Another World

Ezra fishes this self-mocking bit out of Matthew Continetti's endorsement of Palin presidential bid:

Yet Ms. Palin isn't as unpopular as John Edwards, and she has a higher approval rating than Nancy Pelosi. As Hillary Clinton's career shows, public perception changes over time. Ms. Palin remains highly popular among Republicans (69% favorable). But the Democrats' striking antipathy to the former governor--she has a 72% unfavorable rating among them--drives down her overall approval.

Right. Because both Edwards and Pelosi will be running in 2014. And Hillary Clinton is president. Back over to Ezra:

The sole attraction to Palin -- aside, I guess, from a literal attraction to Palin -- is that she annoys liberals.

Word up. And allow me to expound. There are times, in this business, when I am incredibly aware that I'm the black dude in the room. One of those moments is whenever I hear  conservative writers announcing that Sarah Palin has been persecuted, or that one of her virtues is that she annoys liberals. You see that sort of thing and it occurs to you that Palin attachment, has little to do with Palin, and a lot to do with intellectual insecurity.

I feel like I've stepped into someone else's fight, like I'm watching people who couldn't win the respect of their Harvard professors, or couldn't cut it on the Yale debate team, exact a quixotic revenge. It's in all the rhetoric--Palin represents "real America." Obama represents effete, Merlot-sipping braniac "elites."

But I'm from Baltimore. Howard University, too. I started with 20/20 and black and milds, then graduated to Heineken and Dutch masters.* I voted for Obama. What the fuck does a beer track/wine track mean to me? I can't call it. Where I'm from, we would tell you we were elite in a second. And ghetto too.

*I'm on Ron Zacapa, these days.