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Richard Cohen: Palindrone

A palindrome is a word or phrase that reads the same backwards or forwards (madam or, more impressively, Madam in Eden, I?m Adam). Now the liberal crescendo of continuing attacks on Sarah Palin ? some silly, some sensible, all shrill ? suggest the need for a derivative, Palindrone, which I hereby define as a liberal critic whose droning on criticisms of her stupidity and ignorance is always the same no matter what she says or does.

There is no better representative of the breed than the Washington Post?s Richard Cohen and his recent column, ?Attack on Michelle Obama shows Palin's ignorance of history.? The always burning embers of Cohen?s anti-Palin fire were somehow stoked by Palin?s criticism of Michelle Obama?s well-known comment that she?d only recently felt proud of her country. Cohen relies on the Huffington Post?s criticism of a ?racially charged passage? from Palin?s new book. From HuffPo:

In passages leaked from her forthcoming book America by Heart, Sarah Palin ? the erstwhile quitter governor of Alaska, who now, by all indications, fancies herself as President of the United States ? has taken another cheap shot at First Lady Michelle Obama.

In a passage on perceptions of racial inequality in the United States, Palin slams President Barack Obama, who, she asserts, ?seems to believe? that ?America ? at least America as it currently exists ? is a fundamentally unjust and unequal country.?

And then she goes after Michelle Obama:

Certainly his wife expressed this view when she said during the 2008 campaign that she had never felt proud of her country until her husband started winning elections. In retrospect, I guess this shouldn?t surprise us, since both of them spent almost two decades in the pews of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright?s church listening to his rants against America and white people.

This is ?racially charged?? Perhaps to HuffPo any criticism of Barack or Michelle racially charged. And Cohen, Palindrone that he is, agrees. After citing Michelle?s comment in her Princeton senior thesis (discussed here) that she felt like a permanent outsider at Princeton, and ?blacker? than she had before arriving there, Cohen drones:

It?s appalling that Palin and too many others fail to understand that fact - indeed so many facts of American history. They don?t offer the slightest hint that they can appreciate the history of the Obama family and that in Michelle?s case, her ancestors were slaves - Jim Robinson of South Carolina, her paternal great-great grandfather, being one. Even after they were freed they were consigned to peonage, second-class citizens, forbidden to vote in much of the South, dissuaded from doing so in some of the North, relegated to separate schools, restaurants, churches, hotels, waiting rooms of train stations, the back of the bus, the other side of the tracks, the mortuary, the cemetery and, if whites could manage it, heaven itself.

It was the government that oppressed blacks, enforcing the laws that imprisoned them and hanged them for crimes grave and trivial, whipped them if they bolted for freedom and, in the Civil War, massacred them if they were captured fighting for the North. And yet if African Americans hesitate in embracing the mythical wonderfulness of America, they are accused of racism ? of having the gall to know more about their own experience and history than Palin and others think they should.

Why do politicians such as Palin and commentators such as Glenn Beck insist that African Americans go blank on their own history - as blank as apparently Palin and Beck are themselves? Why must they insist that blacks join them in embracing a repellent history that once caused America to go to war with itself?

It is important to note that Cohen provides no evidence that Palin, Beck, et al. are unaware of these facts about what Cohen himself asserts is our ?repellent? history. Or rather, the only evidence he provides is Palin?s criticism of Michelle?s ?only recently proud? confession. Since he is here accusing Palin of ?ignorance? of American history, shouldn?t he provide and example or two?

Since Palindrones do not limit their droning to Palin, Cohen also attacks Cindy McCain?s comment during the campaign, ?I have and always will be proud of my country,? as a ?cheap shot,? and asks ?Why should [Michelle] be more grateful than Cindy McCain.? But no one, least of all Cindy McCain or Sarah Palin, ever suggested that Michelle be ?more? grateful. They were simply appalled that she could find no reason to be proud of her country until 2008.

The Palindronic mind seems incapable of comprehending that it is possible to believe that the ?wonderfulness of America? is not ?mythical? without being ignorant of its unwonderful aspects, that our entire history is not ?repellant? because some of it was, that it is not necessary for blacks or anyone else to ?go blank on their own history? to be proud of their country.

ADDENDUM

After finishing this post I saw Peter Wood?s nuanced discussion of Palin-tology. Read it if you have access to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Full post as published by Discriminations on November 29, 2010 (boomark / email).