I Blog, But I Don't Live in My Parents' Basement

In yesterday's interview with Greta Van Susteren of Fox News, Gov. Palin apparently discussed the media coverage of the campaign (I haven't seen the interview). As The New York Times' politics blog noted:

Ms. Palin directed most of her media criticism at liberal bloggers, whom she twice called, “those bloggers in their parents’ basement just talkin’ garbage.”

Just for the record, while I may be a liberal blogger, I don't live in my parents' basement. For that matter, I don't think that many liberal bloggers fall into that category either. For example, Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post, has a BA/MA in economics from Cambridge. She was president of the Cambridge University debating society. The list of columnists for Huffington Post reads like a who's who of writers and thinkers. Markos Moulitsas, founder of Daily Kos, served in the U.S. Army before obtaining two undergraduate degrees from Northern Illinois University and a J.D. from Boston University School of Law. Daily Kos averaged about 2.5 million hits in the week leading up to the election and 5 million hits on election day. A review of the biographies of the other Daily Kos writers will reveal quite a few graduate degrees. Josh Marshall, editor and publisher of Talking Points Memo has an undergraduate degree from Princeton and a graduate degree from Brown. He lives with his wife and kids, not his parents.

Just this past weekend, I wrote about how I hoped that this election was a victory for thought and that intellectual prowess and educational achievement would be valued rather than remain an apparent source of derision. The fact that Gov. Palin continues to view those who expressed opposition to her and to the Republican platform as "talkin' garbage" from their "parents' basement" demonstrates that she (and, I suspect, many of her supporters) simply don't understand the nature of that opposition (either in terms of content or source). If she wants to be a viable candidate in the future (shudder at the thought), she might want to try thinking before talking and actually listening to and trying to comprehend some of the criticism that was leveled against her and Sen. McCain. Then again, understanding just what socialism really is or what it means to be told that you violated state ethics laws or grasping just why people were concerned with her lack of experience and education and views on social issues or recognizing the Constitutional role of the Vice President is all a bit more complicated than knowing which countries are in North America or knowing that South Africa is a country while Africa is a continent.

So, maybe it would be better for all of us if she just keeps huntin' moose and leaves the deep thinkin' to those of us on the left.