Eugene Robinson compares Palin and supporters to Communists or something

Or worse: When Sarah Palin's memoir, "Going Rogue," hits bookstores later this month, will the ideologically impure be required to read -- and commit to memory -- every golden word? Her publisher might consider culling the highlights into a pocket edition. That way, any Republican caught without a copy of "Quotations From Chairman Sarah" could be summarily expelled from the party.

As a fan of The Boxcar Children series, let’s dub this one The Case of the Pol Pot Calling the Kettle a Communist.

Let the record show that Eugene Robinson has a way with words, although what way that is I have no idea. It was Mark Twain who said of the prose of James Fenimore Cooper that, upon putting it down, you couldn’t pick it back up. Happily, Robinson’s not that kind of writer – so strange are his references I wouldn’t think of putting it down.

Now, allow me to put it down.

There are various sins – commission, omission et al, but then there are the kinds of sins that are so strange that common decorum insists only rhetorical pistol-whippings will suffice. Before getting to Robinson’s larger beef – Gov. Palin becoming the latest Conservative to storm the best-seller list with a book that people will actually bother to read – consider that last statement: “…any Republican caught without a copy of ‘Quotations From Chairman Sarah [sic]’…”

Robinson’s is an apt reference, yes: timely, salient, and, well, odd.

In a phrase turned, Robinson is – correct me if I’m wrong – implying that Sarah Palin is a Communist, or Communist wannabe (according to official Palin spokesman Tina Fey, she can see Russia from her house), or that those of us who support her aspire to Communist-status. By my powers of rushing to judgment and making wild claims, that sort of makes Eugene Robinson the Joe McCarthy of this story, and if nothing else I learned from The Washington Post was right, it’s that Joe McCarthy was wrong. Call me crazy, but I think Robinson’s attempting an end-run around Godwin’s Law.

Follow along with me, as you too can imagine the verbal gymnastics in Robinson’s head:

“I can’t compare her to Hitler, no, no, not yet. In time, Gene-ius, in time … That’s wrong. But wait – Stalin, no, we like him. How about Pol Pot? No, too … ethnic. Wait, I got it – Mao. Everyone who reads The Post loves Mao. Those neo-hippies seem to be wearing his shirts … I gotta fevah, and the only prescription is more Mao-bell!”
Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth…

The Good Mr. Robinson was quite clever, yes, in his reference to ‘Quotations From Chariman Sarah [sic],’ because it was a reference to Mao Zedong [I repeat: Liberals love Mao], the Chinese “political philosopher” who Anita Dunn is such an admirer of. You remember her, right, she of the ‘Mao and Mother-T are my homies’ fame? Mao, who was responsible for what, an eight-figure death toll while overseeing what we in Flyover Country call the Democrat Utopia 1.0?

So, for those of you keeping score: Anita Dunn, Obama White House Communications Director, absent irony, stated that her two favorite “political philosophers” were Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa, and then emphasized the charms of Mao. When called out on this recently, she justified such a statement by noting that a prominent Reagan-era Republican had mentioned something similar. Oh, and she said that it was meant as irony, ironically proving that Liberals still don’t understand what the word “irony” means (hint: if you actually believe it, it’s not irony).

That Republican, by the way, was the 21st-century headline-grabber Lee Atwater. Mr. Atwater was unavailable for comment as he’s been dead for 18 years, making Dunn the First Modern Democrat to mine the quotations of a Republican relevant two decades prior while developing a speech for high school students. I guess she thought meta-references to Hubert Humphrey wouldn’t resonate with 21st-Century youth.

Digging deeper, though, at C4P we must take seriously Mr. Robinson’s larger claim: that Sarah Palin, written off as politically dead on Independence Day, is now not only the leader of the Republican Party, she also – gasp! – holds a cult-like sway of right-minded Americans. At the same time, though, Robinson is reminding us how irrelevant and meaningless she is. I guess he didn’t get the memo from NY-23 that – once again – Gov. Palin is political poison, or so he and other Beltway VIPs keep telling us.

To sum up Robinson’s idea(s): Sarah Palin is Kaiser Soze with a dash of Dan Quayle, a hint of Machiavelli, a tbsp of Chairman Mao, and, wait for it, The Devil Herself [see what I did there, un-sic?]: in short, a tall order, happily anticipated by those who expected Barack the Great and wound up with Barry the Meek.

The larger point to understand here is that by virtue of its popularity, Going Rogue will force Robinson to actually read the book, something Liberals usually hate having to do. By projection – a Liberal specialty – he wants the pocket version so he doesn’t have to actually read The Whole Thing. Book-reading takes time that could better be spent speculating about those crazy tea-baggers on MSNBC.

In time, Gene, in time.