Atomic Nerds

I’m not actually much of a Sarah Palin fan; I liked her a lot more when I knew her only as her record (which as an actual governor is mostly one of leaving people the hell alone except where government actually has business), than when she hit the national spotlight and, having the two paths of Libertarian Sarah and Populist Sarah open to her, mostly took that latter fork. Not that I blame her- it’s working incredibly well for her and it’s certainly annoying the right people, but populism is not my cup of tea, as it were.

It goes without saying that the tack the left has adopted with Palin is treating her as an obvious deluded moron who is not worth discussing except to mock. It’s old, it’s tired, and it’s obvious, but I have to say today it’s reached a high water mark. Palin told supporters at a rally that they can’t “party like it’s 1773″ yet and can’t until Congress is taken back.

Because this is the age of Twitter, in which any random thought can be immortally shared with the entire world mere seconds after your neurons have finished sparking, odious “Daily Kos” pundit Markos Moulitsas fired the shot heard ’round the web (that’s a 1775 reference in this context, kids) to mock that stupid moronic moron-woman of stupidity in misquoting the year of American Independence. Such was gleefully retweeted and commented on within such circles as you’d expect. OMFG 1773 what an idiot!

The problem is, as everyone with a fifth-grade level of historical literacy knows, that 1773 was the year of the Boston Tea Party. You know, the one the movement is named after, which has inspired absofuckinglutely endless tea bag jokes on the part of the exact same ummmmmmm media for whom Palin-baiting is a recreational sport akin to lawn bowling.

More entertainingly, one of the re-tweeters was Gwen Ifill, intellectual giant of PBS and moderator of the 2008 vice-presidential debate between Palin and renowned cerebral heavy-hitter Joe Biden. She is now claiming to have been merely quoting Palin, because obviously contextless snippets of Tea Party rally speeches with dubious noises are normal commentary fodder for Ifill.

That the media has gotten entirely lost in their own framing of Palin as a moron and the Tea Party as a collection of grunting apes following some sort of atavistic stone-the-smart-people instinct is not news, nor is the fact that they have bought into their own self-image as “educated” in contrast to everyone who disagrees with them to the point that it’s possible for basic ignorance on that level to go unremarked until someone from the other side points it out for them.

The incident itself is not particularly newsworthy either; Twitter provides just one of multiple means in which it’s possible for anyone with any sort of media profile to devour their feet, something that is a fairly normal occasion for humans, being humanly flawed and all. The only thing unique about it is the degree to which it invites all your friends to join you in the foot-feast.

Does that make it any less satisfying to watch those who apparently believe it their job to tell us all how stupid anyone not of a very particular demographic is demonstrate their own appalling ignorance and impulsive bigotry on a national scale?

Not really.

Posted current events, Ranting |