Jack Cashill: Sarah Palin and the Legacy of Republican 'Idiocy'
[Jack Cashill has a Ph.D. from Purdue University in American studies, has taught media and literature at Purdue and at Kansas City area universities, and served as a Fulbright professor in France.
Sarah Palin may be the reigning Republican "idiot," but she shares in a proud legacy that dates back to at least Dwight David Eisenhower, if not earlier.
The "idiot" talk began as soon as Palin was named McCain's running mate. As I drove to the 2008 Republican Convention in St.Paul -- my first -- the radio blared all Palin all the time and just about all negative. The talking heads were busy telling Republicans how they ought to think and what they ought to do -- namely, dump Sarah Palin. What with that Marge Gunderson accent and University of Idaho diploma, not to mention the single mother daughter, Sarah Palin was no more ready to serve as vice president than Ellie Mae Clampett.
None of this surprised me. The left, through its control of the media, including the entertainment media, has been rigging political IQ tests for the last half-century, if not longer. Those Republicans who were not evil geniuses -- Nixon, Cheney, Rove -- the media have painted as blithering idiots.
Dwight Eisenhower, the architect of Operation Overlord, was doddering and incoherent. Gerald Ford, perhaps the best athlete to occupy the White House, was a bumbling fool. "I wanted [Jimmy] Carter in and I wanted [Ford] out," comedian Chevy Chase would later admit of his mocking Ford impersonation on "Saturday Night Live," "and I figured, look, we're reaching millions of people every weekend. Why not do it?"
Ronald Reagan, the century's best president, was, in the memorable words of Clark Clifford, an "amiable dunce." Former CIA Director George Bush was so out of touch that he was ambushed by a grocery scanner. Dan Quayle could not spell "potato" (in fact, the word was spelled "potatoe" on the teacher's flash card). George W. Bush inspired the popular bumper sticker that reads, "A village in Texas is missing its idiot" as well as charming websites like "presidentmoron.com. And now Sarah Palin -- the hillbilly who could allegedly "see Russia from my house" -- was being anointed Bush's idiot successor....
Read entire article at American Thinker
Sarah Palin may be the reigning Republican "idiot," but she shares in a proud legacy that dates back to at least Dwight David Eisenhower, if not earlier.
The "idiot" talk began as soon as Palin was named McCain's running mate. As I drove to the 2008 Republican Convention in St.Paul -- my first -- the radio blared all Palin all the time and just about all negative. The talking heads were busy telling Republicans how they ought to think and what they ought to do -- namely, dump Sarah Palin. What with that Marge Gunderson accent and University of Idaho diploma, not to mention the single mother daughter, Sarah Palin was no more ready to serve as vice president than Ellie Mae Clampett.
None of this surprised me. The left, through its control of the media, including the entertainment media, has been rigging political IQ tests for the last half-century, if not longer. Those Republicans who were not evil geniuses -- Nixon, Cheney, Rove -- the media have painted as blithering idiots.
Dwight Eisenhower, the architect of Operation Overlord, was doddering and incoherent. Gerald Ford, perhaps the best athlete to occupy the White House, was a bumbling fool. "I wanted [Jimmy] Carter in and I wanted [Ford] out," comedian Chevy Chase would later admit of his mocking Ford impersonation on "Saturday Night Live," "and I figured, look, we're reaching millions of people every weekend. Why not do it?"
Ronald Reagan, the century's best president, was, in the memorable words of Clark Clifford, an "amiable dunce." Former CIA Director George Bush was so out of touch that he was ambushed by a grocery scanner. Dan Quayle could not spell "potato" (in fact, the word was spelled "potatoe" on the teacher's flash card). George W. Bush inspired the popular bumper sticker that reads, "A village in Texas is missing its idiot" as well as charming websites like "presidentmoron.com. And now Sarah Palin -- the hillbilly who could allegedly "see Russia from my house" -- was being anointed Bush's idiot successor....