There is a subtext to the excoriation of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin which many folks don’t see.  Yes, she’s being attacked because she’s a woman; but WHY have the Democrats and the left-wing media, along with a few others, mounted such a vicious, concerted attack on Palin? The answer is that McCain and Palin have violated the rules of the Establishment elite and they are considered a clear and present danger to that group’s dominance of American politics and government.

So who do I mean when I refer to the “Establishment elite?” It is not some dark-of-the-night “conspiracy,” but a group of persons who consider themselves to be, to use John F. Kennedy’s term, “the best and the brightest.”  They are the flip side of the concept of “entitlement” – - they believe that they are entitled to govern.  The core of this group consists of graduates of the Ivy League universities – - Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton and Yale – - although a few others are allowed in the “club,” for example, Northwestern and Stanford.

Since the end of World War II, the influence of the Establishment elite has grown.  This influence is starkly apparent when you consider the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States.  The nine sitting justices come from only four law schools:  three Ivies – - Harvard (5), Yale (2), and Columbia (1) – - plus an acceptable alternative, Northwestern (1).  Here are their educational backgrounds:

John G. Roberts, Jr. – - A.B. from Harvard College, J.D. from Harvard Law School; John Paul Stevens – - A.B. from the University of Chicago, J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law; Antonin Scalia – - A.B. from Georgetown University and the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, LL.B. from Harvard Law School; Anthony M. Kennedy – - B.A. from Stanford University and the London School of Economics, LL.B. from Harvard Law School; David H. Souter – - A.B. from Harvard College, A.B. and M.A. in Jurisprudence from Oxford University; LL.B. from Harvard Law School; Clarence Thomas – - A.B. from Holy Cross College, J.D. from Yale Law School; Ruth Bader Ginsburg – - B.A. from Cornell University, attended Harvard Law School, LL.B. from Columbia Law School; Stephen G. Breyer – - A.B. from Stanford University, B.A. from Magdalen College, Oxford, LL.B. from Harvard Law School; Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr. – - undergraduate degree from Princeton University and J. D. from Yale Law School.

When Harriet Miers was nominated for the high court, a friend asked me what I thought of her chances of confirmation.  “Not a snowball’s chance in Hell,” I responded.  Why?  “She got her law degree from Southern Methodist University.”  The attack on Miers was typical of the reaction of Establishment Elite types – - she was scorned as “unqualified,” in her case because she had not previously been a judge (a consideration which would have eliminated Louis Brandeis, one of the finest minds in the history of the Court).  The “unqualified” attack is exactly the same strategy being used against Sarah Palin, and the calls for Palin’s withdrawal echo the same verbiage used, with unfortunate success, against Miers, who was perfectly well qualified for the Supreme Court – - more so, I dare say, than some of the EE types who sit on that bench.

I have been around long enough to remember the rejection of Mildred Lillie, who Pres. Richard Nixon intended to nominate in 1971 to be the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court.   A fellow jurist wrote of Mildred Lillie, “During her 55 years as a judicial officer she made a stunning contribution to our justice system. . .  Chief Justice George hailed her as a great jurist and scholar.”   However, in 1971 the practice of law was a male-dominated institution and prospective Federal judges were “rated” by a committee of the American Bar Association.  Nixon withdrew Lillie from consideration after the American Bar Association committee rated her “unqualified.” Sound familiar? At the time it was thought that the rating was based on “the panel’s discomfort with the notion of a woman on the high court;” the official reason given was that Mildred Lillie was only a state court judge and didn’t have experience on the Federal bench (a consideration which would have eliminated Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., another of the finest minds in the history of the Court).

If you think that the current composition of the Court is atypical, consider some of the other recent Justices: Byron White – - Yale Law School; Potter Stewart – - Yale Law School; William J. Brennan, Jr. – - Harvard Law School; John M. Harlan II – - undergraduate, Princeton University; law, Harvard Law School; Earl Warren – - undergrad and law, University of California at Berkeley; Sherman Minton – - law degrees: Indiana University School of Law and Yale Law School.  A law degree actually is not a requirement for sitting on the Supreme Court, and as recently the 1940s and early 1950s, a Chief Justice, Frederick M. Vinson, had not graduated from law school.

Now, here are the educational backgrounds of those whose nominations have been rejected or withdrawn in recent years: Harriet Miers – - B.A. and law degrees from Southern Methodist University; Robert Bork – - University of Chicago Law School; Douglas Ginsburg – - University of Chicago Law School; Harrold Carswell – -  Walter F. George School of Law of Mercer University; Clement Haynesworth – - Harvard Law School.  Only one “Ivy” of the 5.

Maintaining control of the Supreme Court is, of course, much easier than maintaining control over positions where a vote of the governed makes the decision.  Nonetheless, the EE often successfully supports its own – - for example, George W. Bush (Yale University, Harvard Business School) over John McCain (U. S. Naval Academy) for the 2000 Republican Presidential nomination.

Several years ago, I attended the graduation of a family friend from an Ivy League university.  The President of the University told the graduates, among other things:  “You are part of a privileged elite.”  Plain enough?

The Establishment Elite accepts women like Hillary Clinton (Yale Law School) but not a woman like Sarah Palin (University of Idaho).  Barack Obama (B.A. Columbia; J.D., Harvard Law School) is, of course, in the Club. So make no mistake about it:  The EE is fighting Sarah Palin, and will fight her to the bitter end, because she represents their worst nightmare – - a competent, strong-willed, politically-astute woman who does not belong to or go along with the Club.

Oh, one more thing – - Google up the reactions of this sample of media people to Sarah Palin:  Keith Olbermann (MSNBC) – Cornell University; Joe Klein (Time) – U. Pennsylvania; Harold Meyerson (American Prospect) – Columbia; Ruth Marcus (Washington Post) – Yale, Harvard Law; Marc Penn (pollster/Politico) – Harvard; Peter Scobic (New Republic) – Brown U.; Eve Fairbanks – (New Republic) Yale; Michael Crowley (New Republic) Yale; Nicholas Kristof (NY Times) – Harvard; Michael Kinsley (Slate) – Harvard; E. J. Dionne – (Washington Post) – Harvard; Jonathan Alter (Newsweek) – Harvard. If you have read this far, you should not be surprised at what you find – - horrified, yes; surprised, no.

Special thanks to Glen Schorzman, a kindred spirit whom I have never met, who posted this comment on the Wall Street Journal site today:

“The real problem the elite media has with Gov. Palin is that she is not a product of the Ivy League or its eastern liberal arts college cousins. How can someone that hasn’t read the same 50 books, and studied under the same leather-patch-elbowed radical professors be taken seriously? On the other hand, those of us that earned BS degrees from land-grant universities in fly-over country have much the same lack of respect for the coastal French Art History crowd. They are ignorant of basic scientific principles, economics, mathematics and other hard subjects that make up the knowledge base that makes the free world work. This election may be the real showdown between the producers and the non-producers in our society.”

From my clingy-small-town-in-the-Backcountry perspective, here is the bottom line:  This is our country; we want one of us in each of the two top slots in the Federal government; and this election year, that means we vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin.


LINKS:

37.2 Million Watch Sarah Palin Accept Her Party’s Nomination

Sarah Palin – - Obama’s Worst Nightmare

Oinkin’ From The Boinkin’: Sexist Pig Of The Day Award, September 4

Oinkin’ from the Boinkin’: Sexist Pig Of The Day Award, Sept. 3

Lions, and Tigers, and . . . SEXIST PIGS! Oh, My!

Reaction To McCain Choosing Palin As Running Mate

Palin Mania 3: A Super Speech