Topic: The Media
Once upon a time I used to read the New Republic but that was when it was a journal of thoughtful liberal opinion. Bit by bit, however, the magazine retreated toward the fever swamps where dwells the Flying Monkey Left. Bush Derangement Syndrome overcame the New Republic in the first decade of this century and when it published an article by Jonathan Chait titled “Why I Hate George W. Bush,” well, that was it for me. Finally last year the magazine simply imploded and now it’s just a sad little left-wing monthly with a website. And if this article by Naomi Shavin is anything to go by, the New Republic has yet to plumb the depths of idiocy and frivolity. But it’s trying.
Ms. Shavin’s lame little screed, “Sarah Palin 2.0,” sets forth the thesis that former Hewitt Packard CEO and unsuccessful GOP Senate candidate and possible 2016 GOP presidential hopeful Carley Fiorina is the Republican Party’s new “Queen Bee.” This, she reminds us, was the moniker slapped on Palin by Maureen Down in 2008. So Shavin starts by borrowing a concept from someone else and adapting it to her own needs. The ensuing paragraphs seek to show how Palin and Fiorina are more or less the same person, because, you see:
Fiorina does have some obvious similarities to the former vice-presidential candidate. Both favor words like “outsider” and “tough,” and allow themselves to be cast as a woman who does it all: They’re breadwinner moms with business savvy and enough charisma to make their raw ambition palatable. Similarly, both women’s careers have been marred by major professional failures: Fiorina’s firing from Hewlett-Packard and Palin’s “bridge to nowhere” (which, ironically, Fiorina initially defended).
Hmmm, so Palin and Fiorina have used some of the same words. They both “allow themselves to be cast as a woman who does it all”—which seems an odd way of putting it. Who’s doing the casting? They’re both ambitious working women. They’ve both have professional failures. (For the record, Shavin’s characterization of the Gravina Island Bridge fiasco as a major Palin failure is misleading to put it mildly. As a candidate she voiced support for the project—which was cooked up by Alaska’s congressional delegation—but as governor she had second thoughts and pulled state funding.) Oh, and they’ve both attacked Hillary Clinton.
Not much meat on that bone!
Shavin scarcely bothers to examine the two women’s political views to determine how similar their thinking might be. I did take the trouble to research Fiorina’s position on various issues and found they while she hews to the conservative line on most of them, there are some significant differences between her and Sarah Palin on illegal immigration, climate change and abortion. On the other hand the issues on which she is in agreement with Palin, e.g. the Second Amendment and gun rights, are issues on which virtually all Republicans agree. In short there’s nothing much to Shavin’s “Queen Bee” thesis—if that’s not too dignified a word for her lame little hit piece.
But it is sad to see how stupid and trivial the New Republic has allowed itself to become. Back in the day a sophomoric piece of crap like “Sarah Palin 2.0” would have been consigned to the round file. I used to disagree with much of what I read in this once-distinguished magazine. Nowadays there’s not much to disagree with—but plenty to wince at.
