In Defense of Sarah Palin
In a week where “conservatives” have absurdly called for Sarah Palin to step down from the ticket, the Governor is off to Arizona to prep for Thursday night’s debate against Joe Biden. The stakes in this debate are high. For both of them.
Governor Palin has to prove that she is indeed informed and ready, and we think she is. In spite of bad reviews from her interviews with ABC’s Charlie Gibson and CBS anchor Katie Couric, both of which were heavily edited and not in the Governor’s favor, it seems that the McCain campaign is indeed ready to “let Palin be Palin.” It’s about time.
Joe Biden on the other hand, has to get through the debate without disagreeing with his running mate on coal, or earmarks, or guns and without appearing as a sexist loose cannon.
Run an honest score sheet over the weeks since the convention and the odds have to favor Governor Palin.
Still, the McCain-Palin campaign is taking no chances.
The Wall Street Journal tells us the Game Plan for Palin Is Retooled Ahead of Debate.
In The Politico, Jonathan Martin says: “She wants to tell her story more, and people around her do, too,” added the source. “This is a governor very much on her toes, very much fed up with inaccuracies and fictions about her own life and career.”
Uh. Oh. Now you’ve gone and made her mad.
See, I don’t buy these moose droppings about her being unready and unprepared.
What she is is Un-Washington.
That’s. Why. We. Like. Her.
Governor Sarah Palin is a woman that can deal with the tough issues of the day while whipping up a chicken stir fry, getting homework done and planning a PTA meeting. In other words, she’s managed to have a successful career and a happy, and normal with troubles of their own, family.
Does she have a learning curve? Of course. In some ways, every candidate on the ticket has a learning curve.
But we can be guaranteed that she’ll never use the Al Gore “ice tea excuse.” After all, as any mother knows, go before you leave home.
Meanwhile, we still have to contend with vicious attacks from the far left, not to mention Saturday Night Live. If there’s a difference.
Michelle Malkin shares with us this photo sent in by a reader from Seattle. The reader writes: I live in Seattle’s Greenwood neighborhood, just north of the Woodland Park Zoo. Below is a sprayed-on stencil graffiti I discovered at Greenwood Ave. N and N. 71st Street.
Michelle, as well as my friend D.J. over at The Right-Wing Liberal is fond of using the term “Palin Derangement Syndrome.” Some on the left so hate her are so afraid of her, that they dig down into the depths of the gutters to launch their attacks.
Some on the left hate Sarah Palin because she’s pro-life. And she’s lived it out. While some 90% of Down syndrome babies in the United States are aborted, Governor Palin and her husband Todd chose life for young Trig. Likewise, when faced with teenage pregnancy, their daughter, with the help of her parents, chose life. Unlike the Obama family, no one in the Palin family is being “punished with a baby.”
Tired of the criticisms and the smears being spread about her, Governor Palin has given indication that we’ll be seeing just how ready she is over the next few weeks. She walked back into the lion’s den for another interview with Katie, and in an Ohio rally on Monday took a good natured jab at Joe Biden. “I’ve never met Joe Biden. But I’ve been hearing about his Senate speeches since I was in, like, second grade.” [New York Post]
The rumors about Senator McCain replacing Governor Palin on the ticket are just plain silly. For one thing, at this late date it would be seen as a sign of weakness. John McCain may be many things, but he’s not weak.
John McCain also knows that, up until his selection of Governor Palin as his running mate, his support among Republicans and in particular conservatives, was at best lukewarm. If it existed at all.
Sarah Palin energized the McCain campaign, the Republican Party and the conservative base. I’m betting that this Thursday night, she’ll give us another shot in the arm.
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It’s fine to say Palin did not ‘nail’ HER FIRST EVER encounters with the national media, but the subsequent blanket denunciations of her as unqualified to be president are a cruel non-sequitur that nearly the whole of journalism and the blogosphere seem to be embracing. She has an 80% approval rating as governor, she confronts and defeats corruption, she’s a reformer. It is clearly stupid to brand her stupid. As president she would know better than to take a decision about anything she may not yet quite fully understand and would surround herself with top flight advisors-of course. It’s not about what she knows, it’s about what she is. And it’s about what she has done in government and in her life. We all need to understand and accept that one part of bringing this kind of “breath-of-fresh-air politician into Washington must be a national readiness to embrace the fact that she may not be as glib a know-it-all as those who have spent their lives in Washington. Her candidacy was sprung on her with the same surprise that it was sprung on the rest of us. She’s a quick study: I am confident that she is up to the task and that by Jan 20th she will be able to go toe-to-toe with anyone on any national topic even if she cannot quite do that yet today. Patience!
While she tries to portray herself as “Un-Washington,” her actions as Mayor and Governor seem to contradict that persona. As mayor she hired a lobbying firm to solicit earmarks from Congress, she recklessly cut taxes while increasing spending, leaving her once debt-free town with $22 million in loans, she built a large sports complex on land with disputed ownership and ended up having to pay more for it. As Governor she has used a private email account for some of her work related communication in order to keep them hidden from FIOA requests, she has skirted Alaskan Ethical laws by publicly rejecting a mining referendum, she has distorted and politicized the investigation of her firing of the Public Safety Commissioner, an investigation that was started by REPUBLICANS.
I could go in and on and I’m sure that you will reject all of this as being my “partisan slant,” but I know a skunk when I see one. If Palin ever gets to Washington, she will know how to play the game with the rest of them.
No one has said she’s perfect Kyle, or that she’s not a politician.
What she is not, however, is mired in the Washington subculture. And, she’s proven that she’s not afraid of turning over a few tables or making a few enemies to get things done.
She’s foolish. She’s only there to pander to the GUNZBABIEZJEZUS! troglodyte megachurch members in the tard-belt of the South and Midwest. She’s too stupid to be president, and McCain is too old to risk having some annoying idiot take his place. 8 years of annoying idiot is enough (and thanks for re-electing Bush, you bunch of morons.)
I agree that some on the left have gone way overboard in criticizing governor Palin, making nasty, personal attacks and avoiding the real issue- which is her suitability for the position as Vice President of the United States. In many ways, the extreme left mirrors the extreme right. Both are so motivated by fear that rational arguments come in a distant second to scoring cheap political points.
I question Palin’s ability to act responsibly and competently as vice president- a position that is only a heartbeat away from the presidency. I read a great deal about her tenure as mayor of a small town and governor of a very low population state, and I was not impressed by her policies and was more than alarmed by her tactics.
The McCain team made a huge mistake by sheltering Palin. She is definitely a lot sharper than most of her critics think, but she needs to prove that she has a comprehensive understanding of the pressing issues of the day (like the financial meltdown that threatens to sink the economy)- which, in my opinion, she has NOT displayed. The conservative columnists who criticize her are doing so for the same reasons; they feel that she has not displayed any real understanding of what’s happening to our nation at this critical time.
I’m looking forward to her debate with the unpredictable Biden- she may surprise a lot of people.
Sarah Palin is every bit the politician even if she’s not yet mired in the so-called Washington sub-culture. She seems to have embraced the standard republican campaign tactics (or is that “strategy”?) with gusto and can deliver a powerful scripted speech with confidence. This made her interview with Katie Couric all the more disappointing….OK….maybe disappointing is the wrong term, how about a meandering, rambling, cringe-fest. Tina Fey merely had to repeat whole paragraphs verbatim to get laughs.
I don’t care if she’s not perfect, if her family life is a bit messy, if she can make a casserole and raise a Downs syndrome baby. It would be nice if she were more worldy and had the intelligence to quickly grasp and assimilate knowledge on the important issues. What I’ve seen so far is someone who spits out random factoids if and when she’s allowed before the press, who talks in prepared sound bites, and appears overwhelmed by the whole process she’s found herself in. I hope for her sake that she can return to Alaska, to managing a small population fortunate enough to be sitting atop a lot of oil, and leave the national stage once this sorry adventure is over.
McCain’s bold gamble has been exposed as a short sighted and cynical manoeuver and now he is saddled with the veep equivalent of political dead weight. Conservative pundits may berate her handlers and cry “Let Palin be Palin” but I have a feeling that those in control of the campaign know an empty shell when they see one and are playing for time while trying to work miracles.
I can see them in a dimly lit backroom right now…”sure she can recuse herself from the campaign……a pregnant daughter, an infant child with special needs, the maternal instinct overriding the political, people will love her even more!!”