HOSTESS OF THE SELF-PITY PARTY:

'She's becoming Al Sharpton, Alaska edition' (JONATHAN MARTIN & JOHN F. HARRIS, 3/14/11, Politico)

Palin’s politics of grievance and group identity, according to these critics, is a betrayal of conservative principles. For decades, it was a standard line of the right that liberals cynically promoted victimhood to achieve their goals, and that they practiced the politics of identity—race, sex and class—over ideas.

Among those taking aim at Palin in recent interviews with POLITICO are George F. Will, the elder statesman of conservative columnists; Peter Wehner, a top strategist in George W. Bush’s White House, and Heather Mac Donald, a leading voice with the right-leaning Manhattan Institute.

Matt Labash, a longtime writer for the Weekly Standard, said that because of Palin’s frequent appeals to victimhood and group grievance, “She’s becoming Al Sharpton, Alaska edition.”

Conservative intellectuals, while having scant ability to drive large blocks of votes on their own, traditionally have played an outsized role in the early stages of Republican nominating contests. Their approval has lent credence to politicians from Ronald Reagan onward hoping to portray themselves as faithful adherents to an idea-driven conservative movement.

This year, the conservative intelligentsia doesn’t just tend to dislike Palin — many fear that her rise would represent the triumph of an intellectually empty brand of populism and the death of ideas as an engine of the right.

All of which makes her the perfect representative of the Tea Party, which is premised on the bizarre notion of the white middle class as victims.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 14, 2011 5:57 AM