Stand Back, when the Left Focuses their Crosshairs

Evan Sayet who emerged as a Blogosphere favorite in 2007 with a brilliant speech called “How Modern Liberals Think,” has a new essay at Front Page in which he attempts to tackle an equally vexing dilemma — “Why the Left Hates Sarah Palin:”

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It just happened again.

I spend a fair amount of time at my local coffee shop.  I like to do my writing outside and, besides, it gives me an opportunity to try and initiate political conversations with the people who pass by — my hope always being to begin to enlighten them as to what conservatives really believe (and not just what the leftist media tells them.)

Today, the conversation turned to Sarah Palin and my latest acquaintance blurted out: “Oh I hate her.”  Since she did not yet know my politics, and since we were in Los Angeles, it is clear that she expected to hear back what you usually hear back in this city: “Yeah, I hate her, too.”  Instead, I asked her why.

At this point I could have predicted her response because it’s the same response you get from liberals no matter who on the Right you’re talking about: “Because she’s stupid.”  I replied: “Being stupid is no reason to hate someone, but tell me, which one of her policies do you disagree with?”  It wasn’t hard to predict her response: “All of them!”

I continued to push.  “Well, then, if it’s all of them, it should be easy for you to name one.”  Her reply?  “They’re too many to list.”

“So don’t list them, just give me one,” I said.

This went on for awhile until my new acquaintance finally admitted that she didn’t know any of Ms. Palin’s policies.

I’m not sure when Evan’s article was written, as I don’t believe I saw Tuscon mentioned in it. The MSM hammering Palin endlessly, even as the events of the story were still unfolding, is only reinforcing the left’s hatred of Palin of course, as this poll highlights. I mean, she used horrible eliminationist clip art!

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And as Richard Fernandez notes, with a pretty nifty 3,000 mile view answer to Evan’s question, “Perhaps the reason why the Left is almost incandescently furious at Sarah Palin is because she refuses to play their little game:”

Since she doesn’t use their dictionary she is pilloried as illiterate.  By using Oldspeak words  she ipso facto gives offense.  It is this stiff-necked refusal to get with the word program that may paradoxically give her the political strength. Those who’ve accepted the vocabulary of politesse, aka Newspeak, have unwittingly surrendered. Pre-surrendered, in fact, for the dubious honor of acceptance into quality society. Maybe being from Alaska, Palin never knew enough politesse to forget a very important principle. “You don’t know what is possible before you try. And if you negotiate with yourself before you negotiate with others, you will never know what was possible.”

Perhaps the real long-term significance of the Loughner affair is that people are finally beginning to realize how insidious these word-games are.  I think CNN would do well to outlaw one word in the dictionary per day.  When they finally get to zero they may find there are still words they want to get rid of.

As I think Jay Nordlinger noted five or six years ago, the divide between the Red and Blue States has gotten so wide, that both sides are practically speaking a different language. Curiously though, it’s not those crazy rubes in the Red States who keep trying to shrink the dictionary.

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Update: At the American Thinker, frequent contributor “Robin of Berkley”, whose profile describes her as “a recovering liberal and a psychotherapist” provides her answer as to why Palin generates such a viscerally negative reaction from those on her former side of the aisle.

Oh, and speaking of crosshairs, prior to John King’s politically correct freakout moment last night, CNN used the word “crosshairs” loads of times in recent months to refer to Palin and another distaff conservative figure who produces a similar reaction amongst the left, Michele Bachmann.

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