Entitlement Syndrome

Wasn't patriotism once celebrated?

Okay, I admit that Time magazine polemicist Joe Klein (a polemicist is a writer who’s paid more for his opinion than for stating anything backed up by fact, just like Maureen Dowd over at the New York Times, for example, and yours truly)  — who’s lately decided to prove his superiority as an observer of all things political by taking after Sarah Palin — is at times equally as despised by those on the Left as he is by us over here on the Right side of things.

At least as it applies to his attacks on Palin, it seems there’s good reason for conservatives and others holding similar views to really dislike Klein, who appears to be bordering on irrational mindlessness in his determination to make sure the former Alaska governor remains scorned by his fellows in the New York-DC mainstream media elite.

Let’s take a look at the two people in this little dance for a minute.  Klein attended the Hackley School, a private college prep institution located in the chi-chi districts of Tarrytown, New York that was founded in 1899 and is a member of the elite Ivy Preparatory School League.

From there, the young and future writer of Primary Colors (though he tried to have it both ways, penning the story as “Anonymous”) – which was a thinly disguised look-see at Bill Clinton and his cabal during the 1992 presidential primaries — made the arduous trek all the way over to the University of Pennsylvania (usually called “Penn”), a fine Ivy League institution filled to the brim with history, tradition and all that other rah-rah, siss-boom-bah stuff, where he graduated in 1968 with a degree in American Civilization (huh?).

Hardly resembles life in Alaska, does it?

Now, don’t get me wrong:  I think all of that high-minded attainment of education on the part of Klein is great (I have to say that, because my wife is also a graduate — from the school of dental medicine – of Penn, and she’d kill me if I didn’t put in a good word for the place), but is it the be-all end-all of either education or of learning everything you need to know about life and the human condition?  Most fair-minded folks would say of course not.

By now, most are familiar with the compelling life story of Sarah Palin (nee Heath) – born in Idaho to a science teacher/track coach and his school secretary wife who, like other pioneer families throughout America’s history, decided to pick up stakes and head north and west, in this case to Alaska. 

The state and its bold, wild beauty and willingness to let folks go far as they and their talents could take them (or fail as miserably as they’d like, whenever the mood struck them) seemed to suit the Heaths very well.  Certainly, the young Sarah took to the place like an Alaska salmon takes to an upstream swim.

In high school — no Ivy prep institution, certainly, but my guess is the vast majority of Americans attend schools much like the one in Wasilla, Alaska — she captained the ladies basketball team, leading it to the state championship as a point guard.  She also ran cross country (which instilled in her a love of running that she carries to this day) and was the leader of the school’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes. 

Before heading off to college — she attended five of them in the six years she took to attain a bachelor’s degree in communications — she competed as a beauty queen, winning the town’s pageant and then finishing in the top-3 at the state contest later that year.

Finally landing at the University of Idaho, she bore down and put in the effort it took to grab that degree (with an emphasis on journalism) and headed back to her beloved state, where she worked as a sports reporter for a local newspaper and as a sportscaster for two different Anchorage television stations. 

Honestly, most liberal thinkers would call a fellow liberal’s Palin-like journey to be one of “self-discovery and personal reflection.”  They’d refer to the future Alaska governor’s early life in the same way, if they were being intellectually honest, but most — like Klein — don’t seem to be willing to do so when it comes to somebody as quintessentially American in just about every aspect, as is Sarah Palin.

Palin eloped in 1988 — saying that she did so to spare her parents the expense of a large wedding — to marry the man to whom she’s still joined; childhood sweetheart Todd.  Over the course of their twenty-plus year marriage, they’ve continued to have children and raise them the best they could, all while working hard to build a home and run a business in addition to Sarah gaining a life as a very successful statewide politician while Todd moved up the ladder to a position as a supervisor for an oil company up on Alaska’s North Slope. 

Additionally, Palin’s oldest son has just returned the other day from a year-long tour in Iraq as a soldier with the U.S. Army, and she and her husband are raising young Trig, who was born with Down Syndrome.  Daughters Bristol, Willow and Piper all pitch in and help out, with Bristol now raising her own child.  By all accounts, Todd and Sarah are parents par excellence.

Love for country, love for son

In short, much of Palin’s life story — when set free of the vicious leftwing characterization of her as being some sort of hillbilly trailer trash — is the stuff of Old Hollywood scripts and Frank Capra-esque film treatments.  At the least, it certainly would serve as an outstanding example of how Americans and their families – big, boisterous and rumble-tumble as most are — are normally celebrated.

Not to criticize Joe Klein too harshly (though his writings at time invite such criticisms), but I’m fairly certain most mainstream Americans love the story of a middle class American girl who’s worked hard her whole life, gotten her education when and where she could, stayed married to the same person for over two decades, is still in the process of raising three of her five children and  has been an unabashed patriot and lover of our country for pretty much her whole life.

Compare that to a quite frankly pedestrian story about yet another Northeast born-and-bred liberal who attended a tony prep academy and then a full-on Ivy League school before heading off to write, dammit, write about the “American Condition.” 

To me, that story just smacks of more ironic self-detachment and a smirkiness towards the very country which gave said Northeast liberal much, much more than he’d have ever been able to attain were he born anywhere else on the planet.  After all, there certainly doesn’t seem to have been much pioneer spirit in those Northeastern genes, it appears to me. 

 Today’s liberals and writers like Klein seem more to be the folks who — once their ancestors had carved out a place in the wilderness — decided to stay safe and cozy and warm while people like Sarah Palin’s parents and others before them struck out for the great unknown.   Palin, who’s a pioneer woman down to the very core of her being, should be celebrated for her life story, and will be, one day.  Of that, there should be no doubt.

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