The pundits and Sarah Palin

Last evening I listened to Steve Bannon's interview with Shoshanna Walsh. She had the good fortune to travel around with Sarah during the McCain-Palin run, and wrote a book with Scott Conroy, Sarah from Alaska. Bannon treated her quite respectfully, raving about her book. I read it standing up at a local Borders when it came out. It seemed to me rather thin, but, since Sarah Palin remains a phenomenon, Shoshanna Walsh has a job, with a specialty reporting on Sarah Palin.

Listening to Walsh, however, I was struck by how inarticulate she was. Well, she is young and is at the start of a career as a pundit. What was clear is that she really knew very little about Sarah Palin. For starters, she was puzzled that Sarah is threatening to sue Joe McGinnis and his publisher. In Walsh's view, this will only give McGinniss publicity and help his book sales. So, Walsh takes a conventional, cautious position. But Sarah is not conventional, and, when necessary, she doesn't do caution.

What I am trying to say is that, despite having spent a lot of time with Sarah Palin and written a book about her, Walsh really has no more understanding of her than any other person in the LSM. I am not singling out Shoshanna Walsh in order to beat up on her, but what she reveals is that the LSM does not get Sarah Palin. Thus, today's piece in The Washington Post, concerning Sarah's "second tier status." The Post is judging her by conventional standards, which is exactly the way that the more articulate pundits evaluate her and her chances, for instance, Charles Krauthammer or George Will. They are all so used to being in an echo chamber, repeating variations of the same pieties, that the only difference between them is the smoothness with which they express themselves. Shoshanna Walsh still has a long way to go, but she is on the right track to being a conventional, mediocre pundit. For the rest of us: Keep the faith.