The Press is filled with people who were the smartest in their class. They learned what their teachers taught, got good grades, went to good Universities, and became entirely conventional in their wisdom. In this, the capture of higher education by "progressive" dogma hurts them, but it's not like the conventional doesn't have its rewards: to be a professional in today's media is by definition to be a Progressive.
The downside, of course, has been known for decades, but seems to either not have been learned by our heroes and heroines of the Fifth Estate, or to have been forgotten by them:
Nor is it to be supposed that the man of conventional wisdom is an object of pity. Apart from his socially useful role, he has come to good terms with his life. He can think of himself with justice as socially elect, for society in fact accords him the applause which his ideas are so arranged as to evoke. Secure in this applause he is well armed against the annoyance of dissent. His bargain is to exchange a strong and even lofty position in the present for a weak one in the future.
- John Kenneth Galbreath, The Affluent Society [1958]
Indeed, the Conventional Wisdom risks being overthrown by new forces, forces antithetical to current comfortable notions. Pity our typical member of the press, who sees his role as a political sportscaster. Reporting what's happening - with a bit of a bias for the home team, of course - he is better informed than his listener.
And along comes Sarah Palin, and the Conventional Wisdom crumbles:
Before 39-million viewers [when giving her Vice Presidential nomination acceptance speech], Palin was the first public figure to openly and successfully ridicule the hitherto untouchable Barack Obama. She also was the first American woman to campaign for high office by paying homage, but no ideological dues, to the Sisterhood. This Alaskan small-town huntin’, fishin’ God-fearin,’ abortion-hatin’ mom of five showed that a woman can break through any glass ceiling she wants without the imprimatur of the feminist politburo.
Who is this Sarah Palin person was all their readers and viewers wanted to know, and they didn't know anything about her. The Conventional Wisdom never held that an attractive, female, outdoorsy, non-Ivy League Governor might get tapped for high office. Of course, that's why it was such a huge story, and why their readers and viewers kept tuning in to find out.
But our "sportscaster" reporters knew all of bupkis about her, and so they looked like this:
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