Missing The Point?

by tristero

I think the great Joe Conason misses a crucial point about Sarah Palin. He writes:

Palin, a manifestly unqualified and incompetent politician unable to string together a series of coherent sentences…

…cursory background investigation that revealed almost nothing about her lack of knowledge, bizarre official conduct, and narcissistic temperament.

Well, yes. All true. But what’s missing from this list are Palin’s ties to radical extremists, fanatical christianists, and even secessionists. Had Palin been experienced, articulate, knowledgeable, reliable, and a paragon of empathy, nevertheless, her delusional, far-right political views should have immediately disqualified her from serious consideration as a national candidate.

We should never forget: For eight long years, genuinely extreme ideologues, who boasted of the fact they were not members of the “reality-based community,” ran this country. Even now, when the executive branch is in the hands of a sane person (whatever his faults). this country’s media provides rightwing extremism a place in the national discourse it simply doesn’t merit.

Palin is, first and foremost, a political nutjob. That is the most important thing to understand about her from the perspective of a voter. That a major political party would choose someone with such crazy ideas, and that a reporter as intelligent as Conason would fail to note this even in passing or as further evidence of her incompetence for public office, speaks volumes about how far Americans still treat truly bizarre political philosophies as acceptable.