Conor frisks Victor Davis Hanson, and I make a comment to the effect that defense of Palin is linked to tribal affiliation with a (possibly illusory) Real America here. I find such a situation crippling to the sort of introspection that needs to be going on on the right these days. It seems to me that the circumstances that led to a Palin nomination that didn't result in a mutiny need to be fully assessed and owned up to by the GOP if they hope to move forward.
Basically, what the Palin pick tells us is that the Republican Party, by and large, doesn't care about effective government so much as fighting the pointless culture wars of yesteryear. It tells us that the Republican Party cares more about a person's actual qualifications for high office so much as that person's cultural qualifications--i.e. do they have enough "Real American" street cred? In the case of Palin and Bush, that seems to mean acting dumb. And, ultimately, it tells us that the bonds of tribal loyalty are so intense that the fact that it doesn't seem to matter whether Tina Fey's impression of Palin or Palin herself was the bigger parody of Palinism. The fact that Kathleen Parker got thousands of hate letters after suggesting that Palin be dropped from the ticket suggests that acceptance of Palin has hardened into Republican dogma. And Republicans these days seem unwilling to face up to the reality of what they've become or what got them there. This is not the sort of environment a party wanting to retool should want.
My guess: the GOP doesn't get back into the White House for sixteen years, at the earliest.
