Mark America

Maybe Stick to Jazz?

From the pages of NewYorkDailyNews, we see one example of the vile thinking of the left, where Stanley Crouch, noted leftist and  general crackpot, has written a piece arguing that Sarah Palin isn’t the right kind of woman to be in leadership.  He spends several paragraphs attacking Palin, but his general point is this:  Women rising to leadership is important, but Palin is evidence of what sort of women we do not need and should not want.  What Crouch reveals about his real agenda is made evident when he gushes over Olympia Snowe(R-ME,) Susan Collins(R-ME,) and Kirsten Gillibrand(D-NY). While he is careful to select two Republicans as the objects of his fawning, it’s important to note that he picked two of the most liberal elected Republicans in the country.  For all intents and purposes, they’re Democrats in Republican clothing, and the two vote with Obama more often than against him.  This example demonstrates the point clearly: While Crouch focuses on Sarah Palin in this article, she is once again a voodoo doll for the disdain he heaps on all conservative women.

One would think that with such a clear ideological litmus test, Crouch might admit he’s not interested in their sex so much as their political persuasion. Instead, Crouch poses a self-contradictory, self-defeating claim:

“Women need not be political targets and ought not be political pawns. They can, instead, be top-shelf leaders. The likes of Sens. Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and Kirsten Gillibrand make it perfectly evident how well women can set the pace for the doing of good things for themselves — as well as for the entire nation.”

“To do this, they must beat back the hustlers and hucksters in their midst. Even Ann Coulter — a woman not expected to provide insights and facts — sees this point clearly.”

Notice that while he mentions that Ann Coulter is a woman not expected to provide insight and facts, she’s good enough to further his attack if she’s willing to go on the record as slamming Sarah Palin.  Years ago, Coulter would have gotten my sympathy for his characterization, but that’s no longer the case, as she’s abandoned conservatism.  The words of Coulter to which Crouch points are from the video I posted last week:

At a Republican Party dinner in Florida, this is what Coulter said, in reference to a conversation about Palin and others like her:

“I think our party and particularly our movement, the conservative movement, does have more of a problem with con men and charlatans than the Democratic Party. The incentives seem to be set up to allow people, as long as you have a band of a few million fanatical followers, you can make money. The Democrats have figured out how not to do that.”

She went on: “All the Republican nominees for President, I want them to sign a pledge saying, ‘If I lose the nomination, I pledge I will not take a gig with Fox News or write a book.’ ”

Crouch, who wouldn’t ordinarily reference Coulter on anything charges in to point to one of the several, disturbingly more frequent instances when Couter abandons conservatives.  There are at least two lessons in this, and one is the obvious for you, the reader, but the other is for Ann Coulter:  When you attack a conservative icon like Governor Palin, while you’re a purported conservative, expect to find yourself in the company of such worthless hacks as one Stanley Crouch.

For his part, Crouch is undeterred by the fact that he’s dismissed Coulter, because in this case, she’s done his dirty-work, and like most leftists, he’s as intellectually lazy as his is vapid.  His point is that Palin isn’t a real leader, but he doesn’t explain why.  Instead, he relies upon Coulter’s attack, alleging Gov. Palin is a charlatan.  He does nothing to prove his opening thesis either, in which he poses the notion that while Palin was good enough for Alaska, she’s not good enough for the country as a whole.  His assessment of Palin boils down to this, with no evidence to support any part of it:

“She remains embittered by her limitations.”

Embittered?  I’ve seen no evidence of bitterness on the part of Palin, although lately one could certainly detect a fair amount of that in the words of Ann Coulter.  Crouch doesn’t explain what he means by her supposed “limitations,” apart from relying upon Coulter’s attack.  What he says in conclusion is an abject rejection of what he says earlier in the article:

“Women have shown that they are and can be leaders in all fields — not to be defined or dominated by their sex, but to be judged by what they say and do.”

For the life of me, I can’t understand whether he wants us to elect women just because they are women, or not.  He starts out the article explaining how important it is to elect women.  Now he wants to qualify that, but we would be right to examine his list of qualifications, though thankfully, it’s quite short:  Agree with leftists.

This is the only qualification any woman needs to exhibit in order to garner his approval. He has a similar standard for African-Americans, too.  In his view, Allen West is a sell-out, as is JC Watts, but what you must see is that his view on women is quite the same. Conservative women are sell-outs to womanhood, and this is the widely-held view in media. Pick your favorite news outlet, and ask yourself how many of its women are anti-abortion?  No, culturally, you will not find many in any of these newsrooms who are, and yet here’s an inescapable fact: More than half of American women are not pro-choice and do not consider themselves “feminists” as defined by the left.  Governor Palin represents that conservative woman, and the media knows it, and hates her for it.

You see, in order to carry out their empty attacks as Crouch has done in this piece, they must further a talking-point aimed at all women, but particularly those sitting on the fence, or unsure on that issue.  Bashing Palin is a shortcut to prodding these women who would otherwise see themselves as with few other female politicians as examples.  It’s shameful, but it’s the sort of narrow-minded propaganda that hacks like Crouch produce in reams.  The idea is to convince the unconvinced that they’re alone, and that there are no credible women giving voice to an opposing viewpoint.  It’s the anti-syllogistic kissing cousin to the premise that there is a “consensus” on global warming.  You see, it’s not about what’s true, but about what you can convince people is true.  His attack on Palin is about creating an impression rather than telling you anything concrete, and for those souls who may be suffering in ignorance, it’s an effective albeit dishonest approach.

He explains that she is “incompetent,” but he doesn’t bother to explain how; on the witness of a formerly-conservative huckster, he claims that Palin is a “charlatan,” but he offers nothing to support that allegation.  He tells you she is “embittered,” but he offers no syllables in explaining the evidence or the root of such bitterness.  He ultimately wants you to understand that Palin is a woman, but that she’s the wrong sort, without really stating how that’s the case, other than by the examples, from which we can only conclude that he is an intellectual NAZI, who simply doesn’t like women with a viewpoint that contradicts his own leftist ideology.  That’s the real message women should understand from Stanley Crouch: Unless you’re a liberal, he’d rather you just stay home, whether in New York or Alaska, and bake some cookies.  If you’re a conservative woman, he doesn’t think you’re fit for much else.