What I learned there, amidst the entire, cross-city atmosphere of lectures, mixers, inter-school exchanges of all kinds, and many neighborhood events tied to school activities, would not allow me to accept the premise that being well educated, in the classical sense, is a malady of some sort, or defect, rather than the greatest of all human assets.
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Don’t know where you’re from, Tom, or where you went to school, but I would not for a minute stand still and be told I must take such a person as Sarah Palin seriously.

There is just something extremely dishonest about this woman and the people behind her; it’s part of a political program to play on the fears and ignorance of plain people across the country, at a time of serious threat to us all.

The program is designed to slake a thirst and lust for power.

Playing it, as she does, as though she’s “like them,” or, “one of us,” is the pretense. The show.

And the outfit which ran the so-called convention in Nashville is a for-profit entity, paying Palin 100K for her “appearance.”

There were T-shirts, coffee mugs, CDs and DVDs peddling the “program,” and all sorts of other neat little souvenirs to buy.

A nice circus, a kind of Elmira Gantry tent show.

Bad theater. A cruel joke.

A hoax.

Please explain some more the defense (yours or anyone’s) of a plainly stupid person who blithely appears in public and thinks, nay insists, that she can be a major national political figure.

What virtue is at work when people, like you apparently, bristle at others, like some here, who for good reason mock and deride such a non-entity, hypocrite, grifter and demagogue as Sarah Palin?

How could this woman possibly serve this country well, during such times as we are living in? It is precisely her facade and empty interior which must be ripped to shreds so that she is stopped from acquiring real national power.

She is, simply, dangerous.

And please don’t go off on a riff about Obama. This is about her.

Lay out the contours of the anti-intellectualism in this particular country which holds that someone from a good school, a school admittedly hard to get into, like Harvard, and, yes, elite, is to be reduced to a cipher up against such an empty vessel as Sarah Palin.

CARLSON: I think she did it on purpose. I think she did it on purpose, yeah. Because it’s an exact opposite of reading off the teleprompter with a script written for you with every word in a sentence and here’s she’s just taking crib notes on her hand. It makes her look like she can just talk off the cuff and she just jotted down a few couple notes before she went out to give a big long speech.

DOOCY: I think she did it because she probably does it a lot. I do that all the time. [...]

KILMEADE: But to sit there and look at, and do the interview and look down at her hand, I think that is — like you said before, Gretchen — folksy, absolutely, down-to-earth, I can identify. But if you’re going to write on your hand, why not just say, ’staffer, hand me a card.’ And then it would be okay.

CARLSON: Nah, like I said, I think it was on purpose. But anyway, we we may never know.

I can see it now–a conversation following the obliteration of Iran:

CARLSON: So the mad Isamofascists were dealt a blow today by President Palin.

DOOCY: Yeah, well–you know how everybody complains about parking costs in New York City? Well, the President has just made more parking lots available!

… [on and off camera laughing] …

KILMEADE: But, seriously, the down to earth, folksy I’m just like the real folks out there way she announced the missile launches, I mean, that’s a sign of leadership.

CARLSON: She’s spunky, is our President!