"It's An Amazing World"

It seemed like just a few hours ago I wrote this blog post on Governor (and potential Presidential Candidate) Sarah Palin.

It picked up a certain amount of snarky comments, but comments that do not stray too far from the truth, or at least the truth as understood by many, many educated American voters.  There are a lot of folks out there, from my wife, to Barbara Bush, to my professor this semester, to Kad Barma, who think that Sarah Palin does not have what it takes to be President.  Not that there are not some of those who think that President Obama isn't up to the job either.

So, over at the Dick Howe Blog is a link to a post at the Huffington Post to a post by former Secretary of Labor and current UC Berkeley Professor Robert Reich at his eponymously named blog.  The post is Dr Reich talking about Sarah Palin and her "outside" game to pick up the Republican nomination in 2010.

There is some faulty analysis in the article, like the accusation of racism against Republicans.  The fact that Willie Horton was Black does not mean that the fear of crime was not real and justified.  It is when we take all Blacks and say they are bad that it is racism.  I don't think I see that in Republican or Tea Party circles.  YMMD.

Then there is this:

All of this is spawning a new and more virulent politics of anger in the nation’s white working class, stoked by Republicans – anger against immigrants, blacks, gays, intellectuals, and international bankers (consider the latest Fox News salvos against George Soros).

According to the right-wing narrative, the calamity that’s befallen the white working class is due to the global and intellectual elites who run the mainstream media, direct the government, dispense benefits to the undeserving, and dominate popular culture. (The story and targets are not substantially different from those that have fueled right-wing and fascist movements during times of economic stress for more than a century, here and abroad.)

That conflates a lot of generalizations to come up with Republicans as being against minorities, especially when Caucasian Working Class Men fail to constitute a majority in this nation.  The bringing in of the word "Fascist" is especially egregious.  For shame, Dr Reich.

But, at the end of the day this is all old hat.  The members of the Democratic Party have been warned, but they ignore the warnings.  My favorite example is Deer Hunting with Jesus:  Dispatches from America's Class War, published way back in 2007.  It was so long ago that at publication there were still folks who thought Senator Hillary Clinton would be President of the United States at this time.  The author is Mr Joe Bageant.

I am not saying I favor Ms Palin, nor am I saying she is going to get the nomination in 2012.  I am saying that Democrat Dr Robert Reich is a very smart man (and at one point he was running for Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but the Mass Democratic Party leadership failed to see in him the person who could lead us into the economic uplands of prosperity (or they thought he would be bad for the leadership in the General Court, which is a more likely explanation)).  Dr Reich looks past the mangled English and the lack of an Ivy League education to see someone he thinks has some great instincts.  His is the right approach for a Democrat.  To just dismiss Ms Palin as an idiot is to set oneself up for a smack upside the head.

Regards  —  Cliff