Adam Bellow And Sarah Palin: Sabotage?

A reader writes:

You are asking repeatedly why Adam Bellow wouldn't have done some elementary fact checking of her book. I believe this reflects your viewpoint and bias - derived from academia and journalism - real journalism. I believe that you may not understand the nitty gritty of shafting someone politically.

I have thought about your question: Why wouldn't an editor find the errors in Palin's book and fix them? In the political world, when someone is a "rogue", the fastest way to marginalise them is to allow them to destroy their own credibility. Give them enough rope to hang themselves. I would ask the question: Is that what Adam Bellow has done?

He considers the "zealots" to be "a different species altogether" and says he and others "hold the zealots at arm's length". Having been in politics my whole life, and having buried plenty of bodies, or at least held the light while others did it... and having been involved in various ideological and political purges, the Palin book editing questions tinkled a few obsidian bells from the darker side of politics as I've seen it practiced.  I offer the following quotes from Adam Bellow on Becoming a Conservative.

"Brock had actually put his finger on something here, something that distinguished me and other New York conservatives from the zealous "movement" types down in Washington. New York conservatives - especially the branch called "neocons," to which I belong - are a particularly diffident bunch. We instinctively hold the zealots at arm's length, regarding them as not just a different branch of the movement but a different species altogether. And for those liberals who are dreading the descent of thousands of Republicans this week, it may be comforting to know that we conservatives are dreading it, too.. But there is yet another reason for our reluctance to embrace the assumed equivalence of "conservative" and "Republican" - one that's firmly rooted in our identity as New Yorkers, and that has to do with our dislike of intellectual conformity and with our emphasis on ideas over politics."

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