Stephen Walt picks out an interesting excerpt from the NYT's review of Sarah Palin's book:
In Going Rogue Ms. Palin talks
perfunctorily about fiscal responsibility and a muscular foreign policy, and
more passionately about the importance of energy independence, but she is quite
up front about the fact that much of her appeal lies in her just-folks "hockey
mom" ordinariness. She pretends no particular familiarity with the Middle East,
the Iraq war or Islamic politics — "I knew the history of the conflict," she
writes, "to the extent that most Americans did." And she argues that "there's
no better training ground for politics than motherhood."Yet Mr. McCain's astonishing decision to pick
someone with so little experience (less than two years as the governor of
Alaska, and before that, two terms as mayor of Wasilla, an Alaskan town with
fewer than 7,000 residents) as his running mate underscores just how alarmingly
expertise is discounted — or equated with elitism — in our increasingly
democratized era, and just how thoroughly colorful personal narratives overshadow
policy arguments and actual knowledge.
Walt agrees and adds, "Virtually
all of us
normally insist on genuine expertise when we hire anyone to do an
important job — whether it's carpentry or a cardiac bypass — yet millions
of people in
this country seem to think that the most momentous decisions about our
collective future can be entrusted to people who are sublimely
comfortable in their own
ignorance."
This isn't a post about Palin. This post is about the "increasingly democratized era." Have we gone too far? Is Palin being held to a higher standard than men? Anybody's sexism alarms going off?
Apt. 11d 
I don’t think Palin is held to a higher standard than men. Hilary Clinton was clearly capable of sorts of knowledge about the world and (rightfully) held to a very high standard, despite her lack of a penis.
Clinton had other issues with sexism, I believe, but to hold leaders to a high knowledge standard about the affairs of countries they might invade (or continue to invade) is a reasonable expectation.
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I think Walt is conflating “expertise” with something else. Maybe “intellectual curiosity.” One of the main criticisms of Obama in the pre-Palin era was his lack of expertise — in at least foreign policy — and his lack of executive experience.
The charge didn’t stick largely because it was clear that, even if Obama was not an expert on Pakistan, he’d be capable of (and interested in) reading a few hundred pages on the issue before his inauguration, and then discuss the matter with Joe “The Expert” Biden. Palin just gives off a “who cares?” vibe.
I think, also, that Walt is just basically wrong on the facts. Expertise IS valued, and lots of people who “voted for Palin” were actually voting for McCain, who — if nothing else (and, probably, nothing else) had more “expertise.”
Articles like this that attempt to explain Palin’s popularity tend to overlook a central fact — she’s NOT actually popular.
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After I wrote this post, I went downstairs to make an English grilled cheese sandwich (open face, pepper, Worcestershire sauce) and was rethinking things.
I was going to make the same point as Ragtime. I don’t see any change in respect for expertise in society. I actually have some problems with an over deference for expertise, since expertise can be used to protect old boys clubs, but I certainly don’t see Americans tossing out the concept entirely. But is this a regional thing? Maybe I’m not seeing a mass reject of expertise, because I’m in Brie and Wine land. Is there more suspicions of experts and elites in the heartland?
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And, I totally agree, that Walt and others shouldn’t be worrying about Palin being the Rep. nominee (no matter how much Doug would like to happen). She’s having her Jon Gosselin moment.
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“Articles like this that attempt to explain Palin’s popularity tend to overlook a central fact — she’s NOT actually popular.”
Popular could mean a lot of different things. For a Democratic analogue to Sarah Palin, consider Al Sharpton. Obviously, he couldn’t actually get elected to anything, but he can draw crowds, get on TV, and therefore he can act as a power broker. Clearly he speaks for a lot of people.
I am guessing that most of the Democrats who post here are not Al Sharpton Democrats, and are embarrassed by him and endeavor not to think about him. I think most upper middle class northeastern Republicans probably feel the same about Sarah Palin.
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Aw Laura, next thing you’ll tell me is that Newt Gingrich won’t run for president in 2008.
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I think in the midwest there is respect for expertise, but suspicion of how we decide who’s an expert. There is less willingness to accept formal credentials (such as Obama’s Harvard degree) on their own. I personally believe this stems from personal experiences; many people are just sick to death of being told that their intellect/years of experience/input is worth less because they went to an in-state school. There’s a tendency to sit back, keep your own counsel, see what comes out of the person. Once the expertise is seen, however, the deference is usually there.
And I don’t think Palin is held to a different standard on this. I still remember the treatment Dan Quayle got. And remember how Palin’s numbers plummeted after her disastrous Katie Couric interview?
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I do think there’s been a rejection of expertise, and my current version of this is the mammogram outroar. The recommendations they’ve come out with make a lot of sense, fit perfectly with the stats calculation we all do in first year stats class, calculating the “problem” of false positives in screening tests. It’s a huge issue, and a prime solution is to limit screening to populations more likely to have incidence of the disease being screened for. The general reaction isn’t all hat surprising, given the level of knowledge required ot understand the issue. But, people like Sebelius outright rejecting the recommendations (though I think her words were somewhat measured), well that reminds me of the complaints I used to have about the Bush administration ignoring science & evidence when it didn’t fit their preconceptions and gut instincts.
I don’t think Plain wants to be the Republican nominee for President. I think she wants to be a talk show host. It’s more lucrative and less work, and, even a rational person can convince themselves that they can be more effective in advancing an agenda that way than by running for president (which has a high chance of failure). Newt’s in a different position, ’cause he’s already had a chance to become rich. He can run for president without worrying about his kids college fund (or plastic surgery budget, or down payment for their first house, or investment in a business, or whatever Palin thinks her kids need to get started on life)
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I remember real impatience with Clinton during his presidency for boring everyone with research details, and disgust at Gire’s wonkery when he ran for president. That wasn’t a rejection of their educational accomplishments; it was a disgust with bringing nuances and complexity into public discourse. Maybe it started with Bush 1’s campaign and the No New Taxes bullshit.
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jen makes a good analogy with Dan Quayle. Certainly a man can be perceived (whether fairly or unfairly, I don’t know) as an intellectual lightweight, and, once that happens, the press will have a tendency to continually portray him in that light. I don’t think it’s peculiar to women, or to this woman.
Nonetheless, there is certainly a lot of sexism in the treatment of Palin. I don’t have anything to add to what Megan McArdle said on the subject, except that apparently the terms of her employment forbid her to criticize her fellow Atlantic bloggers, because Andrew Sullivan is probably the worst offender. Almost everything he writes (not just about Palin, but also about Hillary Clinton) oozes gynephobia of a particularly nasty gay male variety. You can hear the boys at the bar flinging the word “breeder” around.
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Looking at the Obama-bowing-to-the-Japanese-Emperor episode, I have to think that Obama believes that he has expertise that he does not in fact possess and that he doesn’t listen to those with actual expertise. Either that, or his protocol office has gone completely haywire. There are a lot of problems with the bow, but as I was saying to a relative recently, it’s the equivalent of dishing one child at a party three scoops of ice cream in view of other kids. Life is much simpler if you just give everybody the same number of scoops. I talk about some of the cultural issues here:
http://xantippesblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/obama-in-japan.html
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“Seems someone forgot to tell Ike what everyone on the right knows (but oddly never cites a source for): the President never ever bows. Because as even a cursory search of the AP Image archive indicates, the man could not stop bowing. Hello there, Pope John XXIII!
“Howdy to you, wife of Italian Prime Minister Giovanni Gronchi!
“Hi again, Archbishop Iakovos of New York, Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church of North and South America!
“Long time no see, Charles De Gaulle!
“By their logic, I believe that last bow means we have all been French since 2 September 1959. Eisenhower clearly demonstrated by that bow that the American President is a subordinate of the French, which means that for the past 50 years America has been a French territory with pretensions of sovereignty. Mon Dieu!”
Photos at the link. Really, Amy, that was too easy.
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Doug,
I take it you’re not a Judith Martin (Miss Martin) fan? She lays it down very firmly that Americans should not bow, do not curtsey etc. in the presence of foreign royalty. I’ve read her since my mid-teens, so her advice on this front is seared into my mind.
With regard to historical precedent and photo evidence, read my blog post. The key is reciprocity, and symmetry, which is very difficult to guarantee with a bow (I’ve heard that even the Japanese themselves are bedeviled by the etiquette of bowing), but very simple with a handshake. As for De Gaulle–it looks like Ike is getting a medal. In any case, a 90 degree bow is simply beyond the pale. I’m not going to recapitulate my entire post, but the Obama bow was a bad idea on many, many levels. It wasn’t correctly executed in Japanese-style (you apparently don’t combine a deep bow with a handshake), it wasn’t American-style, and it wasn’t the reciprocated nod that you see in the slideshow of dignitaries greeting the emperor that I link to in my post. And it raises big pragmatic issues: if one bows to the Japanese Emperor, won’t it be treated as a slight if one doesn’t do the same for other foreign royalty? There’s a reason for the ubiquity of the Western handshake–it’s a lot easier to get right.
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Sorry, “Miss Manners.”
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Doug, there is bowing and then there’s that thing that Obama does. There is a picture going around of President Nixon meeting Emperor Hirohito, they are each bowing properly, hands at sides, back straight, shoulders square and just a few degrees forward. That thing Obama did with the rounded back was ugly and inappropriate.
Worse, it was fulsome and therefor insulting. Nobody believes that he intends that he is subordinate to the Emperor, yet he bowed like a peasant.
Sheesh, any karate class would have taught him better.
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“just how thoroughly colorful personal narratives overshadow policy arguments and actual knowledge.”
Jeez, that sounds like Obama to me…
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I do think there’s some sexism at work in the Palin conversation, but I’m too lazy to try to articulate it. Not my area of expertise.
Plus, I’m mostly posting to see if I can put a stop to these damn italics.
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Nope.
(Laura, check Doug’s Ike post — there’s something broken in the HTML in there.)
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On it.
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Thanks for closing my wayward tag, Laura.
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