Shot in the Dark

Plain English

Sarah Palin’s biggest drawback – and this was amply confirmed after months of reading the mainstream and left-media – was that she didn’t win over any of the movement liberals who were never going to vote for a Republican anyway.

Her greatest strength – and this is something that the mainstream media would have a hard time catching – was that she reminded an awful lot of people between the Adirondacks and the Sierra Madres of people like them.

And – just as with Ronald Reagan – talking about (or to) “people just like people between the Adirondacks and the Sierra Madres” in front of the media is like waving a red flag in front of a bull.

Camille Paglia – no conservative,she – on Dick Cavett’s drive-by sliming of Palin (emphasis added):

However, Cavett’s piece on Sarah Palin was insufferably supercilious. With dripping disdain, he sniffed at her “frayed syntax, bungled grammar and run-on sentences.” He called her “the serial syntax-killer from Wasilla High,” “one who seems to have no first language.” I will pass over Cavett’s sniggering dismissal of “soccer moms” as lightweights who should stay far, far away from government.

Although it’s certainly worth discussing, since it would be a real slap at the feminist movement, if movement feminists actually cared about their purported goals.

Onward:

I was so outraged when I read Cavett’s column that I felt like taking to the air like a Valkyrie and dropping on him at his ocean retreat in Montauk in the chichi Hamptons. How can it be that so many highly educated Americans have so little historical and cultural consciousness that they identify their own native patois as an eternal mark of intelligence, talent and political aptitude?

In sonorous real life, Cavett’s slow, measured, self-interrupting and clause-ridden syntax is 50 years out of date. Guess what: There has been a revolution in English — registered in the 1950s in the street slang, colloquial locutions and assertive rhythms of both Beat poetry and rock ‘n’ roll and now spread far and wide on the Web in the standard jazziness of blogspeak. Does Cavett really mean to offer himself as a linguistic gatekeeper for political achievers in this country?

Leaving slang aside, there are a bunch of major linguistic groups in this country. For Dick Cavett (or, satirically, Tina Fey) to make someone’s American-English dialect a “qualification” to serve is…

…like, wack, dude.

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39 responses to “Plain English”

  1. Chuck Avatar
    Chuck

    Just yesterday, read a commentator who made a good point. Many of the liberal elites were born on third base. Governor Palin started at the bottom and worked her way to the top. She has accomplished so much more then someone like a Kennedy.

  2. angryclown Avatar
    angryclown

    Or a Bush. Or a McCain.

    What in God’s name has she accomplished, other than being a small town mayor and Governor of a small state where everybody lives in igloos?

    Other than hotness, cause I’ll give ya that.

  3. angryclown Avatar
    angryclown

    Good thing she didn’t win the election. She’s got a big wedding to plan for Bristol and Levi, like they said during the campaign. Any…time…now…

  4. Mr. D Avatar
    Mr. D

    She’s got a big wedding to plan for Bristol and Levi, like they said during the campaign. Any…time…now…

    Sorry that you didn’t get the invite, AC. Must have been an oversight, as I’m sure they’ll want you there.

  5. Steve G. Avatar
    Steve G.

    Accidentally watching a rerun of Tina Fey on Letterman (both making fun of Palin), I realized something: no one in the news or entertainment business has ever met a person who was both intelligent AND not a great orator. I guess I’m trying to find a non-motive when I know a lot of them have motive (and means, the way Palin and Bush can talk), but I wonder if that’s an explanation for the instant assumption that, if a Republican mangles an answer or a speech, they are idiots. (Dems like Biden can say dumber things, but they get a pass because no one who holds the “right” [left] beliefs can be dumb, right?)

  6. Yossarian Avatar
    Yossarian

    What in God’s name has she accomplished

    As opposed to AC, who is just an accomplishment machine.

  7. Chuck Avatar
    Chuck

    AC, Palin started up and ran a small business. Do you think a crazy Kennedy could do that? And use Grandpa’s drug…..I mean booze money? Worked her way up in public service from PTA board to Governor. Took on corruption in her own party. I don’t see Barry Obama doing anything to clean up Illinois.

  8. penigma Avatar
    penigma

    “Sarah Palin’s biggest drawback – and this was amply confirmed after months of reading the mainstream and left-media – was that she didn’t win over any of the movement liberals who were never going to vote for a Republican anyway.”

    Why do you do this Mitch? You create this strawman and then proceed to try to either tear it down, or build it up.

    Her main ‘drawback’ was that she was patently incurious, like her hero GWB. She came across as ignorant, and just a clarification, there isn’t a ‘movment’ liberal in the same way that ‘movement conservatives’ identify themselves, but Palin didn’t win over LOTS of liberals, including those who might be considered ‘dedicated to all things liberal’ i.e. movement. She also failed to win over LOTS of moderats and LOTS of moderate Republicans too. SHE was her biggest drawback, not the inability of anyone to embrace her. She was a weak candidate who appealed ONLY to the far right, which was the reason for her selection, a reason YOU pointed out, in that her selection was intended to shore up the right’s base.

    You sit and pontificate and posture and claim that comments (like those from me) are irrational or inchohate, yet clearly, the finger you point needs a compass – this isn’t about Palin’s inability to win over liberals, neither she nor McCain were at all likely to win over even conservative Democrats in any large number, this was about her vapid nature – her clear inability to respond coherently to issues, and most of all her rabid tone, a tone you embrace, and which was resoundingly repudiated by the past election. If you insist on perpetuating that rabid, attack dog approach, and seemingly you do, do not be surprised when you lose more elections.

  9. penigma Avatar
    penigma

    BTW – slang or no, not completing a thought, failing to have an object in a sentence which needs one, that’s not slang, it’s simply poor communication, and yet, you all think she was the second most qualified person for President – or at a minimum, should have been next in line behind a 73 year-old cancer patient.

    AND – you probably will push her in 2012. I urge you to do so, she would be destroyed in a direct discussion with Obama, just as she was by Biden.

  10. Yossarian Avatar
    Yossarian

    Inchohate.

    Inchohate?

    It’s a word that doesn’t exist. . . yet, it should.

  11. Yossarian Avatar
    Yossarian

    Peev is a fine one to opine about “poor communication.” The man couldn’t say “Good morning” without turning it into a 5,000 word novella about the overall decline of mornings in general and how conservatives are responsible for the current defunct state of our mornings, due to all their inchohate policies.

  12. Terry Avatar
    Terry

    “the finger you point needs a compass”
    You are mixing metaphors, peev. Did you intend that to have a comic effect?

  13. Chad The Elder Avatar
    Chad The Elder

    Yoss- I believe that Peev merely made a mistake and ran words together. In should have read “inch o’ hate” which I believe is a reference to how Mitch has described the stature of Peev’s intellect. In could also have been a reference to another area of the body.

  14. swiftee Avatar
    swiftee

    “What in God’s name has she accomplished, other than being a small town mayor and Governor of a small state where everybody lives in igloos?”

    Says the boob who’s big claim to fame is actually having accomplished a “deep throating” of the Wall St. bull’s phallus.

    Oh, and wearing a clownsuit and makeup; can’t forget that.

    Pfft.

  15. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    Why do you do this Mitch? You create this strawman and then proceed to try to either tear it down, or build it up.

    I think you’re unclear on the definition of “strawman”. I have not put the left into a logical position they did not embrace; they HATE Palin and all she represents as politician and female conservative.

    Her main ‘drawback’ was that she was patently incurious, like her hero GWB.

    Well, as long as you get your entire point of view entirely from Charlie Gibson and Tina Fey, that might be an inescapable conclusion.

    The leftymedia’s effort to dehumanize and demonize Palin is – well, the subject of the Paglia big that, tell the truth, you didn’t read. Did you?

    Of course not. It is outside your ironclad little template!

    there isn’t a ‘movment’ liberal in the same way that ‘movement conservatives’ identify themselves,

    She also failed to win over LOTS of moderats [heh heh – Ed.] and LOTS of moderate Republicans too.

    So? Who cares? Any “moderat” Republican who didn’t gravitate to McCain wasn’t a “moderat” Republican so much as a wandering Democrat.

    SHE was her biggest drawback, not the inability of anyone to embrace her. She was a weak candidate who appealed ONLY to the far right, which was the reason for her selection, a reason YOU pointed out, in that her selection was intended to shore up the right’s base.

    If you (singularly and plurally) didn’t have “the far right” to use as a boogeyman, you (s’np) would have to make it up.

    Yep, she was chosen to shore up the base (which was justifiably underwhelmed with McCain) but, like Reagan, her take on social issues was largely to use her bully pulpit rather than to enact conservative social policy. Of course, to the left and media (pardon the redundancy), that is immensely dangerous – so the meme of the “Stupid, Incurious and Far-Right” Palin had to be invented and rammed down America’s throat, and FAST, because – while I know you’re far too incurious about the right to care much, Peev – she DID electrify the GOP. Without Palin, it would have been a fifteen point race.

    So yes, Peev, your statement is patent buncombe, which can only come from someone whose entire “knowledge” on the issue comes from leftymedia shrieking points.

    You sit and pontificate and posture and claim that comments (like those from me) are irrational or inchohate, yet clearly, the finger you point needs a compass

    Oh, good Lord, Peev, could you give that one a rest? It’s far past self-parody at this point.

    – this isn’t about Palin’s inability to win over liberals, neither she nor McCain were at all likely to win over even conservative Democrats in any large number, this was about her vapid nature

    You, Peev, exist purely to parrot lefty spin and propaganda. The Dems should pay you.

    All future comments will be treated accordingly.

  16. Badda Avatar
    Badda

    Hows that Part Three post coming, Peev?

    Perhaps Mitch and Roush could take a break from blogging for a week so you’d have time to finish the stellar and insightful series you started.

    Or, if you wish, you could just continue on your path of not reading what Mitch said, what Mitch referenced, and jump straight in and call everyone little spinners, little dancers, and little princes simply choc full o’ hate for any one and any idea that sits a mere one inch-o-hate from Che and Stalin and your hateful little self.

    Hateful little worm.

  17. Badda Avatar
    Badda

    By the way, when are you going to post over here as Hasslington or adopt another name?

  18. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    Badda,

    I have some reason to believe Peev is not Hasslington.  Hasslington has some interesting insights – mostly wrong, of course, but occasionally thought-provoking.  And at the risk of sounding gratuitously insulting, he has a fairly clean, economical writing style, which Peev (I say this clinically and with no intent, again, to merely insult) does not.  While I suppose it’s possible that Peev could have two completely separate alter-egoes, one of whom for whatever reason sandbags on his writing style, it seems rather pointless and, frankly, complicated (systematically changing writing styles takes work!)

    However, it would seem Peev gives my comment section than he gives his own blog.

  19. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    In could also have been a reference to another area…

    Oh, hell no.

  20. Badda Avatar
    Badda

    We demand an answer!

  21. Badda Avatar
    Badda

    (Of course Peev isn’t Hasslington… but it might annoy him to say so.)

  22. Badda Avatar
    Badda

    (But let him think I believe that Peev is Hasslington.)

  23. Scott Hughes Avatar
    Scott Hughes

    I like reading Camille Paglia writings even if our views on many things are polar opposite. She has a certain poetry in her words that I enjoy.

    I believe one of the reasons that some go after Palin-speak is that it’s purely an attack method. Not unlike insults on appearance, gender, or ethnicity. Often (deservedly) that’ll get the attacker a punch in the nose.

    I also believe that the snobs that use the tactic have comparatively a shallow resume of their own achievements.

  24. Bike Bubba Avatar
    Bike Bubba

    Biden beat Palin in debate? Looks like liberals REALLY didn’t listen to Nancy Reagan on that issue, did they?

  25. angryclown Avatar
    angryclown

    Chuckwagon said: “AC, Palin started up and ran a small business.”

    Angryclown’s Korean drycleaner for vice president!

  26. Bike Bubba Avatar
    Bike Bubba

    Your dry cleaner is probably a better choice than Joe Biden, AC. At least the dry clearner didn’t plagiarize Neil Kinnock and vote against oil exploration on the North Slope.

  27. Troy Avatar
    Troy

    Is angryclown’s drycleaner the Governor of some state? Or was angryclown unable to make heads or tails of Chuck’s comment after the first sentence?

  28. swiftee Avatar
    swiftee

    “Angryclown’s Korean drycleaner for vice president!”

    Nobody ever caught AssClown in public with an embaressing stain running down the front of his blue dress….

  29. Dog Gone Avatar
    Dog Gone

    Language is the medium of thought; we think in words.

    Poor use of language is a bad reflection on the quality of a person’s thinking.

    I was disappointed that other more intelligent and better educated women were overlooked for the position of VP candidate by the Republican party. There were women at the Republican convention who were interviewed on television who had better credentials in terms of experience, and who presented themselves far more articulately. In comparison, the choice of Palin seemed to me to be a calculated and quite cynical move in the most recent round of culture wars, not an attempt to find the most qualified person, male OR female, for the position of VP candidate.

    No surprise, I grew up enjoying the vocabulary and erudition of the late Wm. F. Buckley…. too bad the republican party and current conservatives don’t seem to have anyone like him now.

  30. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    There were women at the Republican convention who were interviewed on television who had better credentials in terms of experience, and who presented themselves far more articulately.

    Who?

    In comparison, the choice of Palin seemed to me to be a calculated and quite cynical move in the most recent round of culture wars, not an attempt to find the most qualified person, male OR female, for the position of VP candidate.

    Well, any choice would have been calculated. As it happens, I think the calculation leading to Palin was pretty astute (she was considered at the front of the pack of the GOP’s next generation even before her selection) – and her supposed problems with articulation were largely a media creation.

  31. Terry Avatar
    Terry

    This, of course, is yet another opportunity for AC to tell us all exactly what in Obama’s background qualifies him to be president of the United States. Previously he’s declined to answer this without using tautology or the ridiculous claim that being chairman of his grad school’s glee club was was sufficient.

  32. Terry Avatar
    Terry

    Dog Gone, you are mistaking glibness for intelligence.
    Biden is glib. If you were to ask him to name all the Popes from St. Peter down to the present day he would rattle on for an hour, if you let him, without ever actually answering your question. In the same circumstances Palin would fumble and get a ‘deer in the headlights’ look.
    The ability to bloviate on demand is crucial for a senator, not a governor, and not a president.

  33. angryclown Avatar
    angryclown

    Gee, Terry, what exactly would you point to that shows Caribou Barbie has intelligence?

    A certain naughty librarian hotness, sure. But you have no good reason to think she has a brain in her head.

  34. Terry Avatar
    Terry

    Uh, lets see . . . Mayor of a town. Fought and won an election against an entrenched good ol’ boy network. Peels billions of dollars off oil companies and a federal government that has been in Democrat hands for almost two years. Can probably tune up a snow mobile. She can stalk and kill caribou, which certainly points to a sort of animal cunning.
    I answered your question. Your turn, Clown. What qualifies Obama to be president?

  35. angryclown Avatar
    angryclown

    Actually, Terry, you merely proved that she’s somewhat more intelligent than a caribou.

  36. angryclown Avatar
    angryclown

    Penigma said: “there isn’t a ‘movment’ liberal in the same way that ‘movement conservatives’ ”

    Swiftee’s a bowel movement conservative.

  37. Terry Avatar
    Terry

    Still not answering my question about Obama’s qualifications to be prez, AC? You must be getting tired of looking like a fool. Never thought I’d see that happen.

  38. swiftee Avatar
    swiftee

    AC offered: “Swiftee’s a bowel movement conservative.”

    Which is true, every time I rhetorically rip off a lefty’s head, I always follow by rhetorically sh*tting down his neck.

  39. Bike Bubba Avatar
    Bike Bubba

    Palin’s indications of intelligence:

    1. Despite income far lower than that of Barack Steve Obama or Joe Biden, her net worth is far higher than Biden’s and nearly that of Obama. She knows how to handle money.

    2. She negotiated favorable terms with oil companies to get them, and not the state of Alaska, to build pipelines and pay better royalties than previously were customary.

    3. She doesn’t think that one can negotiate with Holocaust deniers without preconditions.

    4. She never was under the impression that “the right of the people” could be pre-empted by Washington DC or Chicago.

    5. She never plagiarized Neil Kinnock or voted against Alaska oil drilling.

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