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Title: Sarah Palin: Up and Out (National Review)
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URL Source: http://article.nationalreview.com/? ... E1OTE0NmI1ZjYzYzQwMWY1ZTE5Njk=
Published: Jul 7, 2009
Author: Rich Lowery
Post Date: 2009-07-07 12:29:33 by christine
Keywords: None
Views: 129
Comments: 8
In all the speculation about why Sarah Palin quit the Alaska governorship, no one — right or left, supportive or critical, rational or conspiratorial — has credited her stated reason that she had to do it for the sake of Alaska. It’s just too absurd. Palin mentioned Alaska or Alaskans 34 times in a 17-minute statement that must be a new record in the history of protesting too much. Palin says she hates politics as usual, and true to her word, on July 3 she staged a spectacle in politics as unusual. But she still proved adept at the traditional political art of extreme disingenuousness. She didn’t want to put Alaska through the hell of a lame-duck governor who would “hit the road, draw the paycheck, and ‘milk it.’” Never mind that if she feared becoming a lame duck, she could run for re-election — especially if “serving [Alaska’s] people is the greatest honor I could imagine.” Or that she could endeavor to work her hardest at her job until her last day in office. That may sound outlandish, but it’s been done before. Sarah Palin’s words served only to throw a tissue of rationalization over a calculated choice made in her personal self-interest. In all likelihood, Palin is going to embrace her political celebrity with gusto, freed from the burdens of the geographic isolation of the Alaska governorship and its (relative to national politics) petty distractions. Her decision wasn’t particularly public-spirited, but neither was it crazy. She has seen her opportunities, and she’s going to take them. Juneau had become to Palin almost what the Tower was to Anne Boleyn. It pinned her down so opponents could ding her with picayune complaints under the state’s ethics law, forcing her to pile up $500,000 worth of legal bills. She had to deal with restive state lawmakers and an increasingly skeptical Alaskan public. Who needs that? After her frenzied turn as a vice-presidential candidate, returning to the Alaska governorship must have felt like descending all the way back to mayor of Wasilla. Now she can travel the country headlining Republican events and campaigning for candidates, unencumbered by other professional responsibilities. Wherever she goes, she’ll draw crowds and attention. If she can command $60,000 per paid speech, as an aide speculates, she’ll match her annual gubernatorial salary with a mere two gigs. That’s welcome income for a woman who isn’t rich and who has five children and one grandkid. This is why she quit the Alaska governorship while inveighing against quitting — her personal odyssey as a national figure is only beginning. Whether this makes sense politically is another question. It’s fashionable to opine that the culture wars are over. Palin proves that they still burn hot. Her very existence is a cultural provocation. Before she had been on the national stage five minutes — before the Katie Couric interview, before the Tina Fey parodies — she had earned the eternal enmity of the liberal elite for the affront of who she was: a working-class, pro-life woman with decidedly red-state mores. Conservatives loved her for the same reason. She had a true magnetism. The more she repelled one side, the more she attracted the other. This push-pull dynamic will hold Palin up for a long time, but it can’t propel her into the presidency. For that she needs substance, not the hackneyed sound bites she clings to for dear life. For that she needs a positive program, not just the hatred of conservatism’s favorite enemies. On this score, her premature exit from the governorship makes her task all the more arduous. As the soon-to-be-former half-term governor of a small state, she makes that other prominent populist social conservative, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, look formidably credentialed in comparison. Whether she becomes more seasoned and more policy-oriented is the key to whether she cashes in her charisma for something more meaningful. As for Alaska, it will be a beloved afterthought.
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#1. To: christine (#0)
Yep.
“The blacks are very vain but in the Negroes’ way, and so talkative that they must be driven apart with thrashings.” -- Immanuel Kant “I’m apt to suspect the negroes to be naturally inferior to the whites.” -- David Hume
Sarah Palin: God, what a loon By DOUG THOMPSON The only thing more pathetic than Sarah Palin's laughable attempt to upstage the 4th of July by resigning as Alaska governor on the Friday afternoon before the nation's birthday are the bleating and blather from pundits and political operatives who actually think her move is part of some grand political strategy. Strategy is not part of Palin's vocabulary. Hell, this bimbo couldn't plan a Saturday afternoon lunch for her family, much less a run for the Presidency. The sad fact that this dimwit became a national political figure says more about the ineptitude of the John McCain campaign that thrust her into the limelight and the outright stupidity of the Republican Party for ever even considering her fit for office. An even sadder fact can be found in the realization that Sarah Palin is not an anomaly of the American political system. Politics brings out the misfits, the con-artists, the egomaniacs and the unfit. This, after all, is the system where an obese, Oxycontin-popping blowhard like Rush Limbaugh can become the de facto spokesman for the Republican Party. The same system put George W. Bush into a job beyond both his emotional and mental capabilities. It allowed a megalomaniacal despot like Vice President Dick Cheney to exert considerable power in office and it put a ditzy housewife from Wasilla Alaska into a position to become a step away from the Presidency. Her rambling, incoherent announcement on Friday did not come from a woman ready for national office. A woman without substance or the intellect to handle the situation appeared before the cameras. It reminded some of Richard M. Nixon's "you won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore" speech. Nixon came back from that to become President but Nixon was a shrewd politician. Palin isn't. Palin's meltdown before the cameras reminded us of Sen. Edmund Muskie's self-destruction in New Hampshire in 1972 or Colorado Congresswoman Pat Schroeder's tear-filled withdrawal from her Presidential race in 1987. Although both continued to serve in Congress, neither regained any real national stature and both had far more going for them than Sarah Palin. Financially, Palin will not suffer. Her book deal will bring millions into the family bank account and fools around the country will pay her outrageous fees to speak on issues she can't comprehend. Her resignation will bring her mounting ethics problems to end, along with the increasing debts of fighting those investigations. America, it appears, loves losers and Palin will be the latest to cash in on her failures. For a while, at least, the media will continue to cover her like she is someone who really matters and the Republican Party will shamelessly use her to raise money. But I doubt she will ever hold another elected office. Polls show Alaskans are fed up with their dilettante governor and she is no Hillary Clinton who can pick a state at random, buy an expensive home and become a Senator. With luck, Sarah Palin will fade into well-deserved obscurity and we can await the arrival of the next substance-deprived national political phenomenon.
Oh well. Fly in the ointment. I think I'll buy her book tho'.
“The blacks are very vain but in the Negroes’ way, and so talkative that they must be driven apart with thrashings.” -- Immanuel Kant “I’m apt to suspect the negroes to be naturally inferior to the whites.” -- David Hume _________________________________________________________________________ She's gone from the Rs. Just a hunch, but I'd be willing to put a few shekels down she goes her separate way.
The Palins divorcing would not surprise me either.
I would just like to be able to honestly say I bought and read Sarah Palin's book but not Obama's. This could be important to my future!
“The blacks are very vain but in the Negroes’ way, and so talkative that they must be driven apart with thrashings.” -- Immanuel Kant “I’m apt to suspect the negroes to be naturally inferior to the whites.” -- David HumeHer very existence is a cultural provocation. Before she had been on the national stage five minutes — before the Katie Couric interview, before the Tina Fey parodies — she had earned the eternal enmity of the liberal elite for the affront of who she was: a working-class, pro-life woman with decidedly red-state mores.
#2. To: christine (#0)
#3. To: Prefrontal Vortex (#1)
#4. To: robnoel (#3)
the Republican Party will shamelessly use her to raise money.
#5. To: Prefrontal Vortex (#4)
"This man is Jesus,” shouted one man, spilling his Guinness as Barack Obama began his inaugural address. “When will he come to Kenya to save us?”
-Schweizerische Schuetzenzeitung (Swiss Shooting Federation) April, 1941
#6. To: robnoel (#3)
#7. To: Jethro Tull (#6)
#8. To: X-15 (#5)
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