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The following are acute observations on Sarah Palin as professional victim and martyred conservative saint by author and Wall Street Journal columnist Thomas Frank from the Huffington Post, well worth reading in their entirety:
"...The
['liberal-elite'] culture's fantastically unfair treatment of middle
Americans is the main lesson that many will no doubt take away from Ms.
Palin's time in the national spotlight. In fact, it may be the only
lesson. We don't really know where the former vice presidential
candidate stands on most issues. We know only that she is constantly
being maligned, that when we turn on the TV and see her fair face
beaming, we are about to hear that some liberal someone has slurred
this noble lady yet again.
"Indeed, if political figures stand
for ideas, victimization is what Ms. Palin is all about. It is her
brand, her myth. Ronald Reagan stood tall. John McCain was about
service. Barack Obama has hope. Sarah Palin is a collector of
grievances. She runs for high office by griping.
"This is no
small thing, mind you. The piling-up of petty complaints is an
important aspect of conservative movement culture. For those who
believe that American life consists of the trampling of Middle America
by the "elites" -- that our culture is one big insult to the pious and
the patriotic and the traditional -- Sarah Palin's long list of unfair
and disrespectful treatment is one of her most attractive features.
Like Oliver North, Robert Bork, and Clarence Thomas, she is known not
for her ideas but as a martyr, a symbol of the culture-war crimes of
the left.
"To become a symbol of this stature Ms. Palin has had
to do the opposite of most public figures. Where others learn to take
hostility in stride, she and her fans have developed the thinnest of
skins. They find offense in the most harmless remarks and diabolical
calculation in the inflections of the anchorman's voice. They take
insults out of context to make them seem even more insulting. They pay
close attention to voices that are ordinarily ignored, relishing every
blogger's sneer, every celebrity's slight, every crazy Internet rumor.
"This has been Ms. Palin's assigned role ever since she stepped on the national stage last summer. Indeed, she has stuck to it so unswervingly that one suspects it was settled on even before she was picked for the VP slot, that it was imposed on her by a roomful of GOP image consultants: Ms. Palin was to be the candidate on a cross...."
Call for art:
Were I the painterly kind, I should like to produce something in a
Medieval or Renaissance image of the martyred Saint Sarah of Wasilla,
perhaps on a cross, or undergoing cruel scourging by wicked liberals,
or pierced by arrows like Saint Sebastian. Oh, would that some talented soul
be the conveyor from Heaven's heights of such a work...!
Mark C. Eades
http://www.mceades.com
