I
have reluctantly come to the conclusion that the same species of class
bias that Mrs. Palin provokes in her enemies and her admirers is at
work among the conservative intellectuals who are so embarrassed by
her. When William F. Buckley Jr., then the editor of National Review,
famously quipped that he would rather be ruled by the first 2,000 names
in the Boston phone book than by the combined faculties of Harvard and
MIT, most conservative intellectuals responded with a gleeful amen. But
put to the test by the advent of Sarah Palin, along with the populist
upsurge represented by the Tea Party movement, they have demonstrated
that they never really meant it.
What's perhaps more remarkable is that, in the midst of defending Palin, he makes his own vaguely derogatory qualifications:
Now I knew Ronald Reagan, and Sarah Palin is no Ronald Reagan...
What I am trying to say is not that Sarah Palin would necessarily make a great president...
What she does know--and in this respect, she does resemble Reagan--is 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.
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