of the Sanhedrin fabricating a case to justify executing the Christ, or the Clinton administration ransacking FBI files to justify firings of White House Travel Office employees. (Pardon any unfair indignity towards the Sanhedrin in comparing them to the Clintons.)
As desperate circumstances call for desperate measures, the same establishment media that expatriated MSNBC's David Shuster for "picking on" Hillary Clinton's daughter (by using the term "pimped" in the same sentence as her name) immediately began picking on Sarah Palin's daughter over her pre-marital pregnancy — somehow managing to assume a position of moral supremacy on the issue of premarital sex. (Nevermind their preferred candidate's legislation for kindergarten sex ed.)
But aside from the Democrats' rather adorably amusing attacks on Palin's lack of experience (this from the same party that has deified a clinically narcissistic opportunist who has spent his entire first and only term in the senate running for president); aside from their bizarre detour from "How Dare You Question Hillary's Strength Because She's a Woman?" to "Shouldn't Palin Be in the Kitchen Cooking Dinner for Her Husband or Nursing Her Five Kids?"; and aside from their holier-than-thou finger-waving at Bristol Palin's sexual activity — the Democrats' soundest claim against Palin is her "divisiness."
And on that point they are undeniably correct. Palin is, in fact, divisive. That's why we love her.
After Palin's RNC address, Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton whined that, Palin's speech "was written by George Bush's speechwriter and sounds exactly like the same divisive, partisan attacks we've heard from George Bush for the last eight years."
When a Democrat calls you "divisive," it should be taken as a compliment. This is to say that the term "divisive" in the liberal lexicon denotes an obstinate refusal on a Republican's part to kowtow in submission to their demands. If a Democrat asked you to wash his feet and you said "no," don't be surprised if The New York Times runs an editorial tomorrow morning defaming you for being "divisive."
To poke into the specifics of Burton's invocation of George W. Bush — liberals have spent the past eight years grumbling against Bush for promising in 1999 to be "a uniter, not a divider" — yet not jumping every single time they snapped since then. It was in President Bush's most glowing moments of leadership that he stubbornly repudiated the hegemonic left, and in his most pathetic moments that he caved into pressure and played Mr. Nice Guy. The George Bush that Republicans enthusiastically cheered for at the 2004 Convention is the George Bush who literally gave press cameras the middle finger; who told the world they were "with us or against us" after 9/11, who dared terrorists in Iraq to "bring 'em on," who when asked by David Letterman if he was sorry for calling a New York Times reporter an "asshole" replied, "No, not really."
It was not the George Bush who apologized publicly for being rude to terrorists by saying "bring 'em on," nor was it the George Bush who called John Murtha "a strong supporter of the United States military" after Murtha's incessant claims of defeat in Iraq.
Note the media's and the left's cuddly reverence towards John McCain all previous years up until he became the storm cloud over their Kool-Aid-soaked Obamamania parade. Indeed, McCain was revered as a "maverick"; a refreshing antidote to the poisonous partisanship of the Bush White House; even a dream running mate for the John Kerry ticket. Now he is the object of liberal hobgoblinism; the subject of endless discussions of senility — which serve to echo similar liberal cautioning over the dangers of senility during Ronald Reagan's 1984 run for re-election at the age of 73 (just a few years before he won the Cold War).
They loved McCain because he represented compromise. And after having to listen to the eardrum-endangering liberal hysteria against President Bush's "divisiveness" and "extremism" the past eight years, the GOP nomination of John McCain may as well be a charitable gesture on the Republicans' part, if not even a white flag implying a move towards the middle. Democrats ought to be speechlessly grateful towards Republicans — but like a coward shooting an a man who has dropped his gun to give the surrender wave — the Democrats have anathemized McCain with the same venom that has come to be so typical of them.
But Sarah Palin has served them the knockout punch — and at the risk of plagiarizing a term of his coinage, let's just say Barack Obama is now officially one bitter American.
Indeed, our favorite lipstick-clad pig embodies the sobering and valuable reminder that razor-sharp division with the Democrats is essential to Republican party unity. Not only that — it is essential to the stability of the United States.
It could be statistically substantiated that the general American public is most happy with Republicans when they act like Republicans — and least happy with Republicans when they act like Democrats. What's more — they are happier with Democrats when Democrats act like Republicans. Democrats act like Republicans when they need to win an election, while Republicans act like Democrats when they are intimidated by the mainstream media.
Note that the last time the Democrats had a majority of Americans on their side was 32 years ago. The only two occasions upon which they have won presidential elections since then (out of nine total) were in 1992 with a 46% popular vote and in 1996 with a 43% popular vote — and on both occasions, the GOP was running "electable Republicans."
John McCain's famously maverick skills in the art of compromise were put to task last month when he found himself in the position of having to compromise not with the Democrats this time, but with his own party. The product of the compromise was Sarah Palin, and because of her, his base is now solidified and strongly behind him.
The character in a Robert Frost poem contends that "good fences make good neighbors" — implying that less association with a neighbor renders that neighbor more tolerable. So it is in politics. Having been inundated with sensational rhetoric gushing over the supposedly requisite need for "unity," Americans have obliviously erected an ideological idol — the Golden Calf of Bipartisanship. We seem to have been duped into believing that the path to progress is acquiescence to the Democratic agenda — somehow forgetting the precious disparities that put liberals and conservatives at odds in the first place — the fact that the conservative agenda is categorically antithetical to the liberal agenda — and should be. Making room for compromise only shuffles us into the compromised values that define the liberal agenda. The appeal of Obama's quixotic promises of ecumenical unity and peace are just delightful — if only he didn't sound so much like the anti-Christ.
Tellingly, Barack Obama prides himself on his approach to the nuclear Iran crisis (that being the "Gee Whiz, Mr. Ahmadenijad, Before You Nuke the Jews Into Oblivion Why Don't We Sit Down and Talk Things Over?" approach) — as opposed John McCain's (that being the "Bomb-Bomb-Bomb, Bomb-Bomb-Iran" approach). Liberal doctrine manifestly embraces negotiation with evil as an option. Conservative doctrine doesn't. And this explains why any concessions made across the aisle can only harm our party.
Furthermore, just as it is probable that Mahmoud Ahmadenijad's nuclear ambitions will be more deterred by bombs dropping over Tehran than by tea party invitations from Barack Obama, the Democrats' presidential ambitions are less deterred by Republican willingness to play the bipartisan game, and have already been deterred by McCain's choice to drop the bomb on them — the bomb called Sarah Palin.
Palin represents a sword of division with a party and a political agenda that we should be divided from. The pejorative implications that have been contemporaneously associated with the term "division" ought to be reconsidered. Division is often a healthy virtue to be upheld, and Republicans ought to remember that when Democrats accuse them of being "divisive" — it is most likely that Republicans have a majority of the American public united behind them.
And this November, I believe they will.
© Christian Hartsock
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