James Taranto poses a question about the whole “Death Panel” controversy:
If you believe the media, Sarah Palin is a mediocre intellect, if even that, while President Obama is brilliant. So how did she manage to best him in this debate?
The answer’s really quite simple, James.
Palin made up a lie that appealed to people’s fears and she used purposely inflammatory phraseology — “Death Panels” — in doing so. Once that meme was implanted in people’s minds, it really didn’t matter what intellectual argument the other side, including many on the right who pointed out that the end-of-life counseling provisions in the bill weren’t anywhere near what Palin represented them to, made.
The lesson of this showdown is pretty clear —- fear wins.
It’s sad, really, and the fact that Sarah Palin did so well at appealing to the worst in people isn’t all that surprising.
For me, though, it just demonstrated once again that this woman has no business anywhere near the levers of power.
August 15th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Sarah Palin appeals to fear? Wow. Isn’t that terrible. And she uses the same tactic as the far Left to defeat the far Left.
War is never pleasant, pretty or clean. And if you continue to trash the good guys for daring to employ the same strategies as the bad guys in order to defeat the latter, you can feel entirely self-satisfied as you’re marched to the gas chamber.
After all, isn’t it wonderful that those Jews didn’t dirty their hands by meeting the SS with guns locked and loaded?
August 15th, 2009 at 11:35 am
James,
I’ve said more than once that both sides uses lying, hyperbole, and fear to win arguments rather than, you know, reason and actual facts.
That’s largely what’s wrong with politics today and why I really don’t think anything’s going to change any time soon.
August 15th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
[...] http://belowthebeltway.com/2009/08/15/sarah-palin-and-the-trimuph-of-fear/ [...]
August 16th, 2009 at 4:19 am
That Palin has a perch at all instills fear, or a deep sense of the absurd.
Sarah Palin-Tonya Harding 2012!