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I don’t think she does a very good job, though. Even worse, though, is David Frum’s counter-essay, titled "Do Jews Hate Palin?" Even worse – by a good Cheechako mile (that’s 150 yards) – is the coverage of both articles at Conservatives4Palin.
Jennifer Rubin is a contributing editor at Commentary Magazine, one of the pillars of both neo-con and neo-lib Jewish polemical writing. I used to be a big fan, subscribing to the magazine for a while in the 1970s, because of the high quality of writing there. I lapsed, when my support for militant Zionism lapsed, during the Lebanon invasion of 1982.
Here’s Rubin’s short, one-paragraph essay in its entirety:
For more than a year, Sarah Palin has been a national Rorschach test. The views expressed about her reveal the distinctions and conflicting perceptions of often antagonistic groups of Americans—the religious and the secular, the conservative and the liberal, the urban and the small town, the elitist and the populist. And now, with the publication of her autobiography, Going Rogue, and Matthew Continetti’s The Persecution of Sarah Palin, the Rorschach tests are being administered anew, and with increasing fervor. For her conservative admirers, she continues to exemplify independence, moxie, common sense, the superiority of the common American over the nation’s elites, and the embodiment of modern womanhood and Christian faith. For her detractors, both conservative and liberal, she is uncouth, unschooled, a hick, anti-science and anti-intellectual, an upstart, and a religious fanatic. There is no group so firmly in the latter camp as American Jews. And there is much to learn in their reaction to Palin, both about her and about the sociological makeup of American Jewry today. While Palin enjoys support from some prominent Jewish conservatives, it is not an exaggeration to say that, more so than any other major political figure in recent memory (with the possible exception of Patrick J. Buchanan), she rubs Jews the wrong way. In a September 2008 poll by the American Jewish Committee (AJC), Jews disapproved of Palin as the pick for McCain’s vice-presidential running mate by a 54 to 37 percent margin. (By contrast, 73 percent approved of the selection of Joseph Biden as Obama’s.) Ask an average American Jew about Palin and you are likely to get a nonverbal response—a shiver, a shudder, a roll of the eyes, or a guffaw. Naomi Wolf, the feminist writer, sputtered that Palin was the “FrankenBarbie of the Rove-Cheney cabal,” articulating the mixture of contempt and fear that seemed to grip many Jewish women. The disdain is palpable and largely emotional. While 78 percent of American Jews voted for the Obama-Biden ticket, it is fair to say that most did not harbor animosity toward or contempt for Senator John McCain; the same cannot be said of their view of Palin. Prominent Jews like Reagan-era arms-control official Kenneth Adelman, who expressed great admiration for McCain, proclaimed that the selection of Palin was beyond reason: “Not only is Sarah Palin not close to being acceptable in high office, I would not have hired her for even a mid-level post in the arms-control agency.”
David Frum, in his reply, seems to misdirect some of the straightforward terminology used by Rubin. He never specifically addresses Rubin’s concerns about Palin’s "anti-science" record, nor some other important issues. Frum reformulates Rubin’s list into four categories:
First, says Rubin, Jews greatly value (and possibly over-value) formal credentials.
Second, Rubin continues, Jews under-value traditional American folkways: hunting, fishing, the frontier, military enlistment.
Third, Jews disdain working class occupations like those in which Palin labored.
Fourth and last, Jews hate Palin because Jews disapprove of large families – and especially because Jews quietly favor the abortion of disabled children.
That’s not quite what I got out of Ms. Rubin’s exposition of reasons. Apparently, David likes lists.
He does finish his essay on a strong point, though:
If American Jews have a problem with Palin, Rubin is right that problem 1 is that they – we – doubt her intellectual capacity for the job. But that’s only the start of the list of problems.
Ignorance is bad. But we all start ignorant. Jews – again like other people, only more so – expect their leaders to start early and to work hard to remedy their ignorance, by learning things. People who don’t, won’t or can’t learn – whose followers disparage the value or need to learn – are going to forfeit Jewish support, and not only Jewish support.
But even this is not the worst of it. Just guessing, but I think the real and most fundamental problem Jews have with Palin is not her gleeful ignorance, but her willful divisiveness. More than any politician in memory, Palin seems to divide her fellow-Americans into first class and second class citizens, real Americans and not-so-real Americans. To do her justice, she has never said anything to suggest that Jews as Jews fall into the second, less-real, class. But Jews do tend to have an intuition that when this sort of line-drawing is done, we are likely to find ourselves on the wrong side.
Over at the C4P, the commenters are glomping onto Frum as a traitor – he was a GWB speech writer (and perhaps Bush’s best, though that isn’t saying much). Here’s a taste of the C4P babble:
We adore Mark Steyn because he’s Reagan-like in his beliefs.
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Frum is an idiot, he and Rubin got it all worng. Jews for the most "LIKE" Palin. She stands for everything they stand for. Sure some progressive jews don’t like her but in the same way any typical liberal progressive.
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Frum and his wife Danille Crittenden can be counted among the liberal Jews who don’t like Palin. You can add to that Debbie whatshername, the woman who threatened to turn me into the FBI along with the Muslims who are harassing her if I continue to post on her website, David Axelrod, and David Brooks (who sleeps with 0bama’s pants under his pillow.)
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Who’s David Frum…..or an even better question, why would any person with am IQ greater than their age ever consider listening to him?
Ah, the Sea of Peeeee………
Frum is getting some more prescient comments at his article, than you’ll find at C4P (though they’re just getting started at the sea). Here’s from Frum’s blog’s commenters:
Plus, Sarah Palin appears to be catering to the Religious Right part of the GOP. That’s the part that thinks that America is a “Christian nation.” Jews know that historically, they didn’t do well in nations whose governments considered themselves duty bound to enforce Christianity. Jews believe, with some justification, that they did well in America precisely because the Constitution does not enforce an official religion.
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That whole rooting for the Rapture and the destruction of Israel by the Anti-Christ probably doesn’t endear her to them too much.
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Truth is, Palin polls best in parts of the country with the worst school systems and the lowest numbers of residents with college degrees. Take that however you want it, but that’s the way it is.
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Willful divisiveness is what turned me permanently 100% off. Engaging the willful divisiveness strategy was chilling and I’m not Jewish. Pitching patriotism with a wink and smile while stirring the vicious pot is a sales tactic the GOP should not revisit
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In Alaska, I’ve had a lot of discussions with Jewish politicians, writers, bloggers and relatives about Sarah Palin. I can’t think of one who continues to trust her. It is interesting that neither Rubin nor Frum makes much of a strong suit over the plain fact that Palin is the most pathetically congenital liar of 21st century politics.
Among Alaska politicians, I can think of three prominent Jews who initially were warm about some of her governing policies, but eventually regarded her as the junk thinker she is:
Ethan Berkowitz enthusiastically worked with Wev Shea to create a Palin-directed "White Paper" on legislative ethics reform. He’s related to me, though, that he was shocked at the divisiveness Palin seemed to relish in the fall of 2008. Earlier in 2008, he was becoming disappointed, as were many of us, in the way the Palin administration was becoming secretive, especially regarding the case of Rick Steiner’s request for scientific correspondence on Polar bears from state agencies.
Les Gara, during Troopergate, went from having been a sometime Palin ally in the 2008 legislative session, to a fiercely articulate critic.
Both Ethan and Les are Democrats. Republican Jay Ramras (who, like Berkowitz and Gara, considers himself part of the Alaska "Yamacaucus," or "frozen chosen"), was lambasted by Palin during the food-and-fuel crisis on the lower Yukon last winter, in a totally foolish press release (that has since disappeared):
The governor also expressed concern about inaccurate comments made to the media by Representative Jay Ramras that the state has failed to make state assets available to deliver supplies to communities.
“We are working cooperatively with the communities, many legislators, Native corporations, and other entities to address the needs in these areas,” Governor Palin said. “I am disappointed that Representative Ramras failed to express his concerns to my office before issuing a press release with incomplete and misleading information. This is particularly concerning since he knew I would be attending a meeting with his entire caucus that evening. Representative Ramras did not mention the specific issue of using state assets to me personally at the meeting. Instead, I read about it later in the press release. Truly Alaskans deserve better than that kind of ‘politics as usual’ (God she loves this phrase!). It is unfortunate that the representative sees this as an opportunity to play politics rather than help in the response."
Jay shot right back:
"I am shocked and appalled that Governor Palin would stoop to making derogatory statements about me," Ramras said. "My question to her during our caucus last night was ‘where is the food?’ In my interactions with her own administration I have spoken with Lieutenant General Craig Campbell from the Department of Military & Veterans Affairs; Commissioner Joe Masters from the Department of Public Safety; Commissioner Emil Notti from the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development; her Deputy Chief of Staff Randy Ruaro, and numerous others since we first learned of the hardships in Emmonak and Western Alaska. In my press release, I acknowledged that DPS, after much pleading, provided a small plane for transport from Bethel to Kotlik.
"That the governor would accuse me of politicizing the current economic situation in the Lower Yukon strikes me as fool-hardy and Clinton-esque," Ramras added. "I introduced House Bill 114 yesterday. That was the subject of the press release. And I am offended that the governor would call my service into question. I have been organizing food and supply drives for needy Alaska communities and groups for years, and spoke on the House Floor yesterday about the success we’ve seen thanks to the many groups that have come together over the last few weeks to help. I pointed to her lack of leadership on this issue; I didn’t do it politically, I did it because it’s true: she has been too silent and her administration has taken too long to help in relief efforts. We are already weeks late."
These legislators’ or former legislator’s reactions to Palin’s evolution into an intensely divisive figure, here and nationwide, were reactions to a wide array of shortcomings of this political hack. They had little to do with the issues brought forth either by Jennifer Rubin or David Frum. And they serve to illustrate that Palin had already lost the trust of politicians, Jews and Gentiles alike, from both sides of the aisle before she quit her sworn job, to pursue more selfish and lucrative interests.
23 Comments
ET!
I was beginning to wonder if we would hear any Jewish political response to the Christian evangelists. Perhaps I missed it. Then Brit Hume bloviates on Tiger Woods’ need to convert to Brit’s Own Brand of Religion, and I gleefully inhaled William Kristol’s dismissive response.
Now this just reminds me that Kristol is to blame for Palin’s annointment.
sigh.
very good read and thank you. Did Palin forget that this country was founded on religious tolerance? You betcha!
She will eventually drive her AWD bus over Kristol too, if they don’t take the keys away and revoke her license.
By: EdwardTeller Monday January 4, 2010 4:47 pm
I certainly can’t speak to what “most American Jews think about Sarah Palin” though by party affiliation alone I could speculate that most American Jews would be predisposed to think less of her. Most American Jews register as Democrats. For that matter, most American Jews are not located in rural areas but in more urbanized areas, so there is a potential for culture mismatch with Palin there, as well. Palin’s grassroots support is primarily outside of cities. Or it could be that Palin doesn’t appeal much to college or graduate educated Americans, where Jews disproportionately are found relative to other population groups in the US. The point of this is that “Jewish opinion” on Palin could be more informed by factors that aren’t specifically Jewish at all – party affiliation, geographic location, education level, probably the very important frequency of church attendance as well. These are factors that generally motivate liberal, left, and progressive voters, which is where the non-establishment, generically “middle class” American Jews are found.
I do agree with you that the realities underpinning real Jewish perceptions of Sarah Palin probably have nothing to do with anything that David Frum, or for that matter, Jennifer Rubin wrote. Most elite commentators write about political celebrities from within the context of cults of personality, and what they write is often artful but otherwise useless or even dangerous.
(Edit: how utterly bizarre … I didn’t type the word ‘people’ in the last sentence, nor is it present when I edit the post, but it shows up in the final publication!)
I tried to make that point, referencing three Alaska legislators, two Democrats and a Republican, who mirrored what you wrote. Thanks for the observation.
Jew, gentile, Zoroastrian, whatever: Palin is a nightmare. Conservatism, from Taft and Lindbergh to Goldwater and Reagan, Buckley and Kristol Sr., has always been about ideas. Lots of times those ideas are bad, wrong-headed, and worthy of condemnation. But at least you were dealin with serious people, who took ideas seriously.
Now we have this person, Sarah. Man, if this is what “conservatism” has come to it deserves its death.
Oy vey, you could say.
Or, perhaps, “uccchhh.”
Moving from specifically Jewish perceptions of Palin, and thinking of the many seriously nasty and personal attacks the woman has endured from supposedly high-brow, civil, elite media commentators and observers, I am left to conclude that, though I don’t think she should hold office, I am sympathetic towards her and some of her supporters. Certainly her policy views and politics are at best disagreeable and at worse utterly hare-brained. However, the degree to which urban class warriors and highly educated people have never simply focused on the issues when attacking her – it should be an easy win, after all – but have instead denigrated her religion, her family, her home state, her class and personal origins, etc. – really bugs me. The only positive things that really exist in Palin, I think, are just those things – she actually got ahead without riding on man’s coattails a la Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, etc., she wasn’t born well-connected or rich either unlike most of the Democratic and Republican political establishments, and she comes from an outsider place that is not normally well-represented in American political power.
I think that, in so many cases, the attacks on her (which again are almost all personal and denigrating to lots of people) reflect more on her attackers than on Palin herself. In particular, East and West Coast urban feminist commentators have soiled themselves with name-calling like “Caribou Barbie”, the fixation on Palin’s athleticism, appearance, family, etc. These women should have been the last to bring these attacks to the table.
Just my thoughts on Palin who, again, I don’t think should be in any high office.
This February, I will have known Palin for 19 years.
You’re right, that she didn’t “[get] ahead …. riding on man’s coattails,” she was an equal opportunity coattail rider, before she was a bus driver. Three of her four mentors as young politician were males – John Stein, Pat Carney and Vic Kohring. The only one she didn’t throw under the bus was Vic. He’s now a convicted felon, though, so he’s no threat.
Our past well-known representatives on the national stage have been Ted Stevens and Don Young. Not hard to shine fairly brightly next to either or both.
Why do you perceive the media attacks upon her to have been unfair? Past David Letterman, for instance (he’s not media). As an Alaskan, I didn’t see much in the way of attacks upon her that reflected badly upon Alaska or Alaskans that I hadn’t already seen via perceptions coming from Young’s or Stevens’ conduct.
Commentators find it hard to focus on “issues” regarding Palin, partially, because there aren’t much of any issues she has espoused since hitting the national stage that go beyond the kinds of primitive talking points typical right-wing radio commentators read from every morning on their programs. And most criticism of Palin at progressive places like fdl has concentrated on the substances of her shortcomings in terms of the gulf between what she does, compared to what she espouses, or has had dictated to her to put on facebook.
Gee, and here I thought it was because she was (among other sorts of bigotry) an anti-semite and all-around nasty person with toxic politics.
Croak!
UPDATE to article: A commenter at my blog noted that Jennifer Rubin’s Commentary article is far longer than the tease I posted from Commentary’s web site. And it is a better article than the long, long paragraph I put into the article above indicates.
Here is a link.
Rubin still doesn’t quite get Alaska, or possibly that a lot of Alaska Jews have blue collar or extreme hardship pasts and presents. Rep. Les Gara, the AK State Rep. I noted in my article, was raised a foster kid, after his parents were murdered. I met my first close Jewish friends in Alaska in the commercial fishing industry, where we all worked our butts off from before dawn to after nightfall, not thinking of where each other had gone to school.
As I noted in the Seminal post, though, both Rubin and Frum miss the point that Jews, by and large, like the rest of informed Americans, distrust Palin mostly because she’s a liar and a fake.
I think this essay is counter counter propaganda I think the essay is so bad it could help Sarah rally her Crazy Anti Jewish base.
I’m not being crazy ET just look at the Liberals on Fox News who make the GOP look good by always taking a dive.
They pretend to give a counter opinion but they always fail so in reality they further the opposite opinion.
Jews greatly value (and possibly over-value) formal credentials.
, Jews under-value traditional American folkways:
Third, Jews disdain working class occupations
Fourth and last, Jews hate Palin because Jews disapprove of large families
I wish Jews would stop stereotyping Jews. How can you tell anti semites not to do it, if you do it yourself? Besides, what facts are there to support these points?
for instance, “Jews disapprove of large families.”
I guess orthodox Jews in New York who do not practice birth control, or abortion, and have large families are not Jews after all.
And who cares why Jews don’t like Palin anyway? It’s even less interesting than Palin herself. and she is very boring.
I agree this piece doesn’t work Counter Counter Propaganda was my only guess that I thought worked.
I get what you’re saying, but with all due respect, you are seriously misinformed if you think that Sarah Palin got ahead “on her own” and not by “riding on some man’s coattails.” I believe ET has provided info about the men who helped her get ahead, and how she then threw them under the bus. Palin has a long history of knifing in the back the men & women who helped her get ahead. And while she may come from more humble origins, she has definitely made her way by sucking up to the right people, just as the rich do.
You’re right that *some* progressive females (myself included) have indulged in nasty personal attacks on Sarah Palin, calling her names and so forth. And you’re right that it speaks to something about those of us who indulge in such tactics.
I cannot speak for any other woman, but for myself alone, I attack her because she is a liar, she is divisive, she is a racist, she is anti-semitic, and she represents to me all that is base and inherently wrong with this brand of conservative politics today. I personally feel that the only way to deal with such “politicians” as Palin is to attack fire with fire. Conservatives simply don’t “get it” if you approach the situation with reason, logic, intelligence and deference.
My family are well-educated Christian fanatics who worship at the shrine of all things Sarah Palin. There is no reasoning with such people. The best I can do is mock, deride and make fun, hoping that in the melee some truth hits home. It is the only language these people hear.
I agree with this, but I don’t understand it. And not all of them are stupid.
Why and how do some people simply ignore any fact, that contradicts their understanding of anything. And respond with an “I know you are but what am I” approach.
such as the guy I had a discussion with about climate change. Any actual fact was rebutted by red herrings, non sequiturs, and childish name calling.
And feeling good about it when you give up beating your head against the wall of ignorance.
I don’t get it.
I think that a lot of progressives would feel better about Palin if she had hidden her divisive tendencies until after the election, like Obama did.
This notion that Jews believe, 1, 2, 3 and 4 is curious, as if there were never working class Jews, or as if all Jews have masters degrees and there was no Jewish mafia ever. A quick glance at the IDF and their domestic AIPAC enablers shows that Jews are capable of all sorts of nefarious behavior. The fact that the holocaust tried to wipe us out in the last century does not change the fact that some Jews do bad things, nor should it protect us from equal treatment when our name is besmirched with brutality and violence. When we assert that all Jews think 1, 2, 3 and 4, then we legitimate the message of the holocaust that all people of a certain arbitrary classification are identical and can be dismissed as such, dehumanized and exterminated because their class is deemed to have certain undesirable properties.
Look, Palin is speaking to many people, playing to fears that correspond to a progressive critique of the duopoly but are being expressed in language that plays to feelings more so than as what we’d see as objective reasoned argument. Instead of trying to figure out how she is the leader of a bad faction, why not try to disarm that divisiveness by identifying areas of commonality?
When we allow ourselves to be defined as “the other” on their terms, and to be manipulated to further the ends of others, we lose.
I don’t care what Palin thinks, and why should anyone else? The only folks giving her some sort of cred are those that are seemingly against her. She may run,but she isn’t going to win. Or come anywhere close. I’m much more concerned about the tendency to divide and exlude within our own ranks.
Whoops! EdwardTeller is responding to the article abstract (which he erroneously calls her short, one-paragraph essay), while Frum is responding to the article in its entirety.
I caught that after it was too late to edit the diary, which remains valid enough. I comment on it at #10 above. Sorry.
Unfair criticisms and attacks include the continuous ridicule involving “Caribou Barbie”, hunting moose, attacks on her religion, attacks on her family, etc. It’s all been in media for effectively a year now. Don’t get me wrong – I am not lionizing the woman. I simply don’t think anyone ever needed to call her “Caribou Barbie” – and many noted feminists have used this term, objectively calling a woman “Barbie” for the crime of running for VP – or to laugh at moose hunting, or anything like that, to win in a debate with her. After all, as you say, she does largely avoid talking issues and taking detailed stances, and that is probably because that would require her to exist on something besides shock effect.
I also do draw a major line between someone who actually had to have real jobs and still managed to make it to mayor and then governor on her own, and someone who was born wealthy, went to Yale, married the right guy, was a career influence-peddling First Lady for most of her life, and then got a sinecure er senate chair in New York because her husband was President for two terms.
The differences there are striking.
Glad to hear, incidentally, from somebody who is actually *from* Alaska on these issues.
See above post to Teller. Compare Palin (or for that matter, Condoleeza Rice) to Hillary “Career Influence-Peddling First Lady Who Couldn’t Even Pass The Bar Exam” Clinton and I think we see a stark difference between Palin (and Rice, who is very different figure in most ways of course) and certain figures in the Democratic Party.
I also respect that you are being truthful with us about having engaged in personal attacks, etc., and I frankly do not envy you having a Palin-adoring family. I agree that it will be difficult to communicate with people that far across the Great Divide from us.
If Palin looked like Janet Reno, the Boys Club would have written her off long long ago.
She’s a good looking idiot who appeals to the nonthinking parts of the male anatomy.
That’s what bothers me the most.
Second, if Satan worshippers were running the country and had the money, she’d be wearing a pentagram (or whatever). She has NO scruples. Period, end of story.