John O’Sullivan, Crazy Conservative; or, Is Palin Really Like Thatcher?
Why crazy? For writing, in response to conservative “snobs,” that Sarah Palin and Margaret Thatcher “have a great deal in common.”
Honestly, I can’t bring myself to quote from, let alone comment on, this ridiculous piece. Well, okay, here’s the kicker:
But she has plenty of time, probably eight years, to analyze America’s problems, recruit her own expert advice, and develop conservative solutions to them. She has obvious intelligence, drive, serious moral character, and a Reaganesque likability. Her likely Republican rivals such as Bobby Jindal and Mitt Romney, not to mention Barack Obama, have most of these same qualities too. But she shares with Mrs. Thatcher a very rare charisma.
Now, to be fair, O’Sullivan was once an adviser to Thatcher. So I suppose he writes with some authority on the matter. Which is to say, he seems to get Thatcher right, pretty much, albeit in a deeply partisan way. (I was once a great admirer of Thatcher, back in my more conservative youth. I was quite upset when she was given the boot and replaced by Major.)
What he doesn’t get is Palin, whom he overestimates with reckless abandon. Sure, she’s plucky and driven, and perhaps (to some) likable, but she’s also arrogant, ignorant, un-self-conscious, and seemingly unaware of, and not at all curious about, much of the world around her. Thatcher was never a genius, but at least she had (prior to her current dementia), a keen and perceptive mind, not to mention a genuine curiosity about the world. Neither one is from the establishment, to be sure, and each is (or was) an “outsider,” but that’s about as far as it goes.
O’Sullivan tries desperately to make the case, but it’s doomed from the start.
(Cross-posted from The Reaction.)
2 Responses to “John O’Sullivan, Crazy Conservative; or, Is Palin Really Like Thatcher?”
Hmm. I think you may be near the truth.
I remember having lunch with two Tory MPs when they started to exchange comments, to my surprise and mild disbelief, about the sheer sexuality that exuded from Margaret Thatcher. “As she enters the House, you can feel the frisson spread across both back benches as she walks in”. As so often with British Conservatives, I doubted their judgement but not their sincerity.
Could it be that this is the real unexpressed sentiment being felt by O'Sullivan when personally finding similarities between Thatcher and Palin? No, it can't be. I am being churlish.
You of course base this on your extensive personal contact with her right? In depth background and analysis? No, what then? Oh I see you base it on partisan reports. Of course that must be the most accurate way to form an oppinion. The fact that before her inclusion in the presidential campaign she had an extremely high approval rating in her home State must mean that the voters in Alaska are idiots without your keen powers of analysis. Truth is we don't know her and it will take a while before we can if we ever do. What we know is what the two campaigns put out, not what is true. Buying the hype on either side is pretty stupid.