I remember a story, my mother used to tell when we were all younger, and she was still in the world, to the effect that my father would stop and shoot snakes on the roadways in New Mexico because they could get inside your car. Last evening at dinner with friends from North Dakota I learned what snow snakes are and also heard some good stories about canny Norwegians and innocent city folk that it wouldn’t do to tell here, even though this is my blog and I can say anything I please without fear of censorship from Stanley Fish or anybody else.

New Obama ad: Well, my guy is speaking forcefully about the economy, and he has a new two-minute ad that is forthright and direct. I’m grateful to Ben Smith at Politico for the reference.

The comment thread for this ad at Politico is also interesting. Both positive and negative comments echo campaign themes. Read it all here.

Elitism turned: and in what seems like one more chorus of a tired, old song, The Huffington Post is carrying a story today to the effect that Lynn Forester de Rothschild, one of Hilary Clinton’s top fundraisers, is switching her support to McCain. Obama is arrogant, says Rothschild, who is “a member of the DNC’s Democrats Abroad chapter and splits her time living in London and New York.” He (Obama) “has a problem connecting with average Americans.” How would Rothschild know?

Palin and Pegler: Robert Kennedy, Jr. notes Sarah Palin’s now infamous quotation from Westbrook Pegler as follows:

Fascist writer Westbrook Pegler, an avowed racist who Sarah Palin approvingly quoted in her acceptance speech for the moral superiority of small town values, expressed his fervent hope about my father, Robert F. Kennedy, as he contemplated his own run for the presidency in 1965, that “some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies.”

It might be worth asking Governor Palin for a tally of the other favorites from her reading list.

But I wonder if Palin knew that she was quoting Pegler or even who Pegler was. I suspect she didn’t.

David Brooks, again: The Huffington Post reports David Brooks to have written that Sarah Palin is not qualified to be Vice President. Well, maybe. But Brooks still can’t give up on the theme that those of us on the left who don’t think Palin is qualified are snobs. “Sarah Palin has many virtues,” Brooks writes:

If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she’d be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness.

Sounds like a claim that Palin isn’t qualified because she lacks experience and prudence, Brooks’s main themes. But here’s Brooks’s final paragraph, which seems to take the edge off the critique.

The idea that “the people” will take on and destroy “the establishment” is a utopian fantasy that corrupted the left before it corrupted the right. Surely the response to the current crisis of authority is not to throw away standards of experience and prudence, but to select leaders who have those qualities but not the smug condescension that has so marked the reaction to the Palin nomination in the first place.

Now that could be a swipe at Obama as much as at Palin, it seems to me. Brooks is no democrat (note the small d); and however elegant his reasoning in most of this piece, and it is (mostly) elegant, he can’t credit the negative reaction to Palin from the left with any validity. “The idea that ‘the people’ will take on and destroy ‘the establishment’ is a utopian fantasy that corrupted the left before it corrupted the right.” How droll. I sometimes think Brooks never met a stereotype he didn’t like.

“If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she’d be your woman.” No sh*t! as my ex mother-in-law used to say. Palin’s actual performance in office doesn’t justify Brooks’s enthusiasm — I suspect he knows it. And in spite of today’s reports of a lawsuit attempting to stop the Alaska trooper investigation, Palin’s own administrations in both Wasilla and Juneau are beginning to look a lot like corrupt establishments, themselves.

Brooks should realize that the candidate whose prudence he should question is John McCain.