Deb Saunders and Sarah Palin - Why the chattering classes don't understand her.

Deb Saunders writes for Townhall.com and the San Francisco Chronicle. Neither fish nor fowl nor good red meat, Deb reflects the Republicanism that lost the 2008 election. You can tell how her column on Palin’s book, “Going Rogue,” is going to turn out by her opening paragraph, referring to Sarah Palin as having been

“...plucked from her Little House on the Tundra to serve as John McCain's running mate and turned into a national caricature.”

Actually Deb, she was occupying the Governor's chair in Alaska. But I guess that viewed from San Francisco you can't tell the difference.

Even her positive comments mock Palin. Unlike the kind of people who dominate national politics in both Democrat and Republican circles, for the most part born to wealth, Palin grew up in a family whose father was a schoolteacher who did not have the means to send his children to college, much less the “Grand Tour” of Europe. This is how Saunders deals with that:

Palin never addresses the frequent criticism thrown her way by journalists who wondered if Palin possessed any intellectual curiosity -- in light of her failure to get a passport until 2007. If she failed to roam the Tuscan hills in her junior year abroad, at least thanks to her teacher father, Sarah Heath grew up majoring in the exotic natural world around her. She knew all about the state bird (ptarmigans), the difference between glacial crevices and crevasses, as well as what differentiates the grizzly from the brown bear. Dang.

Get that? She knew about her state’s birds, animals and the nature around her. Dang (what a rube)! The billionaires that live in the San Francisco hills have roamed the Tuscan hills and that is why both the city and the state are bankrupt.

While I appreciate Palin sharing the perspective, it would be nice if she had taken on many of the perceptions some voters have developed of her. There's no question that many in the media treated Palin -- and her family -- poorly.

Treated Palin poorly? Yes, and Hitler treated the Jews poorly and Stalin treated the Kulaks poorly. Perhaps it would have been different if the Jews and the Kulaks had made their case a little bit better.

That said, Palin herself blew the Katie Couric interview, and not just because she appeared impatient.

We’ll never know how badly Palin “blew” the Couric interview until we see the outtakes. We do know that the snippets they broadcast did not put Palin in a favorable light. On the other hand, Saunders is not doing a particularly good job in this essay. You could say she’s blowing it.

Palin herself quit her job as Alaska governor, despite her obligation to state voters.

Yeah, she just walked off the job because she got tired of it. No mention of the dozens of frivolous ethics complaints that were launched by her political enemies which she had to spend her own money to defend, and which was taking up most of her staff’s time. Sorry Deb, you’re totally uninformed on this one. Blowing it again.

Palin herself seems happy to parade herself as the far right's favorite victim, when a serious politician would be out trying to woo skeptics.

Get that? Palin is “parading herself as the far right’s favorite victim!” That’s what San Fran Deb thinks of Palin’s supporters. The ones who came out in the tens of thousands to see her when John McCain could not fill a living room. She’s not a “serious politician.” She’s not wooing skeptics. No, all she’s doing is connecting with the people of the country who don’t live in San Francisco but live in places like Grand Rapids and who stand in line for a day in the freezing cold to get her to autograph her book. But then, she never did take the advice of the “smart set” but still managed to be elected mayor and governor despite opposition from both parties. It looks like she’ll have to do without Deb Saunders’ vote.

In fact, that might be the winning strategy. “Vote for Sarah Palin: "San Fran Deb" Saunders doesn’t like her.”