Hate Sarah Palin? She loves that

By GottaLaff

An op-ed by Neal Gabler pretty much confirms much of what we already know, but it was an interesting read. Here are a few excerpts:

As commentators revile her, Palin realizes they are also empowering her. Indeed, she is engaged in one of the greatest feats of rope-a-dope in political history. Laugh at her, but you laugh at your peril. She can ride that laughter right into the White House. [...]

By the time he ran again for president in 1968 -- after the best and brightest drove us into Vietnam and the liberal social engineers saw their dreams of racial harmony burst by race riots -- Nixon had learned how to nurse Americans' resentments, how to make himself the living symbol of the elites' alleged hatred for the low-born and how to tap what may be the single deepest reservoir in American politics: They think they are better than you are.

Well, sure, but most of us don't just think we're better than Barbie McLipSchmutz. We know we are. I, for one, have never been accused of ethics breaches, abuse of power, inciting hate speech, lying about my president, being under qualified for any job I've held, or not having the ability to put two coherent sentences together, let alone having to use a ghost Facebooker.

Now if she had a ghost thinker, she might be taken more seriously.

Nixon understood that anti-elitism trumps everything -- in his case, even his own unlikability. [...]

Nixon emphasized, the silent majority of ordinary Americans was attacked.

Palin is playing that same card on the gamble that anti-elitism will trump her own inexperience, incompetence and lack of knowledge.

Hey, Bush got away with it. Who's to say Barbie won't?

Palin seems to have the benefit of her sincerity. She isn't a metaphor. She is something more effective: a personification. If she prefers the "worst and the dumbest" to the "best and the brightest," Palin fans think that is exactly as it should be, which drives the elites to revile her further, which in turn further feeds the Palin contempt machine.

That's only a fraction of what she does to earn our contempt. Hypocrisy, lying, extremist views, inability to grasp serious issues, encouraging blatant hostility, and false accusations feed into my personal resentment. And you?

And she knows she has a very good foil in the Ivy League-educated, erudite, articulate Barack Obama, who is obviously everything Palin isn't. "He's not one of us" -- a "tea-baggers'" cry -- could very easily turn into "he condescends to us."

"Could"? More like "has".

She can hope because she knows that mockery has a way of triggering revenge, and revenge may be the best politics of all.

Assuming that's true, we have more than enough ammo on our side, too. It's on.