Posted on 07/06/2009 5:31:45 AM PDT by Kaslin
The response to Sarah Palin's surprise resignation last Friday clearly reveals the limitations of the American political class, right, left, or what have you.
There's an old academic joke, probably apocryphal, about Count Metternich, Austria's foreign minister during the Napoleonic era. While attending the Congress of Vienna, Metternich is sleeping off a banquet when one of his aides bursts in at three in the morning. "Your excellency! Count Nesselrode, the Russian ambassador, just died."
Metternich jerks awake. "Died, you say? What a terrible thing! I was speaking to him only tonight... Uhh... send a message to the Tsar -- Austria regrets, and so forth..."
The aide leaves. Metternich gets up and paces the floor. After a moment he stops and rubs his chin. "So... Why did Nesselrode decide to do that now..."
We're seeing the same thing today. Obsessive figures confronted with a simple human contingency and, unable to comprehend what's right in front of their eyes, retreating instead into irrelevant speculation about whatever they know best. Simply put, in resigning her governorship and stepping away from active politics, Sarah Palin is not pulling any tricks, carrying out any maneuvers, or putting in motion any long-range plans. She is doing exactly what any normal, rational, un-driven human being would do under the same circumstances.
What are those circumstances? Consider her situation at the moment. By which we mean, her situation. Not the country's situation, not the GOP's situation, not the political situation in any sense at all.
Her eldest son is serving in the military, in the war zone, at a particularly dangerous and violent moment, when the U.S. is transferring responsibility to the new and still untried Iraqi army.
Her eldest daughter is dealing with the twin burdens of a failed marriage and single motherhood, while also serving as a national joke for the same type of people who insisted that Chelsea Clinton and the Obama girls are off limits. This is a state of affairs that undoubtedly requires much in the way of TLC from Palin.
Her youngest daughter has recently come under the gun thanks to that epitome of class, David Letterman. All excuses aside, the A-Rod joke was a transparent attempt at seeing if it was now safe to go after Willow, the rest of the Palin family having been run through the mill one after the other. It occurred at an awkward age for a girl, when events such as this can leave a serious mark. Another instance where mom must be available.
And lastly, Palin has a disabled infant child, one who has already been victimized by the left-wing blogosphere and the mass media. Downs children are very high-functioning. It's easily possible for Trig to have a golden life as long as close attention is paid to his upbringing and education. His mother will be the crucial figure here.
So what does a woman do under such circumstances? A real woman, not a pol in a skirt. A wife and a mother, someone with a clear hierarchy of values. Why, she steps out. She removes herself from the firing line. Returns to what matters. She retreats from the public world for the verities of family and community.
There's nothing difficult to understand here. All the comments we've heard from the mass media, from the political experts, and from the operatives, merely reveal the limitations of the commentators.
But what about her greater obligations? To that of conservatism as a movement, for instance? It happens to have been the movement conservatives -- at least those of the Northeast Corridor, who on the basis of tradition consider themselves to be the core of the movement -- who led the charge against Palin on her selection as vice-presidential candidate. Not the left. Not the mass media. But conservatives (I won't add quotes -- not yet, anyway) such as Frum, Parker, and Brooks, who found her to be just the slightest touch déclassé. She did not understand the Modern Dance. Her taste in claret was undependable. Her reading of the Federalist No. 63 was, shall we say, idiosyncratic? These people have no call on her whatsoever.
And the GOP? Doesn't she owe her party anything? Just a few short days after her youngest daughter was humiliated on one of the most widely-watched late-night shows in the country, an obvious hit piece appeared in that balanced journal of the higher intellect, Vanity Fair, in which certain unnamed GOP officials revealed the true Sarah Palin: Sarah as Michael Jackson, Sarah the narcissist, who lived in a dream world and was overwhelmed by "demons". The fact that GOP figures would cooperate with a rag like Vanity Fair in the first place puts a period to any talk of a party connection. The GOP obviously has an agenda. It is not Sarah Palin's agenda. Nor, more than likely, ours either.
And what about Alaska? Palin is one of the outstanding governors of our time, possibly surpassed only by Rick Perry, infinitely superior to Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jennifer Granholm, or Mitt Romney, to mention only a few members of a large crowd. She went a long way toward cleaning up the Anchorage cesspool, wound up the negotiations for a gas pipeline that had been languishing for decades, and put her state on the national radar screen for the first time since 1958. But her usefulness as governor was probably drawing to an end. If she were to show interest in a 2012 run, she could depend on Obama's crew doing everything possible to drag her down -- and going through her state to do it.
Chicago would put Alaska through the grinder, a very easy thing to accomplish from Washington. In fact, it could be argued that this campaign has already begun, with the slow death-by-cuts action against the National Missile Defense center at Fort Greeley. Even as the ballistic missile threat from North Korea and Iran grows more urgent, Obama is dismantling the sole serious defense against it. (Am I implying that O would jeopardize the country's safety to assure his political career? Well, what do you think?) In a real sense, Palin's resignation at this time can be viewed as yet another service to her state.
So Sarah Palin has left the stage, for perfectly justifiable reasons, and taken her family with her. The mob still waits, unfamiliar with normal behavior from a public figure, eager for more cheap laughs. But there will be no encore. Not right away.
She will be back. Not for 2012. The GOP has its plans already worked out. Very clever ones, too. The Republicans will do what they always do when they're up against it: grab an empty suit and run around shaking it in people's faces while shouting, "Here's the man!" By 2012, after his policies really hit home, as gas and home fuel prices triple and quadruple, as medical rationing begins, as the renewed Axis of Evil runs wild across Eurasia, Obama will be ready to drop. At that point he could be defeated by a ticket consisting of Charley Manson and Jojo the Dogface Boy. But the GOP will blow it all the same. Exactly as the party did in '96, following the same script to the letter. They will, to coin a phrase, Mitt it up.
That moment will mark the start of a new phase for Sarah Palin. The exquisite branch of conservatism will drift away, assuring each other that "It's still possible to live well in a dying civilization." The GOP operatives will, as always, be blaming the "legacy of Reagan" and looking for a RINO who can somehow fool the backwoods rubes. Obama will spend his entire second term racing back and forth trying to put out forest fires using buckets with holes in them. Palin's enemies will have destroyed themselves, and her moment will come at last.
Democracies never stop halfway, no matter what it is: good or bad, intelligent or stupid, harmful or beneficial, they have to go the whole route before at last changing course. The U.S. could not abandon Great Society liberalism in 1976, it had to wait until 1980. The UK could not put aside postwar Labour policies until they were ground down to the last (the Brits went so far as to elect Harold Wilson to two nonconsecutive terms -- something similar to re-electing Jimmy Carter in 1984. Talk about desperation moves!)
While that process unfolded, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan served long apprenticeships, learning all they had to know. Sarah Palin is embarking on the same course now.
Sarah Palin is not ready, they insist. It's just as apt to say that we -- the GOP, the conservative establishment, the country -- are not ready for her. An electorate will always fall for the professional pol, slick, convincing, and empty, before turning in desperation to the truly human candidate. But the time will come.
In a few years her children will be settled, she will no longer have hostages to fortune, and the laughter will have long died away. That is when the lady will start shuffling the cards. We will all have further opportunity to wonder what Sarah Palin is up to.
Sarah Palin is the winnowing fork, separating the wheat from the chaff,
those in favor of individual liberty from those in favor of state authoritarianism.
Remember when Darth Vader killed Obie Wan Kenobie in Star Wars? What was it Obie Wan said?
Also he would not have been our candidate if the media had not pushed him on us
I really don't understand why no one seems to get it. She could not effectively run the state with so much controversy. She ended up spending most of the time she should have been governing fighting false accusations and it was costing the state for her to do so, so she is stepping down for the good of the state. She clearly stated that:
Political operatives descended on Alaska last August, digging for dirt. The ethics law I championed became their weapon of choice. Over the past nine months I've been accused of all sorts of frivolous ethics violations - such as holding a fish in a photograph, wearing a jacket with a logo on it, and answering reporters' questions.Why is that reasoning so hard to understand? In this selfish world, there still are a few rare people like Sarah who think about more than just their own political aspirations.Every one - all 15 of the ethics complaints have been dismissed. We've won! But it hasn't been cheap - the State has wasted THOUSANDS of hours of YOUR time and shelled out some two million of YOUR dollars to respond to "opposition research" - that's money NOT going to fund teachers or troopers - or safer roads. And this political absurdity, the "politics of personal destruction" ... Todd and I are looking at more than half a million dollars in legal bills in order to set the record straight. And what about the people who offer up these silly accusations? It doesn't cost them a dime so they're not going to stop draining public resources - spending other peoples' money in their game.
It's pretty insane - my staff and I spend most of our day dealing with THIS instead of progressing our state now. I know I promised no more "politics as usual," but THIS isn't what anyone had in mind for ALASKA.
Normally much higher quality thought than this exudes from the American Thinker.
Sarah is running in 2012. Buy a clue. The author is an idiot. Dunn = Dunce.
Agree.
Like now, they will never know what hit them as she continues to blind-side the ‘RATS and the RINOS both.
Palin knows exactly who and what she’s dealing with, so she’s doing an end-run around them and heading them off at the pass. She’s doing the exact opposite of playing “defense” and “running away from the heat in the kitchen” as they think she is. She’s running TOWARD it.
They’ll never figure her out. I pity them :)
Coulter, Rush and Levin have the right take.
The democrat party is a criminal enterprise. Doubt me..look at what they are doing and have done, as individuals and a congress. Look at the list of activities. From passing unwritten legislation to personal financial gains at the public expense.
I suggest that we no longer be quiet or polite with Rat friends..tell them what we are thinking. “you supported and voted for a crimnal enterprise”.
You are guessing that will run in 2012. She might just wait until 2012 to get better prepared. To call the author an idiot, just because you don’t agree with him is outragous. He is entitled to his opinion, as you are to yours and I am to mine
Close the primaries, along with paper ballots; ALL of which need to be tied to a living, eligible voter. ALL others disqualified.
“The democrat party is a criminal enterprise.”
We have a WINNER!
And the Republican party is currently the WIMP party, controlled by big government Republicans. While we worry about the gangsters from Obama and Polosi on down, we had better fix our own lost mess. FAST!
Quit dreaming, people. Sarah quit on us. Look for your counter-messiah elsewhere.
She isn’t blind-siding Rush, nor Levin, nor Coulter.
“While the money may come from the coast elitists, the votes come from the people”
I’d like to refer you to exhibit A: John McCain.
I bet 80% of the GOP was opposed to his getting the nomination....but he did.
Palin may have a presidential future...but she is going to have to spend some time building relationships with fundraisers. I don’t think she wants to waste all of her fuel on a 2012 run, without alot of preparation. Remember, even Hillary ran out of money in the primaries, and it hurt her.
The real reason the Messiah beat out Mac...he decided not to use public financing, and outspent McCain.
Sadly, alot of this is about money. The ‘moderates’ out there are swayed by tv ads and robocalls.
Palin is going to need a big warchest, just to outspend Romney.
She doesn't need the RINO cash. In fact, she doesn't need much cash at all to run, because the media will give her LOTS of coverage. Granted, the MSM will attempt to skew coverage, but Palin's got a Reaganlike ability to speak over their heads, directly to the American people and to CONNECT. Though she won't need much cash, she'll get plenty because lots of conservatives will send something, including many who've never donated to a candidate before.
Presently, I have no idea who the GOP might field against the Messiah....but I don’t think it will be Palin.
You're speaking as though the GOP establishment makes the decision. Often they do, but not always. Reagan would never have won the party's nomination if it were up to the GOP establishment. Voters picked Reagan and voters will pick Palin if she decides to run.
Here's the big concern... Palin strikes me as a rather normal person. What normal person would seek the white house? Almost by default, anyone willing to seek the office is unfit to serve.
She's gotta know what's coming if she runs. For her to go through that, she needs to feel a sense of mission and national need that's so great she'll endure the liberal and establishment Republican hate machines.
I think she'll keep her head down through the end of the year, and then start traveling, speaking, and helping conservative candidates for 2010. Based on the response she receives and her effectiveness, she'll make the call with her family about whether to seek the white house in 2012.
Of course, what do I know?
Bristol didn’t have a “failed marriage”...
Willow isn’t Sarah’s “youngest daughter”...
Ummmm....no. The scum are still afraid to take nasty shots at Piper, Sarah's youngest daughter...
Your facts are in error. Hillary continued as Senator while running for president, after dropping out, after endorsing Obama, and after he was elected. She didn't resign from the senate until late January 2009.
“So Sarah Palin has left the stage, for perfectly justifiable reasons, and taken her family with her. “
Right. And those of you who expected her to affect some kind of magical influence over McCain would now expected the same thing of her, due to the circumstances listed, if she were, at this moment, his Vice President?
I remember Rush reading that letter on his show.
Let me clarify.
I’m harkening back to when she promised the people of NY that being their Senator was the be-all and-end-all of her life. There is no way she devoted herself to that job when at the same time she ran for President.
No, there’s not an exact comparison in terms of official acts of quitting but the results are my point.
Ask the upstaters about all those jobs she brought them that she promised. Snort. She then did quit the Senate for SecofState for the man she said couldn’t properly answer the 3 am phone call as President, where she has been buried.
They hurriedly named her replacement - that so-called Blue Dog Dem Congresswoman who was barely a House Member - now she’s Senator and turned into a Lib.
Repeat: compared to Hillary, Sarah is a rock of consistency.
To hold up Hillary as a shining example of a female Dem pol who isn’t a quitter as opposed to Sarah as a female Repub pol who is a quitter - as Gretchen did on F&F is silly.
Hillary doesn’t quit on her ambition, but she changes plans and methods constantly.
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