Andrew Sullivan applauded Sarah Palin’s decision to not run for the presidency last night. Sullivan, the conservative author who blogs at The Daily Beast, took the opportunity to excoriate Palin for her horrendous hypocrisy.
First, listen to this interview Palin gave to right wing extremist Mark Levin, starting at 2:48:
Now, compare Palin’s comments to Andrew Sullivan’s analysis:
But the idea that this person is protecting her family – after putting them all on a reality show, after deploying an infant with Down Syndrome as a book-selling prop, after pushing her son into the military, after sending her elderly dad headfirst into a ravine for a reality TV shot, and after using another young daughter as a campaign press bouncer … well, it’s as ludicrous as almost everything she says. I suspect she knows somewhere that the truth about her will eventually come out in full – as it has already in part, culminating with Joe McGinniss’ devastating and exhaustively reported book, The Rogue. And the sheer craziness of this clinically disturbed person would bring it all crashing down. So she’s bowing out. Call it cowardice; call it a rare example of sanity; call it a bizarre end to an even weirder game of hide and seek for the past few months. But the bottom line is: we can stop worrying about the threat she posed to this country. That is all I really cared about: the insane gamble with the world that John McCain foisted on us, with no vetting and no reason but desperation and cynicism.
Sullivan adds, “of course, the news was juxtaposed by the untimely death of Steve Jobs. Leonard Cohen once said of America that it was ‘the cradle of the best and the worst.’ Today, we lost one of the very best in American history, a reticent genius and entrepreneur, an inspiration for countless of us who has changed the very fabric of our lives. And we also saw the end of the road for one of the very worst: a nasty, callow, delusional, vicious know-nothing, brewed in resentment, and whose accomplishments could fit on a postage stamp.
“It’s a fitting comparison: achievement versus resentment, creativity versus narcissism, hope versus fear. I know which one will get the bigger headlines tomorrow. And there is some comfort in knowing it will pain her.”
(hat tip: Joe.My.God.)