From the mailbag: John Frary (who by the way is running for Congress in Maine) provided this thoughtful comment (# 138) on my post of a couple days ago about Sarah Palin:
Frederick the Great on the value of experience: “A mule who has carried a pack for ten campaigns under Prince Eugene will be no better tactician for it, and… many men grow old in an otherwise respectable profession without making any greater progress than this mule.”
The experience argument, whether applied to Obama or Palin, is not all that conclusive.
Both have more experience than Lincoln had when he was first elected.For me the most pertinent comparison is this: Palin clearly rose to prominence as an opponent of a corrupt Repbulican establishement in Alaska, while Obama nestled comfortably in the Chicago political sewer without ever causing a problem.
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24 Comments
1. BobNC:Are you SURE that Frederick the Great wasn’t really talking about Doofus Joe?
Sep 2, 2008 - 7:04 am 2. KD:“Palin clearly rose to prominence as an opponent of a corrupt Republican establishment in Alaska. . .”
She clearly “rose to prominence” only when McCain chose her as his Vice President.
Before that, the vast majority of Americans had never heard of her.
I’d wager that, until very, very recently, Mr. McCain himself had never heard of her.
Prominence, indeed.
Sep 2, 2008 - 7:20 am 3. MGCC:KD, that’s simply wrong. Republican activists knew exactly who Palin was when the VP announcement was made. And Governor of any state is a prominent position.
Sep 2, 2008 - 7:31 am 4. MGCC:To be clear, just because YOU might not have heard of her doesn’t make her obscure prior to last Friday.
Sep 2, 2008 - 7:31 am 5. Ted Tedford:KD: Right – unless the national media has heard of her, she must be a nobody. She hasn’t even been on *Meet the press*, after all, and I don’t recall her being in the FHM babes list this year either. Clearly she’s just a provincial nobody…
There are different types of prominence, and the type you appear to favour disregards the prominence she enjoys among the many thousands of people who voted for her, and whose lives she affects directly while actually *doing* something, as opposed to almost-chairing a sub-committee or being yet another talking head on NBC.
Sep 2, 2008 - 7:59 am 6. tbogg:Does this include when she was a director in Ted Steven’s PAC?
Really, Roger. Do try to keep up.
Sep 2, 2008 - 8:17 am 7. KD:I said the vast majority of Americans have not heard of her.
The vast majority of American are not Republican activists.
Prominence, indeed.
To be clear, simply because YOU may have heard of her doesn’t make her prominent.
Certainly until McCain introduced her to the populace as his Vice Presidential choice, she was not famous or prominent, but relatively unknown. Isn’t that the definition of obscure?
Incidentally, I HAD heard of her before she was selected by Mr. McCain.
Sep 2, 2008 - 11:43 am 8. KD:Mr. Kimball’s support for Mrs. Palin is a personal choice.
But, as editor of The New Criterion, he might wish to display a little more precision in his use of words.
Mr. Tedford: There is nothing in my comment that suggests I favor any partuclar “type” of prominence.
At any rate, I stand by the opinion that Mr. McCain’s choice of Mrs. Palin as his Vice President is cynical and irresponisble. Time will tell.
Sep 2, 2008 - 11:55 am 9. KD:Correction:
Mr. Tedford: There is nothing in my comment that suggests I favor any particular “type” of prominence.
Sep 2, 2008 - 12:36 pm 10. dragonfly:Great quote. Biden is a pack mule. His single claim to fame is that he brought down Bork failed with Thomas.
On the “experience” issue: Obama sought the Chicago machine sewer andTHRIVED in them. He has NO other experience. His entire campaign is the AUDACITY OF HYPE. Without the immoral support of the MS he would be dead meat.
McCain’s people now understand that they will not defeat Obama on theMcain’s record or the “issues” – they’ll do it by attacking the emptiness and shabbiness of the Democrats’ hype. You can’t hype a stiff.
We need some ads on the order of: Senator Obama, we learn that you DO in fact have a record of administrative experience – with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. So, why are you trying desperately to keep it a secret?
The weakness of Obama’s campaign is that he has absolutely no safe fall-back. It is all hype, all cover-up. Keeping an unrelenting pressure on the absurdity of placing this nonentity in contention for the Presidency, forcing him to reveal himself, is the best strategy. It appears that this will be McCain’s course.
Sep 2, 2008 - 1:07 pm 11. gaetano catelli:Abraham Lincoln first rose to national prominence by virtue of his being the political class’s most ardent, articulate advocate of the most explosively divisive issue America has ever had: Abolition.
by contrast, then State Senator Obama voted “present” some 130 times in order to duck tough issues.
Lincoln famously said a man is responsible for his own face after the age of 40. in judging who has had more experience, note this picture of Lincoln’s face: http://www.americanpod.com/mm/Lincoln444×600.jpg
and, here’s one of Obama: http://www.americanpod.com/mm/Barack_Obama.jpg
Sep 2, 2008 - 6:23 pm 12. Polemicscat:The greatest difference between Obama and Palin is something else.
When we look at Palin we know what we are getting. She is direct, uncomplicated, without guile—we understand her.
Obama, on the other hand, has talked a great deal for months, but we are still no closer to knowing him. The image-building rhetoric supplied him by his handlers is insincere and often self-contradictory—-it hides the man.
Sep 2, 2008 - 8:58 pm 13. KD:Well said, Polemicscat.
Indeed, Palin is direct, and seems relatively uncomplicated. Without guile. . .it’s probably too soon to say.
Is she easier to understand than Obama? Possibly.
On the other hand, Obama has told us much about himself in his books. Have you read them?
You may not like what he says in his books, but that is another matter.
You are right about Obama’s handlers supplying often contradictory image-building rhetoric about the man.
Of course, the image-building rhetoric supplied by McCain’s handlers is also self-contradictory.
And as for sincerity — I believe McCain’s so-called “maverick” image is, for the most part, misleading.
Sep 2, 2008 - 9:39 pm 14. Ted Tedford:KD: No, but I deduced your ideas about prominence from your comments, hence my use of the phrase ‘appear to’. You appear to confuse prominence with fame. GEN David Petraeus was prominent before he was known to most Americans – ask his peers, subordinates and the Pentagon. Mrs Palin has been elected a state governor: that is a prominent post, and one at which she has excelled. Greater prominence than that is hard to achieve, unless you value the imprimatur of the national news networks and the society pages above the endorsement of American voters.
Sep 3, 2008 - 1:07 am 15. KD:TED: As for “valuing” the imprimatur of the national news networks, I daresay that Mr. McCain and Mrs. Palin value it much more than I do.
At any rate, you are correct in suggesting that what matters most is the endorsement of American voters.
Sep 3, 2008 - 4:18 am 16. KD:Interesting, by the way, that you mention the news networks: Mrs. Palin was once a television sports anchor.
The question remains: Is she the best qualified person to be President of the United States should circumstances thrust her into that position?
Sep 3, 2008 - 4:35 am 17. Ted Tedford:KD: I didn’t know she’d been a sports anchor. Yet another string to her bow!
I think she is better qualified than Mr Obama, and she is ‘only’ running for VP: Mr Obama is less than a heartbeat away from the presidency, yet he has run nothing more responsible than ‘community programs’ and committees – and then, as the saying goes, badly. Mrs Palin has negotiated with Canada. That’s foreign policy ‘experience’ worth more than a dozen ‘fact-finding’ trips.
In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I would vote for her for the top job – if I were a US voter, which, alas, I’m not.
Sep 3, 2008 - 5:37 am 18. Moultrie:Sarah P. is the real maverick in this race and the Left knows it. The comparison of Palin to Obama will prove increasingly damaging to Obama in a way that is subtle and very difficult to solve for his campaign. As for slow Joe Biden, that comparison with Palin will be hilarious…Joe will be lucky if he manages to remain on the ticket.
Sep 3, 2008 - 7:53 am 19. John N. Frary:The context, KD, should have shown you that I was referring to her election as governor in opposition to a corrupt Republican incumbent and a former Democratic governor. She would not have been chosen if she had remained mayor of Wasilla, even though she would have been a little more prominent than you or I.
Prominence, forsooth, is relative.
Sep 3, 2008 - 1:08 pm 20. KD:“Prominence. . .is relative.”
Exactly, John.
That’s why I took issue with Mr. Kimball when he used the word.
By the way, does anyone have anything to say about an earlier comment (not made by me) concerning Ted Steven’s PAC?
PS: I certainly look forward to seeing/hearing Mrs. Palin’s aceptance speech tonight, as I’m sure you are.
Sep 3, 2008 - 6:10 pm 21. KD:Having just heard Mrs. Palin’s acceptance speech, I must say I’m underwhelmed.
Just as I was by Mr. Biden’s acceptance speech.
But Mr. Biden’s was to be expected. Afterall, I’ve heard him speak before.
Without exception, every speech I’ve heard by Mr. McCain has left me underwhelmed. Every interview even moreso. Will he be different tomorrow night?
I am doubtful.
Like the speeches of both Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden, Mrs. Palin’s speech was riddled with falsehoods. Some were better concealed than others.
Sep 3, 2008 - 8:38 pm 22. ScottR:Wow: KD arbiter of truth.
Sep 3, 2008 - 9:33 pm 23. KD:Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.
- Samuel Johnson
Sep 4, 2008 - 8:11 am 24. John N. Frary:We can expect to hear the claim that Gov. Palin’s speech was riddled with falsehoods again and again.
But we have little hope of an enumeration of these alleged “falsehoods.”
For my part, I found Obama’s speech riddled with stark absurdities, the most risible of which was his proclaimed intention to go through the federal budget “line-by-line.”
Sep 7, 2008 - 1:24 am