Second Thoughts on Palin
Since the 2008 campaign, I have been among those wary of Sarah Palin and what she portends for national leadership. I have agreed with the critique offered by David Frum and others. Palin’s appeal, although overwhelmingly positive to the Republican base, begins to diminish when one looks at the response of the political center. Since fewer Americans than ever now declare themselves Republican, that means for a Republican to ever win the Presidency, he or she must have the support of a good percentage of that shifting center. Our country may still be a center-right nation, but it is definitely not a center that will be defined by a narrowly based Southern Republican Party, that is socially conservative and whose appeal to the middle class remains minimal.
With that in mind, I turn now to Peggy Noonan’s recent biting and vitriolic editorial attack on Palin, written after Palin’s announcement that she is leaving her post as Alaska’s Governor. According to Noonan, Palin has never learned how other people see things; she was out of her depth in a shallow pool,” she “didn’t read anything,” she could see no truth in anything others had to say. Moreover, she pretended to be working-class when in fact she earned a salary on the high end of American wage-earners; she was clearly middle-class in upbringing; she graduated from a good college, etc. Clearly, Noonan does not like much about Sarah Palin.
Moreover, rather than being anti-elite, Noonan sees Palin as a creature of the Republican elite, from party operatives to journalists like Bill Kristol who championed her. Noonan sees Palin as one who can and will never learn anything, who will be able to name the president of Pakistan but who will never “know how to think about Pakistan.” She is a gift to both the mainstream media and the Democrats, who will keep her popular in order to knock her down and assure a left-liberal future. So Noonan says we as a nation need a serious and responsible Republican party, not a frivolous one whose appeal is based on the kind of resentment Palin followers respond to.
We need, in other words, someone with gravitas and knowledge—-like—-our current Vice-President, Joe Biden. Remember the media during the debates: Palin was an unprepared know-nothing; what if she actually ascended to the Presidency? In contrast, Joe Biden was depicted as a wise, experienced and proven leader, a man ready to step in and take over our nation’s leadership, leaving us in safe hands.
A leading Washington journalist and author, Carl M. Cannon, provides the devastating facts about Biden on the website of AOL’s “Politics Daily.” He states the truth most journalists want to avoid admitting: the mainstream media treated Palin inexcusably during the campaign and is still doing it in the present, and boldly took sides “straight and simple” against Palin- no holds barred. And they failed to hold Biden to the same standard by which they judged Palin.
When it comes right down to it the members of the political class–both Republican and Democrat–have a lot more in common with each other than they do with the average person they are supposedly representing. And when it comes down to a choice between standing up for their constituents or standing up for other members of the political class the constituents almost invariably lose.
Palin isn’t one of “them.” That’s her crime. To them she’s just a stupid peasant who doesn’t know that she needs to move to the back of the bus.
What are Noonan and the other insider-inside-the-beltway snobs going to do without Palin?
I don’t need Noonan to look down her nose at me, and I don’t trust her any more than those other goons at MSLSD. I fail to see how the daughter of two school teachers who as described by her own sister “always had her nose in a book” qualifies for the class warfare trial by fire Noonan dabbles in. Noonan, you are just too precious for words. You’re a democrat and you always will be.
With Palin its all about trust. Those she connects with trust her, and those whose fangs drip with venom form no relationships of trust whatsoever: They are incapable of it.
It is too early to tell about Palin. If she now spends her time speechifying on the one hand, and seeking and learning from wise counsel and good books on the other, she could indeed be a formidable and appropriate candidate. That being said, her resignation announcement was at best amateurish. Although it may have been appropriate for laid-back Alaska, she should have known every syllable would be scrutinized by a lot of very hostile, well-placed people in the media and politics.
I suspect her appeal to the middle could be significant if she were presented honestly. The biggest obstacle she appears to face, in that regard, is the phony media narrative that defines her as someone other than herself.
Time will tell. At worst, she will be a good money raiser for Republicans. At best, she could be a whole lot more. She’s young and energetic – now we get to see if she can become wise.
The simple truth of the matter is that unless the Beltway Republicans manage to destroy her, which is extremely unlikely, Sarah Palin will have to be on the ticket. Otherwise she’ll run as a third candidate, take a significant portion of the conservative base away from whatever stiff the party decides to support, and possibly send the Republicans into Whigdom. Because they do not understand her appeal, her Beltway detractors seem unable to understand this potentially catastrophic eventuality.
The simple fact of the matter–almost always overlooked by the media–is that Palin is almost as unpopular among professional Republican politicians and operatives as she is among their Democratic counterparts. She resigned from that Oil ethics board in Alaska and then unseated one of the other members (a Republican) because he was corrupt, and she then ran against and defeated in the Republican primary an incumbent Republican governor. There continue to be rumors she might have a skeleton in her closet with regards to ethics, but I seriously doubt it. Both parties have gone over everything she’s done since she was in her mother’s womb, looking for dirt on her. Remember the pic of her in college wearing the t-shirt of questionable taste? The only thing anyone could ever come up with was her trying to get that ex-brother-in-law fired, after he threatened to shoot her sister and father. If that’s the best they can do, I suggest she’ll be OK. There will be complaints if she gets more than $2.00 for her book, but that’s just sour grapes: both of the Clintons, Gore, and every other prominent Democrat either has written a book or plans to someday.
As for whether she can appeal to people outside the party: I think the issue here isn’t limited to her, specifically. I don’t think anyone in America could overcome the media blitz that accompanied Obama’s candidacy. He was (and remains) the best candidate and the best President in history, compared favorably to Lincoln before he was even in office. Everyone who was or is critical of any aspect of his presidency is lambasted in ways that would only be imagined if the President were a Republican. If a critic of George W. Bush’s had been treated by Fox News with one tenth the vitriol that the rest of the media had for Palin, the Democrats would have been applying to the FCC to get Fox’s broadcasting license revoked.
My point is this: until Obama is off the public stage in 8 years, no Republican is going to be able to run anywhere with any real success. Look for a 65-35 Democratic Senate after 2010, a majority of 75 or even 100 seats in the House, and probably a few governorships falling to the Dems also. The interesting thing is going to be seeing whether this will persist past Obama. The last time something like this happened was when Clinton cheated so openly in terms of campaign financing, having Gore raise money at Buddhist temples and openly bragging about how he’d gotten around campaign finance law. The question wasn’t whether he’d done it–he of course had–but whether any other Democrats were going to be able to get away with it after he left the public stage. The answer was no–Gore had to raise money by the rules, at least sort of, and seemed to be policed reasonably well, compare with Bill. So, for the most part, did Kerry. Obama raised a bushel of money, but if he broke the rules at least he didn’t brag about it in front of wealthy donors.
So now the question is this: when Obama leaves office in 2016, will the Democrat trying to succeed him have the same vitriol directed at his Republican opponent? If he does, we could easily be in for a permanent minority status, if not the party being outlawed permanently. It’s a little scary to think about, isn’t it?
Both sides are terrified of Sarah Palin because she’s out to get both sides. She said in her speech, repeated the Monday after, and said once again today: she will campaign for BOTH Democrats and Republicans. The key is they must be the RIGHT candidates – by which I suspect she means honest and not corrupt, as well as holding certain views she has not yet defined.
Palin is as good at drawing crowds as Obama was. She’s proven herself to be a talented fundraiser, just by force of personality. And the media can’t stop thinking about her, like that guy still obsessed with the girlfriend who broke up with him two years ago.
And the Republicans can’t control her. What a nightmare for them!
Beware conservative base, change your stupid ways of living today or with us you will ride, washed up hags and has been country club puppy dogs chasing millions and millions of election bailout swing voters and independents around and around and around our about to rupture itself, bulging tent.
Never, ever, in my lifetime have I ever seen the media on a continuous basis trash a politician AFTER they lost a major election. And not just trash her, try to destroy both her and her family. It really is amazing. After Geraldine Ferraro lost in 1984, no one ever heard of her again. Once Hilary Clinton lost her bid to become president, nobody dared make any jokes about her. Yet, even though she lost the general election and should have faded into obscurity in Alaska, Palin has been constantly trashed by the media, by left-wing comics, and by pundits (like Peggy Noonan) who know absolutely nothing about average Americans and how they think, let alone how they vote. And everyone still thinks Palin is running for President in 2012. What if she doesn’t have any interest in running at all? She could easily make lots of money by making speaches, writing books, and giving lectures and still play an active role in national politics without having to run for anything. All these critics, on both the left and the right, feel the need to destroy Palin because they are very, very, afraid of her. Well, all of those same critics were afraid of another person they thought was shallow, stupid, and ignorant about foreign and domestic affairs. His name was Ronald Reagan and he never felt the need to “hold” the center of any party. He had a basic conservative philosophy and he made the rest of the country follow him, not the other way around. Face it, Palin and conservatism, true conservatism, are here to stay, whether Peggy Noonan likes it or not.
1. There is no “Great American Middle”. This is a fiction created by the Mainstream Media and Propagandized to its fullest. There are basically two middles.
The “Social Middle” are essentially undeclared Democrats who vote for whom their media masters tells them to vote. They feign intelligence and thoughtfulness when they are essentially puppets of pop culture. The Mass Media and Pop Culture are pure propaganda organs of the Democrat Party. These are the greater portion of the cherished middle, and wouldn’t vote for a Republican on a bet (except in an open Primary to ‘help’ the GOP choose the weakest candidate).
The second segment of the middle are subject to voting for an occasional Republican (and it is not a large portion) they are the “Bandwagon Middle”. Those are the people who love being associated with the “winner” no matter who is the “winner” or what the winner believes. They wait for some odd Zen feeling of “Bandwagon Consensus” before voting.
The Republicans have lost elections on the RIGHT… The Conservative movement is tired of the Peggy Noonan’s, David Brooks’s, Alaska GOP pocket lining Club… et al. A recent op-ed piece by Mike Murphy demonstrates the delusion that there is a “middle” and that the “right” is “forced” to vote for whatever mushy RINO schlub the GOP puts up because they have no where else to go.
That analysis is wrong… losing wrong. Because the “right” has stayed home or refused to vote for mushy candidates. They are tired of being played for suckers, and they really resent being told that the “have no one else to vote for”. So they vote with their feet… It’s hunting season in November so more than a few probably are thinning the immense overpopulation of deer.
Palin touched a nerve on the Right. She was a direct challenge to the party elites; the insiders who hold the purse strings, the choice face time, the fund-raising sources, and internal committees. She scared them because she was an outsider from that oogie “right” that just doesn’t play the “game” and toe the line the way that they are supposed to. The Palins of the world are supposed to shut up, knock on doors, and write the small money checks to pay their way into the big leagues.
I saw the crowds, my wife and daughter volunteered for the campaign (I refused to work for McCain – I held my nose to vote for him, but he was the wrong candidate.) Neither of them ever worked campaigns with me before.
Palin proved that politics isn’t all about money and “who you suck up to”. She challenged the power-elite status quo and therefore had to be disposed of.
Sad that it works that way. This should be an honest system of clearly stated ideas competing in the forum of the American Electorate. Well… it should.
Ron, there is no middle. Once you accept that reality, you will see where the movement conservatives are coming from.
r/John – TMF
The Republicans can’t win without their base unless they move so far “center” that they are no different to Bill Clinton. I wonder if they’ve given any thought to the possibility that they might so alienate their base in taking this approach to “rebuilding” the party that they – not Palin – ensure permanent Democratic governance.
“And not just trash her, try to destroy both her and her family. It really is amazing.”
It’s mostly about abortion. This is the issue that truly dominates national politics—even when people pretend otherwise. Sarah Palin did not abort her disabled child. The typical secularist inclined woman would have done so without hesitation. Palin makes such females feel guilty. Everybody knows I’m right. They just prefer to con themselves.
Peggy Noonan is a has-been. Sarah Palin is an up-and-comer. One talks while the other accomplishes. One bends with the political winds while the other adheres to principles with integrity. MOST people are secretly jealous of Sarah Palin and her strength. SOME of us are able to overcome that jealousy and feel admiration and respect. Noonan is obviously not one of them. She is an out-of-touch elitist and has been for a very long time. If Peggy were more in touch with the common folk, she would hitch her wagon to Sarah’s star.
As Beck has stated on his web page – Palin is a paradigm shift. The attacks on Palin by the self-effacing elites (the media, the entainers, the GOP and the Dems) show how broken this political system has become.
There is unmitigated BS about this “center” paradigm as well. The center is where you led people, not where you go find them. Voters are a great deal like wild horses out enjoying their lives. They need to be found, rounded up and led into the “center” corral. Otherwise, you’ll be doing what the Obama team wants you to do – sitting in an empty corral wondering if it is the “center corral”.
The GOP and it’s Noonan’s are just plain simply a dead wrangler. Makes no difference how hard you beat ‘em, as they say in the country, “they ain’t worth spit” in rounding up them horses.
The one thing we can all agree upon as far as Palin goes is that the ball is in her court now; it will be fascinating to see what she decides to do next.
If the recent Washington Times interview with her is any indication, she may have hit on a brilliant strategy by building and growing a conservative base outside party monikers. Whether that leads to the death of the Republican party, the birth of a third party or the renaissance of the GOP, clearly something needs to be done with this one-party reality we have now.
The sad truth is that the GOP gave in to the pull of liberal approval. Rather than driving a stake through the heart of liberalism in the 1990′s and early 00′s, the GOP compromised and caved in to weak Dem policies, spending like liberals, regulating like liberals, growing government like liberals, pandering to interest groups like liberals. Is it any wonder that voters do not see any clear difference between the parties?
It is not surprising, then, that most of the GOP elite, the insiders who have profited from the get-along, go-along attitude, are apoplectic over someone like Palin who does not play the game.
Is it really so difficult to find common-sense solutions to things like illegal immigration, social security collapse, health care, energy independence? No, it isn’t. Good, conservative solutions are out there for all of these. But they will never see the light with the GOP elite in charge because these solutions require offending people, a potential interest group. Since when has conservatism been about interest groups? It’s about what is best for the country, especially long-term.
We can’t enforce our current immigration laws because employers who profit from exploiting illegals (and stiffing American workers) will be upset. And we might offend Europeans if we actually build a fence and stop the flood of illegals coming across the southern border. We can’t touch social security because that would be too controversial. We can’t move to a pay-as-you go, private health care system where we increase the artificially low number of doctors in this country because that would offend the AMA and insurance companies.
A broad segment of Americans know that these solutions are out there but no one has the guts to stand up and fight for them. I don’t know if Sarah Palin is that person, but I can’t think of one, other politician in the U.S. today who could do it.
Mr. Radosh
Have you noticed the fact that the White House is run by Czars who graduated from Harvard?
Use the ‘Social Conservative’ as the straw man to hide your cowardliness however do to try to remember that the Ivy-league Harvard degreed Czars are currently in the process of tearing America to shreds by looting, pillaging and violating everything America was built upon.
Reagan would to Radosh, Noonan, Frum and their arrogant class of Ivy-degreed idiots:
“Speech delivery counts for little on the world stage unless you have convictions, and, yes, the vision to see beyond the front row.”
Mr Radosh, in the future it might help if you try looking beyond the front row instead of holding onto lazy arguments-here is an important point missed-after the Saddleback debate ‘social conservatism’ was never heard from again so stop using it as an excuse for why the GOP is in a MODERATE-FRUMED mess.
What Mr. Radosh from his ivory tower doesn’t see, is that there are lots of us “down here” that are no longer repugnicans because there is no difference between the Harry Reids and the (then repuplican) Arlen Sphincters.
When the repugs abandoned the contract with America, I abandoned them.
Mr Cobb is correct.
SteveS
Whups, fix the spelling
One last point:
No talk of third party-Moderates brought about this mess because they are unable to decide which side of the road to stay on; without conviction Moderates have no chance in hell of being able fix anything.
Third parties are for those who lack conviction-like Reagan says ‘Have conviction and your vision will reach a larger audience’
The elites are palin’ but Americans are Palen.
Is it just me, or is Peggy Noonan and those of her ilk becoming terminally tedious?
I wish she would just take her meds, get more calcium and do whatever s necessary to go gracefully into her dotage.
Republican multi-millionaire or Democrat multi-millionaire, what’s the difference? None! We all know it, and Sarah sees it too. I think we’re going to witness for the first time since 1854 the birth of a viable new political party, and Sarah’s going to lead it. The 2010 elections are going to be a wild ride!
BTW, the new political party founded in 1854 was the Republican Party. It was founded by disaffected conservatives unsatisfied with the established conservative party of the day, the Whigs.
The 1854 conservative revolution does seem to resonate with the events of today, eh?
Palin is a media darling, just like Paris Hilton or Britney Spears. Just like them, people will be exhausted by the exposure and triviality.
She raised 200k after her resignation. If you think she’s dumb just read her op’ed in wapo.
I liked most the part about liberals being able to understand supply-side economics.
One would not make personal appearance remarks to Quasimodo, after all.
Remarks to militant GOP extremists about Governess S. Heath-Paling of Alaska fall in the same category. So let’s leave the Wonder of Wasilla™ alone, shall we? In fact, that is just what Neocomrade Dr. R. Radosh is hopin’ to get everybody to do.
Happy days
Of course, there is one key error made here by Mr. Radosh. Yes, fewer people are calling themselves Republicans. but *more* people are calling themselves Conservatives! Why is it that as the number of self-identified Conservatives grow the Republican base seems to shrink? I posit that it is because the Republican party is so busy trying to ‘win the middle’ that they lose the Right.
Ah Vivo what a list an how amazing you missed out the biggest media darling of all Obambi the BOGUS POTUS. But I am sure that was just an oversight on your part LOL.
12. vivo:
“Palin is a media darling, just like Paris Hilton or Britney Spears. Just like them, people will be exhausted by the exposure and triviality.”
Hush now!
We have to convince the Rebubbalicans that she’s Presidential material.
So, yeah, GO SARAH!
I think the major plus for Palin is that none of the elites from either party “get” her. She has flummoxed them at every turn and made them look like the incompetent boobs that they are. The libs have been trying (largely unsuccessfully) to destroy her personally because they perceive her as the single biggest threat to them. The conservative pundits, like Noonan (although that’s somewhat of a question mark), don’t like her because she doesn’t share their elitist view of the world, she is a feminine woman with a family and is brutally honest. She doesn’t have the “refinement” of the northeastern elite, she uses crass terms like “bull crap” and is connecting with common American’s in a way that they (the elites) just can’t.
I sincerely hope that Palin doesn’t go third party, that’ll assure an Obama win, but the fact that she is rocking the Republican party to the core is, overall, a positive thing. The party needs to try harder to understand why she connects with people and emulate it, not fight it.
I recommend you go to RCP and read Palin’s op-ed on the Cap and Tax bill.
In clear, incisive and direct language she makes the case why this legislation would be a disaster for our country, fuel prices, jobs and energy indepencence.
One of the ways Palin came up in Alaska was by blowing holes in the corrupt establishment — the Republican establishment. Another was by cutting through the BS, as per this op-ed piece.
She has a very rare and enormous talent for speaking to Americans and actually communicating with them. This in itself can overcome a great deal. Plus, regular folks are getting angrier every day at the media, and the establishment, for dissing her. Every time they do so, it is like they are dissing the regular folks. Palin may yet cut a swath through American politics that will astound and surprise us all.
We love Palin. We are not exhausted by her. we completely disagree with anyting negative, period.
Scream and yell , say all the negative things that you want to…we love palin. the more you come up with negative stuff, the harder we dig in.
Whom ever she campaigns for.. we will consider as a candidate.
As I said, say what ever negative bull you choose, we support Palin.
#6 DavidN He was (and remains) the best candidate and the best President in history, compared favorably to Lincoln before he was even in office.
By what do you measure the best president in American history? Is it the record high unemployment, the record losses of revenue to the treasury, the record contractions of the GDP, the nationalization of the auto and banking industries, the cabinet full of tax-cheats and union thugs, or the way he continues to apologize for American greatness around the world?
Look for a 65-35 Democratic Senate after 2010, a majority of 75 or even 100 seats in the House, and probably a few governorships falling to the Dems also.
I’m guessing that you aren’t watching any of the polls that show the Republican’s out front all over the place or the fact that the majority of people now feel like the Democrats have moved way too far to the left? Face it, you’ve got Jimmy Carter II, and you’re going to see both houses swing back.
Citizens of this country who believe in limited federal government have given up on the Republican party, with good reason. The GOP committed suicide by abandoning its principles.
Palin is a media darling, just like Paris Hilton or Britney
Spears. Just like them, people will be exhausted by the
exposure and triviality.
She is no media darling by any definition of the word ‘darling’. She is a media obsession which is not the same thing. And whatever one’s opinion of her is, she is anything but trivial.
Unspoken and undeclared reason for hating Sarah Palin – ‘The Womb’! The first home of each and every one of us including our Lord, Jesus Christ. Gov. Sarah Palin has the blessed womb. Sarah Palin is vilified because of ‘The Womb’. Jeeeeeeez.
People who hate her talk about her a lot more than people who like her. It’s rather obsessive.
Palin isn’t going to do much outside motivating the core base. It’s hard to ‘swing’ anyone over from the liberal side when half of Obama’s voters still don’t know who the Vice President is…
Anyone worth their salt that the Republicans come up with is investigated and bashed by the Democrats. Sooooooo take heart Sarah must be worth it. The Democrats fear Palin.
By 20010 the Democrats will have problems of their own. It took three years after the fall in the stock market in 1929 to really settle in resulting in a DEPRESSION. We are headed that way, you cannot throw money backed by NOTHING after bad debts. Any family knows that, why doesn’t Congress ?
In discussing Sara Palin, (Farwell to Harms, WSJ July 10, 2009) Ms. Noonan presents a litany of catastrophes facing us in the next 10 years as partial reason to disqualify amateurs. Regrettably, Ms. Noonan seems oblivious to the fact that the “best and brightest” of both parties were the architects of said catastrophes. This would seem to indicate that the nation has been less than well served by those with commendable pedigrees. Whatever one thinks of Sara Palin, she is not the cause of the current and unprecedented crisis, or the idiotic remedies. Could an unqualified, inexperienced, country bumpkin, or other such outsider, engineer as much fiscal insanity, malfeasance, duplicity, fraud, disregard of the law and criminality as the “best and brightest?” Perhaps, we’ll find out, although the “qualified” have set a high, perhaps an insurmountable standard for any unqualified aspirant to match.
“Love her or hate her, it’s clear that the current festival of in-house Palin bashing is not going to help the GOP one bit.”
I’m not real sure the GOP deserves her help.
Hell, besides the fact that they are not democrats, I’m not sure they deserve my vote.
God bless Sarah Palin. If nothing else she is a clear signal that we need an independent third party.
It is lame brain people like Noonan, Parker and Frum who are killing the republican party. I for one, and I know many, many more will have nothing to do with the republican party if this mindless Palin bashing continues. Everytime I get an RNC fundraising letter, which is almost weekly, I send it back annotated “All my donations are going to SarahPAC, total so far XXXX.” If Noonan, Parker, Frum and a host of others think that by giving full vent to their Palin Derangement Syndrome is someone good for the party, good, let them sink to the bottom, or should I say let them stink, which they do already. You diss Palin, you diss the millions of us who support her, and without us, you are nothing, but democrat lite, and why would anyone vote for democrat lite when you can vote for a real democrat?
Jed:third parties are bad,bad,bad.Thats what foisted Bill Clinton on us in 1992.Politics is first and foremost about money.Period.Sarah is the only republican capable of generating enthusiasm,money and votes.The RNC will soon take notice.Hopefully,they will figure out not only can she raise money but WHY.40% of voters today identify themselves as independents because they don’t see a dimes worth of difference between the parties.Give them candidates that will look them in the eye and say:”Follow me,andI will not fail you.”Maybe then we can save some of what our country once was.
If she isn’t on the ticket she will likely have a cabinet post perhaps Sec. of Energy?
Mr. Radosh,
My wife and I recently enjoyed watching your C-SPAN interview about “A Safe Haven: Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel.” I’ve also read “Commmies” and “Red Star Over Hollywood”, and look forward to your articles and media appearances.
On “A Farewell to Harms”, Peggy Noonan’s widely read WSJ Sarah Palin piece, I agree with your point that Palin’s appeal diminishes in the general vicinity of swing voters.
I’d go a step further and say Palin has the ability to turn educated Republicans into swing voters or non-voters should she put in another appearance on the national ticket. She traffics at the media image intersection of Dan Quayle and George W. Bush, a hazardous intersection of oversimplification and overconfidence.
According to Noonan, Palin (pictured blowing a kiss) “was out of her depth in a shallow pool” of TV interviews, “limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions”. Palin was “scattered, illogical, manipulative and self-referential to the point of self-reverence”. She has “ambition, appetite and no sense of personal limits”.
Did the media do her in? Noonan says “Her lack of any appropriate modesty did her in. Actually, it’s arguable that membership in the self-esteem generation harmed her. For 30 years the self-esteem movement told the young they’re perfect in every way. It’s yielding something new in history: an entire generation with no proper sense of inadequacy”.
Vitriolic? Yes, but caustic for cause. Frankly, if Sarah Palin could use words to form and express ideas as well as Peggy Noonan does in this piece, Noonan wouldn’t need to have written it.
Meanwhile, we have one more prominent Republican with the word “former” as a job title prefix. She joins former Speaker Gingrich, former Mayor Giuliani, former Governors Romney, Huckabee and Bush. Some of these brand names might consider trying to win seats in the House or Senate. In doing so they would demonstrate both their commitment to public service, and a refreshing personal humility.
I think that Palin’s appeal is much the same as Obama’s appeal. She is “genuine”, she is “legit.” In fact they are both really caricatures, extracts of the baser ideas of their respective bases. This is how they market themselves. And before you go spouting off about Reagan this and Reagan that, please remember that Reagan was not an archetype when he walked into office–we made him into that archetype after his death. Reagan would be disgusted with our lack of individualism in trying to be him.
The Belt Way Republicans are the ones that are destroying the Republican Party. I have lost all faith in this bunch of hypocrites. I am still a proud Republican, but I’m a Conservative Republican. Sarah Palin is by far a better representive for the us then all those Belt Way boys.
I have difficulty trying to understand how some remain so obsessed with qualifications for the Presidency when quite obviously Obama abjectly demonstrated they aren’t necessary. Hell, for all we know in being over 35 he only met 1 of the 2 eligibility requirements. It’s all about style over substance, form over function, sizzle over steak, whatever.
The elecorate, so far, is quite content with style over substance(note the utterly ludicrous yet straight-faced claim of best president in history above). That is why it’s Sarah’s star power that has them so freaked. Adding to the Sarahnoia is that she is not an idiot but is a proven, genuine, game-changing, reformer. As sure as the sun rises in the east when both pillars of the status quo feel threatened the longknives will be unleashed with the furor and tenacity of the cornered rats they are.
Nothing is more charismatic than authenticity and in that regard Obama doesn’t even come close. Worse, for them, is that as his inauthenticity becomes more and more apparent the focus will necessarily shift to his policies where, with any honest scrutiny at all, his near complete lack of experience will become frighteningly more obvious as well.
So this obsession with qualifications might be hinged on the premise that while the electorate stays tuned to American Idol White House Edition the more plain it will become that it takes more than charisma to get the job done, it takes actual talent. The true test begins once the contest winner hits the road where stamina, conviction, loyalty, and that old fire in the belly seperates the wheat from the chaff. There are already signs this years winner is not up to the task, and he’s jsut getting started.
My only question is which will be more fun to watch, Sarah’s star rising or Obama’s falling. Either way, to further torture the astrophysical metaphor, the political planets realigninment in progress promises for great theatre.
41,42, ditto a hundred times over.
I do not believe the Republicans or Dems realized what a strong base this woman has. She is not politically correct, demoralizing, arrogant. Also, the more the press bashes her, the stronger her base becomes.
I believe that the party insiders on both sides of the aisle seek to congeal their nasty brew of power by limiting access to those over which they have no control. I don’t think the Republican ops realize how much they offended Republican women by their dismissive attitude and cold support in the election. Their failure to support her after the election means that this group is seriously out of touch with the voting base they need to acquire.
But further than that, the media betrays an ingrained snobbery with their indictments of Palin’s life, education and family. First of all, had she been a woman of color none of this would have made the columns. It would have been unthinkable journalistic suicide to do such a thing. Likewise, had she been someone who had political ties through either business or family with traditional political families, many of her flaws would have been changed into quirks or eccentricities. Instead the media chose to deliberately go after Palin through her kids. While Obama urged supporters not to do this, he never made the request strongly enough to stop the forces of Moveon.org and Huffpo-forces that went so far as to hack into her daughter’s email. Finally, there is the characteristic insularity of DC. The idea that only at an Ivy League school can one get an education to qualify for political service is bunk. Perhaps back in the early part of the 20th century that was true, but I would be willing to put graduates of “lowly” state schools head to head with grads of the Ivies and I am betting that the levels would be even. In fact, if you consider that much of the ethical meltdown we have had in the past twenty years have been the results of manipulations by grads of the Ivies, maybe the case could be made that their influence is a negative one on government policies.
At any rate, the status quo is not going to do this time around. People are waking up, they are not seeing results and they are not willing to wait. The forces of both parties that have been arrogant in regards to the “flyover states” may need to realize that there is a big nation out here, and we don’t necessarily see things the same way they do in New York or LA.
It is a problem with the elite. When anyone says anything that challenges their perspective, well cue the flight of the valkryies.
I think Sarah will succeed in whatever she decides to do with her life and I’ll be cheering her on all the way.
Barking is the only way dogs know how to express their fear. The virulence and the amplitude of the attacks on Mrs. Palin are the mesure of her political potential.
Who can predict the turns of her political trajectory? The only thing plain to see is that she has plenty of locomotion, and plain old courage to go with it.
Methinks the lady will make her move when she decides the time is right, not when anybody else calculates the time should be right. What’s the point of preeemptive second guessing decisions she has not made, yet?
As it were, she elevated herself to the rank of private citizen, and what’s wrong with the exercise of free will and free speech? These are stoll individual prerogatives under the US constitution!
There are fewer and fewer people every day who will drive half a day or more to see Obama. The opposite is true for Sarah Palin. I’ll be adding $25 each to SarahPAC and the legal defense fund. I’d send more if I wasn’t unemployed at the moment.
We love Sarah, and will donate to her ad defense fund.
When I first heard the news that she was stepping down, my red flag went wayyy up!!! Someone (somewhere) has some dirt on her because the news of her resignation just came out of left field! She loved being the governor just to step down so abruptly!
She has resigned from every political post she has ever had– elected and appointed– before finishing out her terms. I wouldn’t trust her with a damn dog.
I wouldn’t worry too much about her going national. If she secures a position she’ll just quit in a fortnight when she runs out of animals to kill.
It is the status quo corruption of Both parties that has them fearing Palin. She truly believes in representing the people, something both parties have failed to do for years! All the stimulus, bank failure, fannie, freddie, Cap and Trade, is ALL about money and how much the politicians can make for themselves and their friends. Obama is in as deep as any of them. They say Republicans are the party of big business, but it seems to me the Dems are bailing, lending and legislating tons of money for “big business”. Read about GE and Goldman Saks, how many Cap and Trade companies they have set up to make billions off the US population AGAIN! Follow the money!
Peggy Noonan, just like all other democrats and liberal media are very afraid of Sarah Palin.So afraid, the smell of fear is everywhere. It’s amazing, how every liberal blog, newspaper,commentator pouring dirt on her. What a pathetic state of the union. Who could ever thought that leftocrats could be so rotten. Oh well, they are already on a down slope. 2010 can’t come soon enough.
I like Sarah Palin a lot. She’s conservative. She’s real. And she definitely has views that I agree with. If Sarah Palin decides to leave the Republican Party to start another one, then this says to me that the RINOs have control. I want no part of this. It’s the RINOs that have made the Republican Party a mess. Thus, I’ll follow Palin, leave the Republican Party and vote accordingly.
#36 Telly: “People who hate her talk about her a lot more than people who like her. It’s rather obsessive.”
This reminds me of a favorite quote: “Nobody talks so constantly about God as those who insist that there is no God.” – Heywood Broun
As many others have said in this forum: The Dems and the Reps just don’t “get” Sarah. This means they also don’t “get” us – the ordinary tax paying citizen. They are completely out of touch with the general population.
Additionally, the political pundits on the left and the right don’t “get” Sarah or us. It’s that old NY/DC elitist mindset. They believe everyone in this country works, breathes, eats, and thinks like they do.
This is exactly why I am on the Sarah bandwagon: simply because she isn’t one of “them.” I am also on the Marco Rubio bandwagon. He’s young, convicted, and very passionate about his conservative values. He is most definitely and up and comer, just a few years behind Sarah.
I believe passion is the missing ingredient in so many of our politicians today. They lack passion because they lack conviction. They think tip-toeing along an imagined “neutral” line will garner more votes. They want popularity and power. And these are the people we are entrusting with OUR money?
#10 John – TMF: You have hit it spot on. I’d love a link to the Mike Murphy article.
One quibble with the Cannon article. Palin was narrowly defeated in her bid for Lt. Gov.
That is how she got appointed to the Ethics position of the AK Oil & Gas board. They saw her as a rising star. What they didn’t know is that they couldn’t control her. She took the job seriously, instead of just taking the paycheck.
I don’t know why you are all so hard on the poor woman. I thought that is just what you wanted in a President – a Quitter. A point guard who passes the ball off to another player and then leaves the court
On the plus side if she runs with Joe the Plumber and gets elected and the MSM is mean to her, she could just quit and turn the country over to Joe.
Dear Sarah, should you decide some day to run for POTUS please do yourself and the American people a favor and run as an Independent candidate. Stay as far away from the Republican Party as you can. They do not now nor will they ever `have your back`. You are not one of them and it is not `your turn` for the big job. When push comes to shove your party will `shove` you out the door as they did in Feb 2008 when all republican candidates were 86`ed for that has-been hack John McCain.
Regards,
Concerned Conservative
Sorry Shadow–the Quitter meme ain’t gonna work for very long. More folks are finding out why she ‘quit’. America doesn’t like bullies, especially those that use dirty tactics such as frivolous lawsuits (which drain precious taxpayer $$$) and cowardly attacks on children.
Simply mindlessly repeating “she quit” only reminds folks that she did the right thing–while Obama did the opposite: As a U.S. Senator, he ‘quit’ to go into full-time campaign mode, and hung on to a job he no longer CHOSE to do (While Sarah was no longer ALLOWED to do hers), but showed no compuntion in accepting a paycheck that he did not earn.
“compuntion”
Compunction, even. Damn fat fingers…
Don’t you guys let centrist Republicans and the media elites tell you what to do and think.
Y’all stick by Sarah! She’ll never quit on you!
PALIN/BACHMANN ’12!!!
I am a moderate Republican who cannot support anyone as far right as Sarah Palin. She will have to broaden her views and spend less time with household arrangements before I could vote for her. The far right sort of sneaked in under the flap of the ‘big tent’. To them it’s their way or the highway. I simply cannot live with their way any longer.
I totally disagree that people voting for a 3rd party are the reason for the mess.. It is generally a protest vote.
That third party vote IS a conviction of the fact that we are dissatisfied with the bull that is going on in Washington. I sit on the fence not wanting to fall on either side because each side is full of crap.
Neither side gives a hoot about America. They care about their positions in Washington, they care about their retirement funds, they care about clout, they care about getting re=elected. They don’t care about being mealy mouthed, and the don’t appear to care about America, period. So, if voting independent ruins things for the ever so correct, then consider it ruined. Both sides are full of bull.
We like Palin, have liked her for the get go..and will continue to do so. The more hell the press raises about Palin, the harder we dig in. Me… with my red high heels!!!
Careful what ya wish for there, Blart-o…
Hey, rocketeer (#32), when DavidN said Obama “was (and remains) the best candidate and the best President in history,” that was rabbinic hyperbole.
Also, don’t put too much stock in the polls because they don’t capture how the 18- to 35-year old raised-on-MTV crowd whose working vocabulary is 50% the word “whatever” will vote.
I’m glad to see Mr. Radosh is having second thoughts regarding his pre-election appraisal of Gov. Palin.
Those of us who have been aware of Sen. Biden since before he had hair plugs planted into his scalp already knew how feeble was his grasp on the facts and how loose he is with the truth. Biden helped put the con into con law when he was the lead Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Lately, Biden has touted himself as a foreign policy expert. Thanks, Mr. Radosh, for reminding us all how confused old man Biden is regarding the Middle East. Ahh, but during the so-called debate with Palin, Joe Biden could really fake the gravitas as he gaffed in front of the cameras and that was enough to please the image-worshipping boob tube generation.
Oh, yes.
Sarah Palin running as a third party candidate!
Simply Beautiful!
It’ll be Ross Perot all over again, ensuring 8 more years of a Democratic President.
She really is the gift that keeps on giving!
GO SARAH!!!!
All this focus on Palin is a calculated gesture to distract attention away from the scrutiny that should be concetrated at Sonia Sotomayer, who is basically Griselda Blanco’s, “La Madrina”(The Godmother of Miami Cocaine)in judical robes…Her very comment to the extent of “a person can be whatever they want to be” in response to her subversiveness echoes the “Scarface” mentality that is spurring the Mexican drug cartels.
These are not mature individuals of authority…The “Latina” contingent is a collective entity that is endeavoring towards American powers for it’s own inheritence, not that of it’s founders. It does not belong on the Supreme Court. It is a failure of the United States judicial process itself, should she find a place there.
For now, Sarah is going to benefit financially from all of the negative press, whatever the source. The MSM will not treat her fairly anyway so Sarah can use the attention to increase interest in herself. In this case, every knock is a boost. She needs to get a substantive book out while interest in her, from whatever source, is high. The Republicans that Noonan has affiliated with do not have the numbers to win an election. I suspect that they would prefer another term of socialist Obama to any Republican candidate not of their choosing. We will not tolerate another McCain. Close the primaries and let Republicas choose their candidate or suffer the consequences of playing games with socialist crossover voters. Sarah Palin may make the cut if she wants to run but there are others who will contend for the presidency as well. I cheer Sarah on but I will make no committment to anybody this early. At least we have a fighter for now and the GOP can join the troops or close up shop for the forseeable future. Grassroots Republicans truly are disgusted with much of our leadership and refusing to acknowledge this is pure folly.
Just for the sheer entertainment value, we need to encourage Sarah to keep thinking she is an important, relevant political game-changer. The more she buys the desperate hype that was written for her by McCain’s shell-shocked PR flaks, the funnier she gets.
These words, from Daniel Hannan, the most authentic right of centre legislator alive today. Furthermore, Sarah Palin comes closest to him, leaving the likes of Peggy Noonan, David Frum, David Brooks, and the windbags in Washington in the dust.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/9678395/Ideally_all_MPs_would_be_parttimers/
Ideally, term limits would apply so that the old bulls in Washington, are put out to pasture sooner rather than later.
The simplest truth (easisly discerned even from as far as Australia) is that it is GOP that has to adapt to Sarah Palin in order to survive as a viable alternative to Communo-fascists (congregating under the name of Democrats) and not the other way around. Sarah lives her own life, shines her own light, speaks her own language, and goes her own ways. She doesn’t need GOP. The GOP needs her. It couldn’t be more obvious. It is simply beyond comprehension that the, so called elites, represented by “Democrats” and RINOS who are responsible for the current malaise and a degradation of America (in every aspect; moral, military, economic, state of education) are so entrenched in their belief that they have a licence to throw the dirt and spew a poison on the one of America’s most succesful executives.
By the way; Peggy Noona’s spiteful rants against Sarah are beneath any contempt.
“According to Noonan, Palin has never learned how other people see things….she could see no truth in anything others had to say.”
And Noonan does? Obama does? Pelosi does? Reid does? Frum does? Brooke does? Biden does?
Most certainly, it’s Noonan, et al., who are terribly out-of-truth with Americans and spend way too much time reading the wrong intel – the NYC & D.C. op-ed pages.
(Peggy, you’re totally clueless about what Americans feel and appreciate about Palin. Obviously, you can’t connect with the majority of non-Beltway conservatives.)
James K.
The simple truth of the matter is that unless the Beltway Republicans manage to destroy her, …
The Alaskan establishment Republicans tried that about 3 years ago.
Peggy, who? I stopped reading her for more than 5 years. She wants to keep herself in the good graces of Beltway media. Kissing the One’s ass can no longer do that. Poor Peggy needs a job.
seansarto – she will be confirmed! Elections have consequences.
seansarto – this one was too good not to drop it on you
“Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), seeking to discredit Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s judicial philosophy, cited her 2001 “wise Latina” speech, and contrasted the view that ethnicity and sex influence judging with that of Judge Miriam Cedarbaum, who “believes that judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices.”
“My friend Judge Cedarbaum is here,” Sotomayor riposted, to Sessions’s apparent surprise. “We are good friends, and I believe that we both approach judging in the same way, which is looking at the facts of each individual case and applying the law to those facts.”
And what does Cedarbaum think about Sotomayor’s judicial philosophy?
I don’t believe for a minute that there are any differences in our approach to judging, and her personal predilections have no affect on her approach to judging.”
Will the last one out of the room, please close the door on the Republican Party.
Sad to read so many negative comments.
The GOP is doing a good job of making itself into second-rate player.
seansarto”
It is a who am I question.
“When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account”
Which candidate for the Supreme Court said this?
Quitter/Plumber in 2012. Then when she quits it’s Plumber as President and Bachmann as VP. We’re doomed!
Why is Noonan and her ilk doing this? Palin may or may not be the best choice for Republican nominee for President in 2012. Regardless, why the vicious smears by Republicans? Don’t these people understand that this is the surest way to irrevocably divide the Republican Party. Is that what they really want? Why is Noonan hell-bent on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?
I don’t think Sarah Palin can become President.
I haven’t seen her birth certificate and Alaska does sound foreign to me.
Maybe she’a secret Inuit?
“Why is Noonan and her ilk doing this?”
George, they are Republicans, NOT conservatives, Compassionate or otherwise. RINO is another term. They practice party politics as described by Downs in his “Economic Theory of Politics”. Rinos’ took over the Republican party in ’02, with Dubbau’s blessing.They dropped any conservative leanings in their efforts to steal as much as possible. That is where the ‘culture of corruption’ that cost the Republicans control of Congress in ’06 came from.
Tax and Spend is the root cause of Depressions. Other factors contribute, but if the State runs a balanced or near balanced budget, the other factors can be juggled and there will not be any depressions.
So until conservatives can take back the GOP, it is better that the Democrats control things, since they will eventually get the blame.
‘It’s all Bush’s fault’ has a pretty short shelf life. Another election cycle and it will be ‘Bush who?’
You know what I wish for? I hope Trig Palin can one day run for president.
If Doh-uh-uh-uh-uh-Bama can? Why not?
I’ve come to adore some mentally challenged people with hearts of gold and more ‘intelligence’ than you think.
I bet a mentally challenged person could not do any worse than the idiots we have had running our country.
We’ve got people in the Republican party that are trying purposely to move it left and weaken it. We DO. There are a lot of Americans who are doing things at this point that they’ve been waiting for the exact right time to do. And now is that time with Obama in office. Mark my words.
Blah blah blah WINGNUT blah blah blah WINGNUT blah blah blah WINGNUT blah blah blah WINGNUT blah blah blah WINGNUT!
Quitter!
Peace,
CKIAH
Sarah is obviously in an eclipse. Under 100 comments here. All the stories garnering 120 comments or better are about Obama. Its his time now but Sarah is young. Her time may come. Now we should just give her a rest.
I see that the Palin-haters have nothing sensible to say. They vent some vicious gibe or sarcasm but make no intelligent arguments. Well their hero Obama, and his sidekick Joe “Gaffe-a-day” Biden don’t make any intelligent arguments either. “Vote for my bill because I won,” is not a sensible argument.
As for those who assert that Palin is a liability because she turns off “centrists” while enthusing the conservative base, the GOP has been assiduously alienating that base. If you throw away your strongest supporters through arrogant contempt for them as being peasants and too socially conservative for such sophisticated people as yourselves, do you really think you are going to be able to win? With the Palin-bashing you’ve made plain that the soc-cons are unwelcome. Judging by the spendthrift ways of the last administrations the fiscal cons are also going to be unwelcome. Try to win an election with ony the country-club RINOs as your starting voting bloc next time. Absent the soc-cons and fiscal conservative types no doubt you will get a huge response from those centrists for another round of the GOP being the just like the Dems without having the conviction that the Dem’s policies are good.
radosh turns to noonan for intelligent comment and we realize he is stuck in the past and relies on a worn out cast of passe posturing and petulant whiner woulda- coulda- shouldas for assurance. I had expected greater understanding and insight from this author.This work is magnificently pedantic and more a cathartic than a interesting treatise.
In other words Mr Radosh, I think I agree damn near whole heartedly..thx.
“Why is Noonan and her ilk doing this?”
Peggy Noonan is envious of Sarah Palin. She is modestly knowledgeable and has written a few good speeches—and that’s about it. Noonan is paying the price for so many years of placing her wet finger into the air to see which way the wind blows. Palin has twice as much to offer.
“As for those who assert that Palin is a liability because she turns off “centrists”
This is merely euphemistic way of saying pro-abortionist. You show me someone claiming to be a centrist—and I will show you somebody fervently pro-abortion. They merely wish to lie to themselves. The blunt truth is too unsettling.
If you want to know how a centrist candidate would do without Conservatives, just look at the last election pre-Palin. McCain was getting clobbered. Then, he picked Palin and surged ahead. Then, he opened his big mouth about the economy, and threw it all away.
McCain is a Conservative Democrat. The perfect centrist candidate in today’s political climate. And he got clubbed like a baby seal.
34. Commuter:
“She is no media darling by any definition of the word ‘darling’. ”
The media loves Sarah Palin. She sells tabloids, magazines, TV coverage, fundraisers, political endorsements, books and who knows what else. She’ll be around. She doesn’t have followers, she has a cult.
Noonan was caught up in the Obama undertow, and hasn’t let go, she called her “a follower,” a massive degree of projection
was involved there. Most recently she has tried to make a virtue of the privations of
the recession. A reference to the recent column on cap n trade, would be good, Many have miscalculated about the nature of this
president, sadly the record really didn’t offer much support for the benefit of the doubt
“She doesn’t have followers, she has a cult.”
vivo at 5:03 AM
Cult. Yeah. Okay.
Show me a video clip where a chorus of children are singing a hymn to Sarah Palin.
Show me a supposed “journalist” who has compared Sarah Palin to God.
Scrape up a photo of a political rally where an infant has Palin’s name scrawled on his little forehead.
Show me supporters of Sarah Palin who believe she will magically take care of their mortgages and gasoline costs.
Oh, and it was Sarah Palin who was compared to Jesus for being a “community organizer”, right?
Project much vivo?
Strange how Obama hasn’t vociferously rejected being referred to as a Messiah. The ironic thing is that Sarah Palin is the one who has been–and continues to be–crucified.
It is self-destructive of the GOP to bash Palin.
As they bash her, they further drive out of the GOP not only her fans, but also those in the GOP that like Sarah are strong proponents of fiscal conservatism, a strong military, lower taxes, pro-capitalism, etc., basically reaganists.
That will only leave a very small GOP with no discernible philosophy other than Dem-lite.
If she helps to create a new third party, it could be the end of the GOP due to it being in effect gutted of any principles.
Then, we would be properly back to a two-party system with one party for statism and the other for liberty.
the Repubs lost because of McCain. He was a poor candidate, a hero, but a poor candidate. Palin helped him surge in the polls. If not for Palin, McCain would have lost by manymanymany more votes. She has a tremendous following, something the Republicans DO NOT understand. However,!! the press and the Dems DO UNDERSTAND!!
If she did run for office and if we could,we would vote for her. There are manymanymnay people that will listen to her as she campaigns for others.
when people express a positive opinion of Palin someone has to jump in with “yeah but”…there is no “yeah but”, we like Palin. She is a much more “human” candidate than Obama and McCain. All the suits that are going to run for President, should look to this woman for support.
OMG!! I can’t stand the people that run for office. All soft p.c. afraid to rock the boat people!! Afraid to lose the “black”, “latino”, “gay”, “senior” etcetcetc vote.
the Dems won the election, and America lost.
We can criticize politicians for misstatements, stretching the truth, and even lying, but most of them have an underlying knowledge of what they are talking about and know when they are lying. Palin has a few pat phrases, and some great catch phrases, “It’s all about country (or children or Real Americans) but she is so obviously uneducated and uninterested about current affairs. People don’t pick on her because she is an outsider, they pick on her because to elect such an empty suit to office would be a complete disaster. The fact that this isn’t a widely held opinion by most Americans is disturbing. Are we so easily swayed by a pretty face, and a few catch phrases? God help us.
87. gracie,
It’s too bad Palin wasn’t a woman of ‘color’ with an Affirmative Action background. Nobody would have touched her with a ten-foot pole if that had been the case and her daughter giving birth out of wedlock would have been a ‘no-brainer’.
Pathetic huh? Pfft!
Those whose hackles are raised when Sarah Palin is mentioned are negligent. They have not taken a look at what was written about her by the likes of Fred Barnes before she was named as the 2008 Republican Presidential running mate of John McCain.
However, I conclude that they won’t because they are happy with part of the story, and that is good enough for them. Besides, they are like the Democrats in that they do not want to see those things which would prove them wrong.
Maybe I’m stating the obvious, but…
All this Palin hoopla, from both sides, isn’t about her. It’s about us. It’s about how we see ourselves, and how we either feel solidarity with someone of the vox populi or feel solidarity with the political class. Another such polarizing figure was Joe the plumber. It wasn’t about Joe, either. That was also about us. Are we Joe, or are we the welfare bureaucrat who tried to find dirt on him?
That’s the two Americas. There are the usses; Joe and Sarah are just icons. They represent all of us. I am Joe. And then there are the thems. The political class. The Noonans and the Olbermans. They call themselves conservatives and liberals, but they’re birds of a feather. The don’t believe in anything. They just want to rule. They believe that they deserve to rule. That’s just the natural order of things.
In the end, whether Sarah Palin has the stuff to be president is a sideshow. What this is really about is whether or not those of us outside of the political class should even be allowed to have any influence, or should we just have group representatives appointed to us, as the media have appointed unelected leaders of the “black community”, etc.
It’s not about Sarah. It’s not about Joe. It’s about us. And it’s about the political class. And there’s not enough room for both of us to have our way.
You’re spot-on about the double standard that applies to Palin as opposed to Biden. This brings up the question of how we hold the media accountable, and strangely enough, I think that is an openly partisan activity, not one of developing an alternative media. That media – i.e. this site – already exists. The issue is to get people motivated to look at it, and to know what it represents.
For more: An Open Letter to Sarah Palin
It appears that we are soon to have a third party. The last time there was a successful third party capture of the Presidency was when T. Rooselvelt left the Republicans, on a nature point- National Parks, formed the Bull Moose Party and wan.
The way the two parties are acting now, voting through legislation without actually reading the bills we are witnessing a reaction out here that none of them are worth keeping. When I contacted my congresscritter, chastising him about representing me without reading the bill, he said “thats just how things are done”…as if that is an answer. Obama was right we need change his problem is that that is not the change that is needed. DC needs a serious shake up in how they conduct our business. The next three years, if it gets that far, of this Administration is going to cripple the country and the population will react. How that goes is anyone’s guess but I think the American people are a pragmatic lot. Should they decide that things are at the edge of the abyss they will act.
89 Strawman – Well said. You’re absolutely right.
I was going to make a comment about Palin being the most Reaganesque of the possible GOP candidates, which actually in my book carries more than a little baggage, but…I just saw this wicked good BBC2 special for the 40th anniversary of the Moon Landing. It’s hosted by James May of Top Gear, who was obviously really, REALLY into the whole thing, especially since he was one of 100′s of millions who stayed up late that magical, almost now like a dream night now so long ago to see it happen as it happened. Enjoy:
http://videos.streetfire.net/video/James-May-goes-to-the_695845.htm
#89 Strawman – Truly excellent post!
#89 Strawman – Right on!! Who truly represents us????
TCobb said it all. Nothing more to add.
The truth is that there has been only one active party in American politics for the last 50 years and it is called the “Communist Party”. They took a victory away from our in Viet Nam. Remember the South Vietnamese fought for 2 years without us. Only when we withdrew our economic support did they loose. Even LBJ said if you can’t beat the communists over here you can’t beat them over there.
They have kept Castro in power in Cuba. They supported the Sandinistas. They went down and validated a bogus election in Venezuela. You are not going to unseat any of them. They call themselves Democrats but they are not in the least interested in a free or democratic society.
The democratic process has been a hoax for years. The media has become an extension of the state. Their job is to sell us government programs and services no matter what the cost. The NEA was headed by a well known Communist for years and political correctness is an extension of the communist dogma.
If people still want to believe there is such a thing as Republicans and Democrats then there just might be a real “Tooth Fairy”. But you are not going to convince me. Sara Palin is hated by the insiders because she is a threat that the public might just one day wake up and elect an outsider. Trust me it ain’t going to happen.
#89 Strawman…..Absolutly correct! It was only obvious after you wrote it. Then it’s one of those V-8 moments with a slap on the forehead! Soooo obvious what the political pundits think of the rest of us.
94. Marc Malone:
#89 Strawman – Truly excellent post!
—————————
Are you kidding me? I find it sad that conservatives elevate Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin as icons of what it means to be regular folks. Both of them are opportunists. They can see the money and to hell with everyone else. Palin especially. She makes a hell of a lot more money than any average Joe.
And then there’s Joe. It’s amazing how McCain elevated him to icon status as the everyman. When in truth as McCain’s daughter most eloquently put it, he’s a doumbass. Is this what you really want? A dumbass for your icon? Wake up people. Your leaders are too busy cheating on their wives and saying no to anything that will move this country forward.
Elite? Who’s the Republican elite? Peggy Noonan is. And the Bushes. And Cheneys. The same Republican elite who betrayed the Reagan revolution and drove its mandate into a ditch. This is why Palin and other Republican reformers generate so much interest and enthusiasm. We’re sick of Noonan, as good a writer as she is, and the other Republican elites.