I haven’t pre-ordered the Saran Palin “Going Rogue”. Many of the juicy details have already leaked out. She did the disastrous Katie Couric interview because she “felt sorry” for her. The McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt gets slammed for shouting at her over the phone after Palin gets tricked into taking a fake call from Nicolas Sarkozy etc. etc.
In fact, according to the Times:
The most sustained and vehement barbs in this book are directed not at Democrats or liberals or the news media, but at the McCain campaign. The very campaign that plucked her out of Alaska, anointed her the Republican vice-presidential nominee and made her one of the most talked about women on the planet — someone who could command a reported $5 million advance for writing this book.
It all smacks of paranoid high school behavior. Tina Fey not only did a great Palin on SNL but also the sense of Palin we see in the book reviews was captured in Fey’s movie “Mean Girls”. This Venn Diagram captures it all:
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November 17, 2009 at 11:34 am
JolietJake
You’re a professor?
Of economics??
At a top business school???
Really????
This is your contribution to public discourse / debate ?????
You want to comment on Palin’s book, but you don’t even bother to read her book, or other books on Palin that present a different view than that of the fashionable left.
You say that a shallow, idiotic ad-hominen cartoon from the Huffington Post “captures it all”.
Wow.
I sure hope you realize how lucky you are that you have the job/money/prestige that you possess right now.
November 17, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Toni
Thank you Jolietjake! I could not have said it better! I am sure that Sarah is laughing all the way to the bank!
November 17, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Marty Moore
Well, anyone who buys Palin’s book reminds me of PT Barnum’s famous saying, “there’s a sucker born every minute.” I’d take this book a lot more seriously if it was released under “FICTION.”
I don’t have to smell a horse’s ass to know it smells like poop!
November 18, 2009 at 7:35 am
JolietJake
That’s right, Marty.
You don’t need to smell a horse’s ass to know it smells like poop.
That’s because you have already gained the knowledge, from independent sources, that poop emerges from a horse’s ass.
Along those lines, have you conducted any dispassionate, unbiased, independent analysis to reach your beliefs about Palin? Have you considered all the evidence?
Your post reveals the answer: no.
You just take it as an article of faith. Because everyone you know says it and believes it so. Because it’s something that makes your social set feel superior to others.
The really sad thing is that folks like you busily pose as intellectual sophisticates, liberals, and champions of scientific thought.
I’ll tell you something. I bought Palin’s book. As I did Obama’s. And Clinton’s. And David Frum’s. And Christopher Hitchens’. Because I like to actually learn what these folks have to say, and I like to update my priors with the knowledge I gain from reading each of these books.
Rather different than refusing to read books with whom you disagree, choosing instead to preen about how only close-minded fools would read such a book.
Who’s the close-minded fool?
Sadly, Marty, irony eludes you.
November 18, 2009 at 9:30 am
JustAJoe
I came across this after reading the post on Pinball machines(which I found very interesting and entertaining). After reading the pinball post and the “who we are” I was surprised at the content of this article. I attended a state college and a decent school for my masters but felt that I was fortunate in having some good teachers… They were the ones that taught me to question and verify things for myself. I’m not a Palin fan, but I’m also not a fan of the high school habit of “Well I heard from such and such that this is what she was doing….”. Read the book then comment. Or just don’t comment.
November 19, 2009 at 12:58 am
Jess
I was under the impression that Mrs. Palin’s book hadn’t been released yet. I’m thinking that Professor Ely was commenting on the reviews of the book and Mrs. Palin’s public behavior rather than the book itself. I might be mistaken.
I fail to understand how reading a book is somehow innately better than my own observation. I can observe that Mrs. Palin is at best lacking common sense and a grasp of the English language. Thus, I don’t hold her in much regard and hope that she is never elected to any position that will affect me.
It’s not that I can’t or won’t read books with viewpoints that I disagree with, but that I trust my own observation far more than any author’s bias.
Also, what makes a book more valuable than a cartoon, JolietJake? Aren’t both designed to convey thought? Why do you feel that Mrs. Palin’s book should be read with an open mind, but attack the Huffington Post cartoon as shallow and idiotic?
November 19, 2009 at 9:39 am
JolietJake
Jess,
You asked:
Also, what makes a book more valuable than a cartoon, JolietJake? Aren’t both designed to convey thought? Why do you feel that Mrs. Palin’s book should be read with an open mind, but attack the Huffington Post cartoon as shallow and idiotic?
My responses:
Your question really answers itself. While it is certainly possible for a cartoon to express thought (pace the many great editorial cartoons that very succinctly summarize an issue) it is obviously a completely different form than a book. Can a cartoon or a bumper sticker succintly express something? Sure. Is it an in-depth exploration of something, as a book is? Of course not.
More to the point, and adressing your latter question, the “value” or the intellectual contribution, of something depends inherently on its content. Thus, the HufPo cartoon is not shallow and idiotic because all cartoons are shallow and idiotic, but because it is shallow (c’mon look at it — it’s hardly an in-depth nuanced examination of Ms. Palin) and even that shallowness is confined to utterly conventional social stereotyping (“jesus camp”, “deliverance”). In a word, it reflects nothing more than narrow-mindedness.
Now, it is entirely possible that the Palin book is also shallow and narrow-minded. But you don’t know that until you read it, Jess.
Your unwillingness to even read it and examine the facts is anathema to liberal education and intellectual (let alone scientific) inquiry.
You say: “I can observe that Mrs. Palin is at best lacking common sense and a grasp of the English language.” Really, Jess? I’d be curious to see a comparative list of your accomplishments and experience against those of Ms. Palin. It’d tell us something about who might have common sense.
As to a grasp of the English language, she may not speak the Queen’s English (as you evidently prefer). But to say that she is an ineffective communicator is to simply deny reality. She is a highly successful politician and communication is a critical element of success in that fielf. C’mon, Jess – -she is self-evidently an extremely highly effective communicator. You may not like what she communicates, but you have to admit that she is an extraordinary communicator.
As to trusting your own observation rather than an author’s bias, you have to make the observations first! That’s the point I’ve expressed here numerous times first. You have to actually observe the thing before you comment on it! Otherwise you’re simply echoing your prejudice (I’ll appeal to your snobbery regarding english here — what does prejudice mean? “deciding before” before what? before experiencing it for oneself.)
Let me close with a couple of brief notes regarding your command of the facts. The author of the original post was “sandeep”, who I do not believe is “professor ely”. You also state that the o.p. criticized the reviews of Palin’s book, rather than Palin herself (or her book). Read the o.p. — the language is clear. It opens by admitting the author has not read the book, but then continues to mock the book and its author, classifes the book as not worth reading, cites as its authority the reviews, and says that a shallow, idiotic, partisan cartoon “captures it all”. Finally, the book was
“released” on Tuesday 11/17/09. Another fact.
Look, I’m not going to come back here and continue to interact with a bunch of people who’ve revealed that they’re close minded and like re-affirm each other’s prejudices.
My point here was a simple one. It was almost literally amazing to me that a professor of economics at a top business school would choose to contribute to the public discourse, on a high profile subject, with the intellectual depth and the temperament one might expect of Beavis and Butthead.
You all are evidently loyal followers here. Enjoy your echo chamber.
I think it’s a shame that this is what higher education has evidently turned to. What happened to liberal education? Intellectual inquiry? Broadening your horizons?
What a shame.
November 19, 2009 at 3:08 pm
jim
Concern-troll is very concerned.
How DARE you elitists judge Palin based on trivial externalities like her public record when you ought to judge Palin based on her book! For shame! As a matter of fact, I bet you judged Nixon based on that silly Watergate kerfuffle rather then HIS book, too!
She’s “a highly successful politician,” also – you betcha! Why, just look at how well she did running with McCain last … er … I mean, look at how well she’s doing as Alaska’s … uh … ZOMG LIBERAL ECHO-CHAMBER LOL LOL LOL!
November 23, 2009 at 1:29 pm
JustAJoe
Not a question of judging anyone for me… just commenting on content second-hand. Which “smacks of paranoid high school behavior.”
March 15, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Jake Seliger
It all smacks of paranoid high school behavior.
I wonder what a developed theory of paranoid high school behavior would look like: what does such behavior require?