There was no record of genuine accomplishments.

C'mon Robert. Everyone knows the answer to his lack of accomplishments is that he ran the greatest campaign in the history of presidential elections. I just heard that again the other day on Morning Joe. Of course since it was MSNBC, it is best ignored.

Palin is the anti-Obama. Her qualifications have nothing to do with degrees from Ivy League schools (by the way, has anyone seen those transcripts yet) but the common sense average Americans understand at a gut level.

Think of the health care bill rolling through Congress. Between Obama and Palin, which politician is more likely to come up with such a Rube Goldberg monstrosity? Or the cap and trade scam? Or the $800 billion non-jobs bill. Would Palin ever tabulate jobs saved without any supporting data?

And is there any doubt Palin would be more realistic about the nature of our enemies in the ME? I know Palin would never go to Cairo and apologize to followers of a religion stuck in the 8th century.

And I miss Johnny Carson.

Robert - interesting thoughts today. I hadn't considered the connection between Obama and Woods until your blog. From all that I have read of Woods I think his father, a retired Green Beret Colonel - who taught him the mental toughness to excel in golf - would be disappointed in his son.

His aura, as you say, is not only unraveling but coming apart at the seams.

A great book on Carson is by Ed McMahon. Ed said at the very first show in 1962, "What are we going to do Johnny?", to which Carson replied, "I don't know, but lets entertain the hell out of them". Which he did for 30 years.

While he did reveal the stars to be ordinary people (and I hadn't thought of that as a one more reason for the decline of the studio system) - Carson never made himself look good at the expense of a guest. He was - and remains - the king of late night because of his quick wit and spontaneity. And I think Ed was critical in his success because he used him to bounce stuff off.

I watch some of the Carson skits and interviews on DVD and realize that we didn't know what we had until he was gone. It's not that the successors are bad; he was that good.

One of my all time favorites was on an early visit from NY to Burbank, George Gobel is the 3rd interviewee - and comes in on Bob Hope and Dean Martin.

When George saw Hope and Martin, he said, "Did you ever think that the world is a tuxedo and you are a pair of brown shoes?"

Sara Palin - I have bought her book and it is an interesting read. I've been reading of her race to become first in the Wasilla city council and then the mayorship - her unsuccessful run for Lt Governor outspent 5:1 but narrowly lost)...

Whether people like her or not will always be; but nobody should dismiss her thinking she doesn't know politics.

Wherever she goes she meets 1000s of people. She reminds me a bit of Reagan. Both got vitriol from the left - not just disagreement but hatred and dismissiveness - in Palin's case it is more personnel.

One has to think if she were the true lightweight some people think she is, she would be ignored.

She isn't, and she isn't.

"her death panel Tweet is now historic". It's historic because of its stupidity and falseness; which is indicative of why the media is obsessed with Sarah Palin.

I think a high % of Palin-haters are people whose identity is strongly tied to their educational credentials, and who bitterly resent high-profile success by anyone not possessing such credentials.

Very much like European aristocrats of an earlier era.

"Obama has been unmasked as a fraud and blunderer"

Robert, I must be honest. I am beginning to find your intense dislike of President Obama somewhat monotonous. The President has ordered 55,000 troops to Afghanistan in his first year in office (more than GWB sent in seven years) yet in a recent post you accused him of seeing terrorism as merely a criminal matter. I think its time to ask yourself, are you an Obama critic or just an Obama basher?

Ted:

Obama's record deficits will bankrupt my country. The only way to pay this horrifying deficit is through hyper-inflation, i.e. printing money or a VAT. Either way, our economy will sink and so will the global economy.

I support our defensive war in Afghanistan. But I believe we should fight to win. Obama fights his way to an exit ramp. This is a recipe for defeat.

David:

Indeed, Palin did not graduate from an Ivy League university therefore she is grist for the hate mongers.

As William Buckley famously said: “I'd rather be governed by the first one hundred names in the Boston phone book than a group of Harvard graduates.”

Trevor:

Harry Reid just compared those of us who oppose a government take-over of our medical system to those who opposed the abolition of slavery.

According to your logic the media should be obsessed with Reid's stupidity and falseness.

Alas, this is not the case.

Bill:

My wife, a Ph.D psychologist, believes that the death of Tiger Woods father knocked the golf champ off-kilter. Tiger's father was a mentor and moral touchstone whose absence is sorely felt and acted out by his son.

Johnny:

You nailed it when you mention Palin's common sense. It is a great American virtue—think Thomas Paine before he went loony—that, all too often, is cast aside in favor of utopian social and political models.

Good post, except for the fact that I've never considered Obama a good speaker. I can "hear him reading." His speeches don't always sound "natural." Sans teleprompter
, he's insecure. That's not a sign of being a good speaker.
Sarah Palin frightens the Left, because she's both attractive and mostly unshakable. As VP candidate she took orders and was sorry, because she saw that the Republican bosses didn't want her to win. She'll do well as long as she stays "rogue."

Trevor, I have long been mystified by the left's claim that the "death panel" statement was false. It was Obama himself who said, instead of treating Grandma to give her a chance to be cured, we give her a pill and let her fade into the long goodnight - a form of benevolent euthenasia (there are two words that dont go together). The public option included panels that would decide whether and what medical procedures would be approved in any particular occaision. So if they are charged with treating our elderly or already seriously ill with a pain pill rather than treatment to prolong life, well, what would you call such a thing? "Death panel" was wholly appropriate based on Obama's own statements. Those such as yourself who state that her description was "stupid and false" inevitably simply repeat bald conclusions with constant repetition. It is an effective technique if people aren't paying attention. But for those who are, you're very weak rhetorical devices used in place of argument are obvious.

What a great essay Robert. Well done. But Palin hatred goes beyond merely the desire to crush a challenge to power - it is to destroy her utterly because all that she stands for - her authenticity as you put it - is not merely a challenge to the left, but a mortal threat to many of their most cherished shibboleths. A woman who does not take her place in their pantheon of victims, a woman who has risen on her own in the supposedly gender hating Republican Party, a woman who aspires to power but, as many commenters have pointed out, is not of the elite, a woman who has experienced all of the challenges of life in Middle America, these are challenges to the core of the leftist narrative. And that, I think, is why the vitriol aimed at her has gone to a level heretofore never seen in American politics.

Mel Blanc and Charlton Heston, both of blessed memory, did quite well for themselves on Johnny Carson's show. If he made celebrities look bad, they would have refused to appear on his show and it would have gone off the air in fairly short order.

For me, the most memorable Johnny Carson moment was his interview with Jack Lemmon in 1969 or 70. Jack told the story about the day he auditioned for the show "Mister Roberts", his vehicle to stardom. He said that it was a very cold day, and he stood outside the theater for a long time in a long line of men. He said that if anyone would have told him while waiting in that line that he would get a major role in the show, get the role in the movie, and go on to get the awards and such a wonderful career.....he would thought you were dreaming.
In the decades since I have remembered this story many, many times. Keep going, don't stop...don't give up. It was a tribute to Carson's talent that he could get these great stars to open up.

I consider Obama's speech patterns to be completely Shatnerian, so I never "got" the swooning over his oratory.

One of my students once made a snotty remark equating GWB's tendency to mangle words and his intelligence. I just gave him my best Spock eyebrow and said my dad also mangles words, and he's an absolutely brilliant person.

Student is still fawningly apologizing.

In Palin, you have "Genuine". In Obama, you have "sham and fraud". It's no wonder Liberal Democrats hate Palin so much. They've got nothing but an empty suit to counter her with.

Robert, you could do a long thread on Carson by itself. My best memories of Carson was when he got Ed Ames to demonstrate throwing a tomahawk, and the time Burt Reynolds showed up in black leather pants and had a can of whipped cream. Pure slapstick and funny.

Palin does have a genuineness about her that is refreshing. However, credentials do matter, including educational credentials. I'd be happy to support her as, say, my senator or governor, but I'm nervous about the idea of her as president. Still, I'd support her over almost any Democrat. (Maybe not Liebermann, but then he isn't really a Democrat anymore, is he?)

But I don't get the vitriol. Envy? Fear? All seem plausible but don't really hold up that well to close inspection. It's something more visceral, and I just don't have those kinds of viscera.

Kent, What are Obama's independently verifiable Education Credentials?

By the way, I attended a year at the U of Idaho. It is not a bad school, just not as batcrap crazy liberal as the elite's schools.