SARAH

Posted at 8:01 p.m. ET

A reader alerts me to a column on Sarah Palin by the excellent Michael Goodwin of The New York Daily News.  It reveals the mindset of a certain class of people here in the northeast.

There's a famous story about Pauline Kael, the movie critic.  After the 1972 Nixon blowout of George McGovern, Kael commented that she couldn't understand how Nixon had won since she hadn't known anyone who'd voted for him.  Her world was this narrow little place known as Manhattan.

In 1936, Literary Digest conducted a poll showing that Governor Alf Landon of Kansas, the Republican presidential nominee, would easily defeat President Franklin D. Roosevelt.  But it was a poll weighted in favor of those who had telephone service, and those running it never realized that many hard-pressed Americans, Roosevelt supporters, didn't have telephones.

Ah, that "world view" problem again.

Michael Goodwin writes: 

The changes are coming so fast we hardly take notice. Is America really going to elect a black President? Two years ago, that was unthinkable. Now it's very likely as Barack Obama has seized the momentum 30 days from the election.

But before we sprain our shoulders patting ourselves on the back for our color-blind, bias-free selves, let's acknowledge that certain prejudices are far from taboo. In fact, in some quarters they are ascendant and celebrated.

I'm thinking of the overt, outrageous prejudice that infuses some of the contempt on the left for Palin. Scrape away the surface excuses and much of it is because she is a Republican. And an anti-abortion one at that. How dare she!

Indeed.  How dare she be "different."  We celebrate diversity, dearies, but we do have our limits. 

That the bias comes from people we think of as sophisticated makes it disappointing, but not surprising. After all, contempt for Republicans is the only socially acceptable prejudice remaining among many educated people today.

A celebrated retired journalist, a man I've long admired, was surprised when I told him I hadn't decided whom to vote for. "You're too smart to vote for John McCain," he said, thereby insulting 50 million Americans.

And...

George W. Bush appointed the first two black secretaries of state, but does anyone on the left regard him as a racial trailblazer? When I raised that question to another liberal, she dismissed the idea, saying Bush "never thought about race."

That exchange took place three years ago, but I still can't grasp her logic. How does she know what Bush thought? Why would it be more important than what he does?

A similar blind spot toward the political "other" explains much of the contempt for Palin. If she were a Democrat, her unusual life would be spun into a compelling narrative that would make her the darling of the coastal elite.

Well, maybe.  First she'd have to produce a Wellesley or Princeton degree, or explain in an essay why she went to one of those...state schools.

Yes, I know there are many legitimate reasons to vote against her and McCain. And I am not arguing for a second they should be supported, least of all because of her gender.

But couldn't we all at least acknowledge Palin's moment and what it means for America?

Apparently not. She must lose, the liberal narrative goes, because she is unqualified, case closed.

Some day, we will look back with disgust at the abuse Palin has taken and wonder how it could happen in this great nation, circa 2008.

Spare me. We already know the answer.

Yes we do.  What a disgrace.

October 5, 2008.