Peggy Noonan On Palin

“She experienced criticism as both partisan and cruel because she could see no truth in any of it. She wasn’t thoughtful enough to know she wasn’t thoughtful enough.”

It’s a brutal piece, but is it fair?

Well, Noonan runs through the list of arguments the GOP makes for keeping Palin around and I think she effectively puts the lie to all of them.

These are two good ones…

“The elites hate her.” The elites made her. It was the elites of the party, the McCain campaign and the conservative media that picked her and pushed her. The base barely knew who she was. It was the elites, from party operatives to public intellectuals, who advanced her and attacked those who said she lacked heft. She is a complete elite confection. She might as well have been a bonbon. [...]

“Now she can prepare herself for higher office by studying up, reading in, boning up on the issues.” Mrs. Palin’s supporters have been ordering her to spend the next two years reflecting and pondering. But she is a ponder-free zone. She can memorize the names of the presidents of Pakistan, but she is not going to be able to know how to think about Pakistan.

Still, there are a lot of Republicans who are enamored with Palin. Maybe it’s mostly the low info voters who truly love her, and maybe that’s why some party stalwarts continue to push her. But she is poison for the GOP, especially with independents, and if they can’t realize that then they don’t deserve to win.

But Palin isn’t going away. Not by a long shot. And my guess is she’s readying herself for a 2016 run after the GOP loses in 2012. Yes, I know an Obama win in 2012 is still a pretty big assumption, but I see very few paths to victory for the Republican nominee in 2012 if Obama is able to pass health care reform and unemployment will start dropping, both of which are extremely likely. So the smart folks will be sitting out until 2016 when they can make the case that the GOP really needs to go in a different direction. That’s what Palin, Jindal and Huntsman seem to be doing and it’s a smart play.

Here’s the question: What’s next for Palin?

(Photo: Getty via Daylife)