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Redeeming Sarah

It’s time to give Sarah Palin a chance.

by
David Solway

Bio

November 30, 2009 - 12:00 am
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Such bewilderment, I believe, was a function of her essential good nature, her moral dignity, and her natural optimism. These are attributes that would by no means handicap her in her dealings with actual and potential enemies of the country she obviously loves and is sworn to defend — no Michelle-like resentment of America in her bones — but did have a paralyzing effect on her ability to respond to fellow citizens she may have considered merely as Americans who might not agree with her beliefs and prescriptions. Despite her street smarts, she was plainly unprepared for the viciousness with which she was assaulted by her nominal compatriots, as we too are often unprepared when family members, no matter how estranged, become our worst enemies.

Palin is surely wiser now that she has been put through the domestic wringer. And when compared to her major political opponents, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, she comes across as prime presidential material indeed. The gaffes committed by the president and his hobbling mate during their pre-election speeches defy credulity and betoken not only the sort of “shallowness” that Moran accuses Palin of, but suggest an ignorance so profound and entrenched as should have disqualified them immediately from running for office.

Further, as has been often pointed out, Palin has actual hands-on experience of what it means to govern; Obama was a short-stint senator who voted “present.” Palin’s record as a mayor and governor is squarely in the public domain and is undeniably impressive; Obama’s CV remains largely sequestered in sealed archives and nobody quite knows what a “community organizer” really does. Palin has genuine accomplishments to her credit; Obama is a cryptograph, who is, in addition, devoid of any notable achievements. One cannot in good faith accuse Palin of Obama’s faults and deficiencies and get away with it indefinitely. For the fact is that Palin knows reasonably well what she is talking about but Obama is like the captain of an ocean liner who never stepped into a rowboat and whose only experience of the sea is a view of Lake Michigan from the Hancock Observatory. Honestly now, who would you really trust at the helm of state?

There are many factors that render Sarah Palin fit for high office, not the least of which is a generous helping of common sense — a faculty sorely lacking in the current leadership. She is unpretentious and is nearer to the majority of ordinary people than her faux-sophisticated competitors, the beltway schemers, insider traders, brazen peculators, and outright liars now in power. This is precisely what an indignant punditocracy cannot forgive her: the plainspokenness, the deep convictions, the sense of loyalty, the chiming with ordinary folk — what the pointy-headed can only interpret as blunt-mindedness. But Palin’s moral and political values hew closer to the heart of the American republican experiment — individual liberty, personal integrity, Emersonian self-reliance, responsibility for choice, true patriotism, unobtrusive government dedicated to the public weal — than do those of almost any other political figure on the American scene today, with the exception of Mike Huckabee. I have no doubt that such stalwart values would stand her in good stead in the perilous world of international politics and that her decisions would invariably strengthen rather than weaken the United States, which latter is the deplorable case in today’s international theater.

Moreover, it seems clear that Palin is capable of learning whereas Obama appears incorrigibly learn-proof. I suspect that Victor Davis Hanson is absolutely correct when he sums up Palin’s imperatives for the future: “The best thing she can do is to go out and talk, take her licks, promote her book, fend off foes, and gain experience in the arena of ideas — while spending her evenings reading and debating wonks and politicians.” Palin is deemed by her defamers as a polarizing figure and a disaster for both the Republican Party and the nation. This is pure nonsense but it will take much cerebral scrubbing to redeem her. Thankfully, she seems up to the job.

One can never predict the result of the primaries. In the Liberal leadership campaign prior to Canada’s last election, a coalition of less unqualified candidates delivered their block votes to the utterly incompetent Stéphane Dion. Something similar happened in the U.S., the only distinction being that Dion is a bland cipher and Obama is blessed with charisma. The unexpected can always happen. But pace Moran, Frum, Couric, Olbermann, Friedman, and company, with their mean-spirited and catarrhal denunciations of one of the best America has on offer today, things may turn out differently next time around. We may now be looking at the making of the future American president. To quote Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation, who had the Ferengis’ number: “Make it so.”

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David Solway is a Canadian poet and essayist. He is the author of The Big Lie: On Terror, Antisemitism, and Identity, and is currently working on a sequel, Living in the Valley of Shmoon. His new book on Jewish and Israeli themes, Hear, O Israel!, was released by Mantua Books. His latest book is The Boxthorn Tree, published in December 2012.
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