Governor Palin has been getting a lot of sneering attacks from the East Coast elite and the Washington insiders and press corps ever since she was nominated. They complain that she is uneducated (no Harvard degree), inexperienced (hasn’t been part of the Senate “old boys” network), dishonest (apparently Alaskan earmarks are dishonest while those for other states are honest), and all manner of other things.
Now I’m unlikely to vote for the McCain-Palin ticket for reasons I laid out in my July 24 posting, but in fact I have been bothered a great deal by these attacks, far more than by the predictable partisan attacks on McCain or Obama, without quite being able to put my finger on why. Victor Davis Hanson’s article Palin and Obama: What Really Is Wisdom? (http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson091908.html) has finally helped me see what it is I find so disturbing.
It is the underlying assertion, by the political and press “elites”, that in national politics only formal education and Washington experience counts. And indeed, I think that is much of what is wrong with Washington politics these days - the Washington “elites” of both parties are largely disconnected from and ignorant of the real-world day-to-day life of the voters they represent, the military men and women they command, and the workers their economy depends upon. Their enclosed world of Georgetown cocktail parties, power lunches at the Watergate, golf at Chevy Chase Country Club, and self-important press meetings has little to do with life in the nation as a whole.
I recommend this article – it made me think.
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