Palin's Just Like That 'Airhead' Reagan

Intellectuals on both sides weren't exactly crazy about the Gipper
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 29, 2010 9:07 AM CDT
Palin's Just Like That 'Airhead' Reagan
Sarah Palin addresses the crowd during a campaign rally for U.S. Sen. John McCain Saturday, March 27, 2010 in Mesa, Ariz.   (AP Photo/Matt York)

It’s easy to see why liberal intellectuals hate Sarah Palin—she represents the “retrograde elements of American society” that have “stolen the country from its rightful (liberal) rulers,” writes Norman Podhoretz in the Wall Street Journal. But conservative intellectuals have come to deride her as well, using arguments Podhoretz has heard before. “When I first announced I was supporting Reagan,” he recalls, “I was routinely asked how I could possibly associate myself with this ‘airhead.’”

“The same species of class bias that Mrs. Palin provokes in her enemies is at work,” Podhoretz conclude. These people largely agree with Palin, but see her as a brainless representative of the unwashed masses. Well, Palin may be uninformed, but that doesn’t mean she’d make a bad president. She knows, at least “that the United States has been a force for good in the world, which is more than Barack Obama, whose IQ is no doubt higher than hers, has yet to learn.” (More Ronald Reagan stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X