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In a post on The Corner, Victor Davis Hanson uses a strange line of reasoning to analyze the impact of Sarah Palin's sudden resignation:
Conventional wisdom suggests that short-term the Palin decision was unwise -- e.g., "quitter," unpredictable, sulking, etc. But what else are her critics really going to say? It's not like a Letterman can trump laughing at her on late-night television as he puns that a Yankees star had sex in a dugout with her 14-year old daughter. Can Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic website go beyond his slurs that she did not deliver her own child? How much more cleverly can N.Y. feminist pundits tsk-tsk her that she's a Wasilla trailer-park retread?The presumption here seems to be that the American people judge Governor Palin by listening to the least convincing arguments offered by her most virulent critics -- if these critics can continually top themselves, Palin's political fortunes suffer, whereas if they find themselves unable to muster ever more extreme criticism her future presidential chances are a-okay.
Actually, something like the opposite is true. When the public perceives that Gov. Palin is being attacked unfairly, the backlash redounds to her benefit. Hence her tendency to exaggerate insults and draw ever more attention to any criticism that her base will perceive as unfair. On the other hand, when she is criticized for good reason -- for example, when her inability to complete a single term as governor, or even to cogently explain her resignation, is cited as evidence of an erratic nature and an unfitness for the presidency -- the average American voter thinks to him or herself, "Yeah, a small town mayor who hasn't even completed a single term in higher office and explains her resignation by employing an impenetrable basketball analogy probably shouldn't be our next president." This is particularly true when her actions are so inexplicable that the class of people actually being critical of her expands to encompass almost everyone save her most dedicated boosters.
Imagine if in 2005 someone would've written, "Yeah, President Bush has already been likened to Hitler and burned in effigy, so I don't think he's going to get any more unpopular -- how can his critics go any further criticizing him than they already have?" It's almost as if one is led astray by evaluating a politician and his or her prospects through the lens of the weakest arguments against them.
In other "weak man argument" news, Jonah Goldberg associates himself with Mr. Hanson's weak man post, and Jesse Taylor at Pandagon does one better, arguing that the failures of Mr. Goldberg are in fact a refutation of the whole conservative movement.
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