"[William] Kristol is preparing the way to argue that Palin is actually a genius, great on her feet, honest and transparent - and was destroyed by the McCain people." That's from Andrew Sullivan's blog, The Daily Dish, today. Earlier, he had said, "She was his creation, in many ways: a 'project' to be controlled and exploited." Well, maybe. Personally, I think William Kristol's support for -- sponsorship of -- Palin, and his whole philosophy are products of a sad, original failure to rebel against his father, Irving Kristol, founder of the American neoconservative movement, combined with a nearly clinical case of Wasp-envying nerdiness. He has become a nearly comic figure, to many, wrong again and again, as a result of his sad yearning to be a tough guy. He loves war, as many have noted, he is militantly Zionist, he is Darwinianly ruthless about individual self-reliance vs. governmental programs and regulation.
So it's like the old who's-using-whom issue in ambiguous sexual relationships. Kristol only appears to be on top, in the minds of some observers. In fact, even if she doesn't know it, Palin is the manipulator here. As has been famously noted, her ancestry dates back to the Mayflower. Names like Desire Howland, Experience Hall, Mehitable Cobb, Shubael Claghorn, Mercy Knowles, Patience Homes, and Hopestill Merrick are some of the leaves on her family tree. The "real deal"--rugged, puritanical, ur-American. She shoots moose. Her husband is a beaming but taciturn outdoorsman, evidently with secessionist tendencies. Oh, they're both not only sexy and fecund, they're tough. (They really are, I think. ) For me, Kristol all too clearly has an over-compensatory Thing for these people. At this point, he looks more like a pawn in Palin's game than the other way around.
