A PAIR OF PALINATED PUNDITS

by H. N. Burdett

A couple of graybeards of the Washington punditocracy with deserved reputations for the brilliance of their observations regarding presidential candidates and elections over the years have recently revealed themselves as having gone head over heels for the former Governor of Alaska. So ga-ga are they that they took it upon themselves to scold those among us who wince or chuckle at the latest Palinism, then staunchly and soberly declared in their respective op-ed columns that she has as much chance as anyone to be the Republican standard-bearer in the 2012 national election. Which certainly is at least as valid as claiming that every little boy growing up in this great nation has a chance to become our President

It is indeed inspiring that the grizzled David Broder of The Washington Post and Jules Witcover of The Baltimore Sun can still swoon over a woman who is not too hard on the eyes, though often enough grating on the nerves, particularly when she is neatly pre-packaged as a bona fide populist . Grown men intoxicated by a whiff of femininity have been known to betray the smitten schoolboy in themselves, a condition for which political columnists, longevity notwithstanding, have not been inoculated.

Recent offerings by the aforementioned sagacious pair hint that both have either fallen into her tender but devilishly clever trap. Or perhaps they have merely broken bread together, with perhaps a goblet or two of the nectar of Bacchus, and puffing on cigars a la William Shatner and James Spader at the end of a Boston Legal episode, touched glasses with a toast or two to Sarah Palin's attributes, if any, and pronounced her worthy of their combined courtly homage.

Populist movements are, after all, practically irresistible to the media, almost on par with an attractive woman in the public spotlight, snapping off down home one-liners on cue and disarming mere mortals whose machismo tends to shrug off a stumble here, a misstatement there, as mere feminine vulnerability that is to be expected rather than scorned. So when a relatively comely woman shows some talent for delivering the everyman screed with Ms. Palin's aplomb, it takes on the trappings of a potent political package, or at least one to be taken seriously.

Witcover has noted that in a Fox News Sunday interview with Chris Wallace, Palin connected with Main Street by characterizing President Obama as "some charismatic guy with a TelePrompter." And, he further noted, at the recent National Tea Party in Nashville she took a little shot at the President by asking the audience, "How's that hopey, changey stuff working for you?" Not too well, she implied, without even having to add her trademark, "You bet'cha," because by this time that punchline is so firmly implanted in our reactive impulses that it just goes off spontaneously.

Studying Ms. Palin's responses to Wallace's penetrating and provocative questions about her political future, Witcover comes up with the aha moment when, by cracky, she tells her interrogator that if the stars and the planets align themselves perfectly "it would be absurd" not to consider a presidential run in 2012. And, well of course, if she would see such a move as something that she could accomplish while still performing her duties as the best gosh-darn wife and mother this side of the Bridge to Nowhere, she will "not close the door that perhaps could be open for me in the future."

Why even those crib notes that were discovered on her hand have populist undertones. Who among us has not resorted, in preparation for, say, a high school history quiz, to such a ploy? Indeed, only those too chicken-hearted about the possibility of getting caught, and those who deem it as, aw shucks and gosh darnit, maybe a little dishonorable. A distinct minority.

Not that Ms. Palin's innocent enough crib notes could exactly compare with outright cheating on a school test. They were, after all, mere reminders of things she needed to say in her extemperaneous speech to the National Tea Party in Nashville. Speakers place their notes on lecterns before them all the time, so what's the big deal, say her supporters. Because an extemperaneous address is either that or it isn't, reply her detractors, and if she's going to crack wise about a President who requires a TelePrompter, pretending that she needs no such thing, while all the while consulting the notes on her hand, that's just a little dishonest. Notes on a hand are different from notes on a lectern.

For his part, Mr. Broder comes to the very brink of waxing poetic about the virtues he perceives in the distressed damsel, Lady Sarah, whom he defends as Quixote would Dulcinella. Sir David chivalrously doffs his plumed helmet and with sweeping gesture and his deepest bow, lauds her "pitch-perfect recital of the populist message that has worked in campaigns past." He then gooses the ante by declaring in the purplest of prose: "There are times when the American people are looking for something more: for an Eisenhower who liberated Europe, an FDR or a Kennedy, or a Bush, all unashamed aristocrats, or an Obama, with eloquence and brains." With Horowitz at the Steinway doubtless in mind, our intrepid dean of pundits builds to a dramatic crescendo, informing us: "But in the present mood of the country, Palin is by all odds a threat to the more uptight Republican aspirants as Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty -- and potentially Obama as well." Then totally abandoning the anticipated final movement of his concerto, Broder slips into the driver's seat for the final stretch of Talladega, crossing the finish line with: "Those who want to stop her will need more ammunition than deriding her habit of writing on her hand. The lady is good."

And so, too, are you, David Broder, a good man for stepping forward and defending a woman's honor; a good man for looking well beyond her crib notes and refusing to buy into the myth that brains cannot reside within beauty; a good man for denouncing the bullying blackguards and nattering nitpickers of the left who, devoid of an iota of decency, a dram of honor, boisterously razz and heckle from the sidelines, and you are a good man for seeing them for what they are: an angry mob of disgusting dissidents unworthy of kissing the hem of milady's gown.

I have been an observer of national politics for as long as Broder and Witcover, though without their advantage of the bully pulpits of the distinguished newspapers that employ them and, therefore, not always with their easy access to the preening peacocks and prima donnas that many officeholders become if it is not already coded into their DNA. Working the other side of the street, my modus operandi tends toward listening to, evaluating and analyzing water cooler and coffee klatch conversation, quips, gripes and gossip, and from reading between the lines of official documents and press releases (a veritable treasure trove, most especially if you have had the experience of writing such handouts, as have I in another life), and I have gained insights into the yin and yang of Washington's corridors of power. Having learned from the techniques of Izzy Stone and Murray Kempton and toiled humbly at the base of their Olympian examples, I am but a lonely chronicler of the political sotto voce. As such, I have on occasion separated a few grains of truth, even a kernel of knowledge here and there, from the chaff of conventional wisdom. Without benefit of Blackberry or Blue Tooth, nor of texting or twittering, I put quill to parchment and offer my own perhaps antediluvian take on Ms. Palin's chances of becoming the GOP nominee for president in 2012 in four succinct words: When Hell freezes over.

But whether Ms. Palin warrants the ridicule she has inspired by the perhaps unfair impression that deep down underneath she is shallow and even more of an airhead than the last President who was a member of her party, there are two factors that both Broder and Witcover managed to conveniently overlook that are critically relevant to the 2012 election campaign: For starters, with the next presidential election still more than 30 months off, predicting the Republican nominee is flat-out foolish. The applicable cliche is that in politics, even one month is the equivalent of a lifetime. Second, and more important, it is likely that the neo-conservative element of the Republican party -- the only segment of that estimable organization appearing to have at least a semblance of cohesion and purpose -- will again determine the GOP nominee.

Though indeed neo-conservatives William Kristol and Fred Barnes vetted Palin and gave her their blessing with high praise for the vice presidency in 2008, they now seem to be in a holding pattern, poised in wait-and-see posture just in case Broder's "good lady" from Alaska implodes long before the next GOP primary. The possible need for surgery to extract her foot from her mouth remains a constant concern of even those Republicans who regard her as nothing less than the face of the future of their party. If and when that procedure occurs, the neo-cons must offer someone else they can either guide or manipulate as they did with George W. Bush. They previously had less success with George H. W. Bush, who correctly characterized them as "those nuts in the basement" -- and then failed to win a second term, as the "nuts" constantly reminded Bush the Younger.

Those "nuts" emerged from the cellar to take over the White House during the imperial reign of Bush 43 and Cheney; they succeeded in helping to push their favorite horse, John McCain, from the back of the pack all the way to the nomination in 2008 and until proven otherwise it is these self-same vulcans who must be considered as the Republican kingmakers. That prospect, considering that we are now mired in the eighth year of the war they conceived is, in a word, chilling.