The Polarizing Sarah Palin

Is the term 'scribbling class' meant to denote the barely functional literacy of the average conservative? I ask only because I really hate blogs which only reference other blogs with cutesy little descriptions. It's true that many posts in favor of conservative causes have spelling, grammar and syntax that would make a fourth grade teacher blanch. But it's inaccurate to lump ALL of Palin's supporters into the category of the functionally illiterate by calling them the 'scribbling class'.

Of course, your take (after reading the excerpt) is that the 'scribbling class' are simply other pundits, endlessly writing about their points of view of the candidates. As a writer, it behooves you to be clearer in who you're referencing when you write curiously misleading descriptions of others. People might jump to the wrong conclusions.

As for the article, all one needs to read is this:

"Either she's the second coming of George Wallace, stewing from the slights she once suffered at the hands of "the more urbane members" of the Wasilla community and determined to have her revenge on uppity elites once and for all, or else she's a true-to-herself conservative heroine who's been unjustly victimized by the class anxieties of undecided voters and (especially) the conservative punditocracy. No more nuanced interpretation is possible."

Skipping the last six words, that's a single 63 word sentence. I like long sentences, but even that one is beyond the pale for me. I'm not sure to which audience Mr. Douthat was writing, but I expect it's to those people whose primary form of entertainment is to read Scientific American. If he's writing it to the average reader, he has to dummy it down a lot more. Observe the immense pomposity of sesquipedalian verbiage...

And as for YOUR "story", two sentences do not a story make. Perhaps if you put a little more effort into it, you'd actually become a decent pundit yourself. Just try to avoid the paragraph-long, overly verbose sentences. They're fun to write, but a bitch to read.

Fatesrider of CA 3:43PM October 20, 2008