"It's the educated reader who can be gulled"

"She is a real person, smart, humble, capable and actually has lots of substance to her. She not only talks the talk, but also walks the walk. The MSM in continuing their new role as the Press Corps for the Obama White House have decided to take Sarah Palin down to diminish whatever competition she might give Obama in 2012. As a result, in the last week we’ve heard all sorts of extremely awful and ridiculous rumors about her, rumors which we won’t even bother repeating here." Republicans for Sarah? Not! It's those old-girl Hillary supporters, PUMA [Party Unity My A**] gals, who've had it up to here with their party's throwing of the woman under the bus. You go, girls! (Getty Images photo)

"It got me to thinking about the Founding Fathers' vision and that famous John Adams quotation" [see below*], we wrote in the comments at Assistant Village Idiot [via Maggie's] re this CS Lewis quotation, where the head of the secret police in That Hideous Strength tells the hero: 

Ah, you fool, it's the educated reader who can be gulled. All of our difficulty comes with the others. When did you meet a workman [Joe the Plumber comes to mind] who believes the papers? He takes it for granted that they're all propaganda and skips the leading articles … He is our problem. We have to recondition him. But the educated public, the people who read the high-brow weeklies, don't need reconditioning. They're all right already. They'll believe anything.

*Now for that Adams quotation:

I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelain.

You have a problem with dollars spent for Sarah's image? How 'bout the gazillions spent on Barry's stage sets? Just askin'.

As we wrote in AVI's and Maggie's comments:

John Adams missed the final step, when forgetfulness sets in:

"Their children must study Painting, Poetry . . . Tapestry and Porcelaine in order to give their sons a right to study Political Correctness, Moral Relativism and Navel Gazing."

Enter, stage left, the dehumanization thing [via The Anchoress] from Jennifer F of Conversion Diary:

One thing that stands out in all these examples is that the victims of the widespread evil were categorized as something less than human … not only that innocent people were killed or enslaved, but that their humanity was taken away by the societies around them … So here is the advice I would offer to my children, and to my children’s children:

Every decade or so, take a look around the society in which you live, and ask yourself if there is any group of human beings who are seen as something less than human. A big tipoff is if dehumanizing words — terms other than “man,” “woman,” “child,” “baby,” or “person” — are used to describe any category of people.

And if you ever see that going on, you might be in the midst of something gravely evil.

Jennifer F was talking about babes in the womb slated for abortion, but our first thought while reading her totally awesome essay was the analogous casting by Democrats and their media enablers of us Republicans as something less than human. Take a look around.

Comments

[LauLLaura Lee Donoho]

Sissy, you've touched on something even deeper than the attempt to take Sarah Palin down by Carl Cameron and company, and dare I say, even John McCain himself.

It was Sarah Palin, not John McCain, who attracted the crowds that rivaled Obama. This fact had to worry the moderate Republican strategists who knew that John McCain would not have had a chance without her.

It was Carl Cameron who nearly derailed the election of George W. Bush in 2000 when he broke the story of the DUI. Interesting that he played a role in this nasty event.

Democrats are demanding that conservatives be fair and balanced with Obama and yet the nasty rumor based reporting on Sarah Palin goes on, unhinged, thanks to the fragging of anonymous insiders in the McCain campaign. Still, John McCain says nothing.

Unreal.

The dehumanization of a real conservative woman who stirred the conservative movement like nobody else could.

Sarah Palin is being sent a big message. I hope she doesn't listen. I hope we don't listen.

I hope the American people don't listen.

[goomp]

I guess it is human to dehumanize those we despise. Think of the interpretation I give to the term "Liberals" and MSM. Far below what I would consider human.

[zipity]

Sarah Palin is the equivalent of Sarah Connor. The Dems (and the Rinos) know how dangerous she is, and she must be destroyed by any means necessary, lest she give birth to a new grass-roots conservative movement in America....That would make Obama, his water carriers the Mainstream Media, as well as the Rinos, the equivalent of SkyNet....

[Laura Lee Donoho]

Sissy, something happened when I posted last night. I was very inattentive to my name and my computer was not being cooperative.
Zipity, the Sarah Connor comparison is genius. I read Peter Hitchen's article this morning about the election and it's a pretty sober read.

He concludes that it won't be long before our country joins Britain as just another Third World country. (Peter Hitchens is Christopher Hitchen's brother.)

[Gayle Miller]

I have unending faith in the REAL American people - as exemplified by Sarah Palin and her family, the people I meet online, the people I live near in Central Virginia and so forth. Remember - a LOT of us voted for John McCain. All is not lost.

Especially as long as there is a Scottish Terrier named Barney!

[miss kelly]

I second that motion, we haven't given up. We've got to batten down the hatches and regroup. The real America that cherishes individual freedom, liberty and self-reliance isn't going anywhere. If anything, I've got a feeling that the next four years will prove how precious and essential these values are.

The media didn't crucify Sarah Barracuda, those low-life Republican campaign people did. "McCain himself has privately expressed sadness and displeasure." What caa-caa! I'm enormously disappointed that McCain - who criticized his supporters within a matter of hours for using BHO's middle name or for mentioning Rev. Jeremiah - hasn't made a public statement to support Sarah. That is very telling. She's amazing and I hope we see a lot of her in the future.