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February 15, 2010 in Opinion
Leonard Pitts Jr.: If Sarah runs, we’ll all learn
Dear Sarah Palin:
I hear you’re pondering a run for the White House in 2012. Last week, you told Fox News it would be “absurd” to rule it out.
I’m writing to ask that you rule it in. I very badly want you to run for – and “win” – the Republican nomination for the presidency.
I know you’re waiting for the punch line. Maybe you figure I think you’d be a weak candidate who would pave the way for President Barack Obama’s easy re-election.
That’s not it. No, I want you to run because I believe a Palin candidacy would force upon this country a desperately needed moment of truth. It would require us to finally decide what kind of America we want to be.
Mrs. Palin, you are an avatar of the shameless hypocrisy and cognitive disconnection that have driven our politics for the last decade, a process of stupidification creeping like kudzu over our national life.
As Exhibit A, consider your recent speech at a so-called “tea party” event, wherein you dismissed the president as a “charismatic guy with a teleprompter.” Bad enough you imply that teleprompter use is the mark of an insubstantial man, even though you and every other major politician use them. But what made the comment truly jaw-dropping is that even as you spoke, you had penned on your left palm, clearly visible, a series of crib notes.
In the Fox interview, you scored Obama for supposedly expecting Americans to “sit down and shut up” and accept his policies. But when asked when the president has ever said that, you couldn’t answer. Obama, you sputtered, has just been condescending with his “general persona.”
I found that a telling moment. See, ultimately what you represent is not conservatism. Heck, I suspect that somewhere, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan are spinning like helicopter rotors at the very idea.
No, you represent the latest iteration of an anti-intellectualism that periodically rises in the American character. There is, historically and persistently, a belief in us that y’all just can’t trust nobody who acts too smart or talks too good – in other words, somebody whose “general persona” indicates they may have once cracked a book or had a thought. Americans tend to believe common sense the exclusive province of humble folks without sheepskins on the wall or big words in their vocabularies.
I don’t mock those people. They are my parents, my family elders, members of my childhood church. I honor their native good sense, what mom called “mother wit.” But if it is insulting to condescend to them, it is equally insulting to mythologize them.
More to the point, something is wrong when we celebrate mental mediocrity like yours under the misapprehension that competence or, God forbid, “intelligence,” makes a person one of those “elites” – that’s a curse word now – lacking authenticity, compassion and common sense.
So no, this is not a clash of ideologies, but a clash between intelligence and its opposite. And I am tired of being asked to pretend stupid is a virtue. That’s why I’d welcome the moment of truth your campaign would bring. It would force us to decide once and for all whether we are permanently committed to the path of ignorance, of birthers, truthers and tea party incoherence you represent, or whether we will at last turn back from the cliff toward which we race.
If the latter, wonderful, God bless America. If the former, well, some of us can finally quit hoping the nation will return to its senses and plan accordingly. Either way, we need to know, and your candidacy would tell us. If you love this country, Mrs. Palin, you can do it no greater service.
Run, Sarah, run.
Editorial: Workers’ beer routine undermines public trust 
rriverrat on February 15 at 10:32 a.m.
I wish I had written this!
Absolutely superb, in thought and presentation.
PlanB on February 15 at 10:35 a.m.
Very well said. Regardless of ideology, wouldn’t a person have some minimal expectation of intelligence, education, experience, or innate aptitude when they choose someone to represent them? Sadly, not always.
mmspowaus on February 15 at 2:51 p.m.
Harry Truman never went to college and he dropped an atomic bomb that SAVED millions of American lives. Ronald Reagan went Eureka College in Illinois, not known as a center for intellectual thought yet he did what Harvard Educated Play boy, JFK, Political Thug LBJ, Duke educated Richard Nixon and Annapolis Educated Carter could not; defeat the USSR without firing a shot.
I can still hear Reagan’s words to this day: “Mr. Gobachev tear down this wall!”
Lincoln, who was the greatest bar none of the Presidents, was self-educated.
Your point in the matter of Sarah Palin, as so often is with your de facto apologist liberal musings Mr. Pitts, is historically of base and pointless.
I’m glad you can make a living writing this tripe, but it also explains why your industry is dying…
JBlim on February 15 at 3:25 p.m.
People who aren’t very smart have no capacity to see how unqualified and intellectually challenged Sara Palin is. It’s not their fault, and I mean no disrespect, but we could use some leadership from the right to put forward better leaders rather than the usual demagoging. As for matt’s defending stupid and uneducated, he out to go out and talk to some actual Russians who lived back in the Reagan era. The fall of the USSR can be attributed more to the appeal of the West’s progressive culture, Levi’s, Coca-Cola and rock music than Reagan’s tough talk. We tried going stupid with George Bush and we had nothing but one disaster after another. Great article, Leonard! Read it again, matt.
mmspowaus on February 15 at 6:08 p.m.
I stand by my words and history. You can demean me as you see fit but it will not change history. Pitts, Jblim and other DNC CN- laced Kool-aid apologist can try to spin, but the actual truth is the most effective US presidents in history were some of the least educated. Likewise some of the biggest presidential failures were in fact Ivy League educated.
In my previous post, I mention just a few historically great presidents who were not Ivy League educated yet; Jblim ignored this damaging counterpoint to Pitts’ argument.
Bush-43 which is mocked even after being out of office for a year, was Ivy League educated. Perhaps it is only liberal DNC Ivy League presidents that are intelligent….
By their own words it is evident that Pitts and Jblim are DNC partisans…. Both have postings jaundiced by a reckless, blind DNC devotion.
Jblim, do you also defend convicted voter fraud felons at ACORN and the billions they are receiving from the DNC dominated US congress? Win at any cost???
Do you defend the Obama and the DNC locking out the duly elected GOP representatives in forming health care reform legislation? Obama promised it would be on CSPAN during the 2008 election….He broke his word for the entire world to see…In short, he lied.
Do you support the Obama and the DNC making a different health care plan for elected officials versus the general public in the above-mentioned health care plan?
How much are you willing to take before you stand and say enough?
Apparently, due to elections for Senate and Congress in other parts of the nation, have had enough; even the deep blue State of Massachusetts…
Despite a complacent media, the socialist Obama and the DNC have failed. This November, we will see whose assessment of the voting public is correct.
Again, baring voting box stuffing on the part of convicted felons at ACORN, the GOP will have a HUGE surge in victory in November 2010.
As for Palin, she communicates as well as any person in national politics. It is always fun to see the DNC apologist get their tuffets in a wad over her…
JBlim on February 15 at 9:48 p.m.
Matt, you should limit your dose of Fox “news” and right wing hate radio. You’re turning into a real bore. Hugo Chavez is a socialist, Obama is a centrist corporate Democrat. Learn the difference. You’re rhetoric doesn’t change reality. And no, nobody wants the village idiot, Sarah Palin, to be the president of the United States.
mmspowaus on February 16 at 2:25 a.m.
Jblim:
How is it the political left wing from which you parrot talking points is so quick to dismiss a voice of reason by simply stating “ …they are just an idiot…” or “…they watch FOX news to much…”?
I recall back in the day, the “enlighten left” mocked and joked Reagan was old and foolish. Yet this old fool is remembered as the greatest president of the twentieth century. Not JFK, not FDR, not Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton (all ivy leaguers)
I gave historic evidence and examples that it does not take an ivy league education to be a great president. In fact the greatest presidents in our republic’s 234 history have been anything but Ivy League. Proof that you have ignored in two or your jejune posts.
You then summarily dismiss me as a viewer of “FOX news” and listener of “hate radio”.
Jblim, you do not seek to intelligently debate or strive to think of better solutions in your comments. You instead seek to mindlessly re-bleat the DNC rhetoric du jour.
If you have something intelligent to contribute then by all means post. If you are going to ignore evidence critical to your argument then insult the ones who post such arguments, there are plenty of like mindless liberal blogs that might even enjoy your clearly partisan misguided musings.
FYI: the most hateful radio I ever heard was on the now defunct Air America…
Even the most partisan NPR segment was not even in the same caustic ballpark as a standard show on Air America…
Most of MSNBC is of the same ilk but packaged better than Air American. Morning Joe the rare exception….
CNBC, CBS and ABC lost all credibility during the 2008 presidential race via their blatant blind biased support of candidate Obama; even at the expense of Hillary Clinton.
What’s left of CNN, well let’s say it was great at one time, years ago….
Don’t forget, it was FOX that exposed the blatant for corruption at ACORN and congress acted before the rest of the media even printed the story or did a segment. FOX scooped all of them.
horse_feathers on February 16 at 1:33 p.m.
The whole time Reagan was in office the left leaning media protrayed him as just a dumb actor who didn’t know what he was doing. Pitts is attempting the same tired tactics.
Boring.
JBlim on February 16 at 7:55 p.m.
Matt Monroe, you don’t get it again. No one is arguing that you have to have an ivy-league education to be a good president. No one is saying even that you have to be college education. But a president ought not be ill-informed and/or stupid. Nobody wants the village idiot, Sarah Palin, to be the president of the United States.
Ed Byrnes on February 16 at 9:56 p.m.
We need leaders who are intelligent and committed to evaluating the consequences of policy decisions based on rationally applying relevant evidence.
One’s level of education, even if it is a graduate degree, is not necessarily and independently an indicator of intelligence or critical thinking, as our previous president clearly indicated.
What we need is reason in policy making rather than ideology, and both sides of the political spectrum veer more toward the latter than the former with frighteningly increasing frequency.
Scoutster on February 17 at 8:03 p.m.
Boy, I’m sorry I missed all this.
I agree with Pitts…let Sarah win the nomination, let her defend her positions and policies in front of the American people…give her all the air time she wants. Let ‘em all loose. Once they get past the heckling and harassing, the tea partiers have no real policies.
I think the American people are smart enough, regardless of their education, to separate wheat from chaff.
(BTW, I wouldn’t count those GOP seats yet, Mr. Monroe. A lot can and will happen in 10 months. “No” is easy, solutions that a tired populace will accept as being workable are hard.)
ChefGus/ John Olsen on February 18 at 12:00 a.m.
Buon Giorno from Lucca Italy…
Intellectual curiousity … not where you went to school is the key…. Mrs Palin had the opportunity to go to a very very good Community College at North Idaho, on her trek to finally get her degree passing through several different schools… the curious thing here is that she attended classes of Mr Tony Stewart… and he has NO memory of her even beining in his class.
Does the fact that she does not read much of anything have some bearing on her awareness of the real world out here….. Come to Lucca Italy and take a drive up into the lower alps as we did yesterday.. and there was NO snow n the mountains that normally fill several very large streams that feed the Poe Valley… Snow Pack and water availability matters most in this world.. even more than the liquid fuels we continue to burn….
I would guess that Ms Palin thinks “The Econmist” is Milton Friedman…. there are people that read that magazine every week as well as the New York Times our newspaper of record daily… Andiamo… J
SugarShane on February 18 at 8:32 a.m.
Shes a complete moron, not uneducated, just plain ol folksy stupid. Say it aint so Joe! You Betcha!