Saturday, October 18, 2008

The conservative cocoon

A great piece at The Corner on urban conservative critics of Palin.

So, when a conservative pundit mocks Wasilla, he's mocking conservatism as it's actually lived, as opposed to conservatism as a theoretical fantasy playground for the purposes of cocktail-party banter. David Warren, a great comrade of me and David Frum in our battles up north, wrote a column on this theme after the last Canadian election, beginning:

It’s when you no longer know where your milk comes from, let alone where you got your opinions, that you have become over-urbanized.

And over-liberalized. A township that digs its own wells and plows its own roads is less susceptible to the beguiling notion that everything necessary in life is a mysterious "government service" to be provided by faceless bureaucrats far away.

As for Sarah Palin, I think she could use a fewer sharper moose gags, but I'm not sure David Brooks is the go-to guy for that. And, to return to his Charlie Rose "Barack is the mountain" shtick, any PBS-watching inbred stump-toothed knuckle-dragging plaid-clad mountain man not yet face down in the moonshine or enjoying a bunk-up with his sister might think that Mr Brooks' bizarre metaphor gives the game away: the "conservative cocoon" is somewhere you drive through en route to the hiking trip.


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