Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: Desertdog on November 07, 2008, 12:19:54 PM
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It should be criminal to do what they are trying to do to Gov. Palin.
The Cowardly Character Assassination Of Sarah Palin
By Michelle Malkin
November 7, 2008
http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/mmalkin/2008/mm_11071.shtml
Sunken ships loosen bitter lips. The failed McCain campaign, for all its high-minded talk of honor, duty and courage, is now teeming with unscrupulous gossipmongers. Seems the dishy staffers forgot to crack open their copies of Sen. McCain's bestseller, "Character Is Destiny: Inspiring Stories Every Young Person Should Know and Every Adult Should Remember."
Rest assured: Their cowardly character assassination of Sarah Palin won't be forgotten.
The finks turned to Newsweek and Fox News to spread petty rumors about Palin's intellect and character. The magazine peddled anecdotes from sources horrified that Palin greeted top advisers at her hotel room -- gasp! -- "wearing nothing but a towel" and "wet hair." Fox News reporter Carl Cameron breathlessly reported that his unnamed McCain sources told him Palin lacked "a degree of knowledgeability necessary to be a running mate" because, they claimed, she didn't know which countries were parties to the North American Free Trade Agreement and "didn't understand that Africa was a continent, rather than a series, a country just in itself."
Let's assume for a moment that the McCain rumormongers are telling the truth about Palin (and I don't believe they are). Who would it damn more: Palin, or McCain and his vetters, who greenlighted her for the vice presidential nomination? Don't need a fancy Ivy League degree to figure that one out.
In introducing her to America, McCain praised her independence and backbone: She "stands up for what's right, and she doesn't let anyone tell her to sit down." The inside snipers are now roasting her for that very attribute -- redefined as "going rogue" -- because she had the nerve to try to schedule media interviews on her own. The nerve of her!
Palin's response to the campaign fragging? At a late Wednesday night airport press conference in Anchorage, immediately upon landing home after the election defeat, she smiled cheerfully. The Alaska governor shrugged off the "foolish things" said by the McCain saboteurs, and simply said, "It's politics. ... It's rough and tumble and you've got to have a thick skin just like I've got."
Hollywood savaged Palin. Journalists mocked her. Liberal blogs slimed her. Opponents cursed her, Photoshopped her, hacked her e-mail, hanged her in effigy, called her bigot, Bible-thumper and bimbo, and attacked her husband and children. But nothing Palin endured during the election season compares to the treatment she's receiving from these backstabbing blabbermouths who worked on the same campaign she poured herself into over the last three months.
Sarah Palin worked her heart out. She energized tens of thousands to come out when they would have otherwise stayed home. She touched countless families. I didn't agree with everything she said on the campaign trail. But she vigorously defended the Second Amendment and the sanctity of life more eloquently in practice than any of the educated conservative aristocracy. And she did it all with a tirelessness and an infectious optimism that defied the shameless, bottomless attempts by elites in both parties to bring her and her family down.
Liberty needs a virtuous people to survive; self-governance requires virtuous leaders. "Knowledgeability" is a necessary trait in political life, but it is not sufficient. The elitist critics of Palin, so blindly enamored of Barack Obama's ability to hold forth for hours on theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, ignored the Founding Fathers' counsel: Character counts. In times of adversity and crisis, it counts more than IQ points, instant trivia recall and bloviation skills.
"The most important thing I have learned, from my parents, from teachers, from my faith, from many good people I have been blessed to know, and from the lives of people whose stories we have included in this book," John McCain wrote in "Character Is Destiny," "is to want what they had, integrity, and to feel the sting of my conscience when I have risked it for some selfish reason."
John McCain not only failed to make that message stick with the electorate, he apparently couldn't persuade his own staff to heed his advice and practice what he preached.
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Michelle Malkin is author of "Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild." Her e-mail address is malkinblog@gmail.com.
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thank you for posting that!
I asked my new roomie (hates Palin) where Palin was from, "Alaska" was the prompt reply.
"Biden"? I asked, no idea! Palin is light years ahead of Biden.
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she didn't know which countries were parties to the North American Free Trade Agreement and "didn't understand that Africa was a continent"
If this is true.... :O They must be making that up.
I would love to see her on "Are you smarter than a 5th grader" though. =D
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she didn't know which countries were parties to the North American Free Trade Agreement and "didn't understand that Africa was a continent"
But unlike our world-wise president-elect/messiah, she probably knows that socialism doesn't work. :laugh:
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And we wonder why they lost.
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She should get used to it. Politicians who stand by their moral principles are few and far between and almost always get hit by the character assassination machines of those with no moral character at all.
Remember the saying from the Clinton era that character does not matter anymore.
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If this is true.... :O They must be making that up.
I would love to see her on "Are you smarter than a 5th grader" though. =D
I refuse to believe that any politician gets to where she has got, and spent the amount of time in politics that she has, without knowing either of those things she is alleged to not have known. It would have come out sooner. It is not as if she lacks enemies in Alaska.
The rest of the allegations were inane - apart from the bathrobe just-after-the-shower thing, for obvious reasons.
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It will backfire.
It amounts, as a analog of what was done to Clarence Thomas, an "electronic rape."
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Obama didn't know which states were between Kentucky and Indiana (something like that) or what the 57th state was. That didn't seem to hurt him much.
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Politicians goof and say stupid things all the time. Didn't Barakc claim to have visited all 57 states?
Little slips like these don't mean anything. It's a natural consequence of lack of sleep, stress, and being on camera nonstop for months at a time.
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Palin wants to play in the big leagues so she has to expect hard and cheap hits. Part of playing the game. I do think she was set up for failure by staffers who did not like the idea of a religious, pro-life, gun-totin', hayseed on the ticket. Problem is she will be back and she will run things her way and her handlers this go'round will be out of a job. I don't see her putting much confidence in those who are trying to slip a knife between her ribs.
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Little slips like these don't mean anything. It's a natural consequence of lack of sleep, stress, and being on camera nonstop for months at a time.
There's a difference between putting your foot in your mouth and not being able to answer basic questions like "what publications do you read?" in a sensible manner. Everyone slips and says dumb stuff they didn't mean (especially Joe Biden it seems) but that's different than lacking the knowledge in the first place.
Now saying that she thought Africa is a country is going a bit far, and so I have a hard time believing that. However, her knowledge regarding matters outside Alaska seemed lacking and calling everyone who points that out "elitist" is a pretty weak defense. The media was hard on her, but she gave them ample ammo with interview responses that ranged from off topic to incoherent.
Maybe she will be better prepared in four years, but I have my doubts.
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There's a difference between putting your foot in your mouth and not being able to answer basic questions like "what publications do you read?" in a sensible manner. Everyone slips and says dumb stuff they didn't mean (especially Joe Biden it seems) but that's different than lacking the knowledge in the first place.
Now saying that she thought Africa is a country is going a bit far, and so I have a hard time believing that. However, her knowledge regarding matters outside Alaska seemed lacking and calling everyone who points that out "elitist" is a pretty weak defense. The media was hard on her, but she gave them ample ammo with interview responses that ranged from off topic to incoherent.
Maybe she will be better prepared in four years, but I have my doubts.
Snotty questions from reporters trying to make her look like hick don't count. Enough camera time in front of hostile interviewers will make anyone look bad. This is especially true when consider the way the media selectively harped on her bad responses and ignored all her good ones.
Palin was dead right on all of the important issues. She knew the constitutional roll of the vice president, something the future vice president doesn't know. She knew the correct size and scope of Federal government. She knew the biggest issue of fiscal policy is to limit spending. She had a sense of right and wrong. She understood that the United States is a force for good in the world, and worth defending vigorously. She knew that massive tax hikes would be devastating right now. All down the line, on the important issues she was dead nuts right.
Any of those issues taken singly are more than enough to make her more qualified and more knowledgeable than Obama or Biden. Combine them all and you see that she would have been one of the best national politicians we've seen in decades. A couple of brain farts on Africa and NAFTA don't change the fact that she would have made a superb vice president.
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McCain and his crew are ticked and looking to place blame anywhere and everywhere but where it should lie, with them.
Palin was the only boost McCain got in the campaign right up until Obama started revealing his true nature. He should be thanking both of them for not making Nov. 4 even bloodier for him personally and professionally.
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The finks turned to Newsweek and Fox News to spread petty rumors about Palin's intellect and character. The magazine peddled anecdotes from sources horrified that Palin greeted top advisers at her hotel room -- gasp! -- "wearing nothing but a towel" and "wet hair."
Why didn't the MSM report this earlier?......this could have won McCain the election AND encouraged support from foreign ambassadors..... =D
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I wish she had turned the tables a little more, for instance, when Gibson asked her about banning semi - autos I am willing to bet he doesn't know what they are.
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Many people who work on campaigns do it for a living, especially in the senior ranks. If the blame can't be put on Palin, where will it go, and how will that affect some staffers' future employability?
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Oddly, the very liberal classmates and prof I had lunch with today were pretty kind to Palin, and mentioned that they both expect to see her as a major player in national politics in the future.
Of course, one of 'em is a rare pro-2a ACLU-er, so maybe an exception rather than a rule.
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Oddly, the very liberal classmates and prof I had lunch with today were pretty kind to Palin, and mentioned that they both expect to see her as a major player in national politics in the future.
Of course, one of 'em is a rare pro-2a ACLU-er, so maybe an exception rather than a rule.
Also odd: Alexander Cockburn (of counterpunch.org infamy) wrote a piece during the campaign that praised her connection to the working class and administrative talents over everyone else in the race. I got the feeling he genuinely supported her as a candidate, even though he's more of a Ralph Nader leftist.
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Palin delenda est.
The RINOs know that Palin has touched that "We the People" nerve. They have to destroy her.
My view of her is that she is not fully-formed but will become a quick study. In four years she will be formidable.
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Palin delenda est.
The RINOs know that Palin has touched that "We the People" nerve. They have to destroy her.
My view of her is that she is not fully-formed but will become a quick study. In four years she will be formidable.
Bingo.
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McCain and his crew are ticked and looking to place blame anywhere and everywhere but where it should lie, with them.
Gotta disagree, Buzz.
The blame lies squarely on Jorge. McCain had zero chance, mostly because Jorge sold out just about every traditional Republican attribute and left the party with no compass. McCain's biggest problem wasn't himself OR Sarah Palin, it was that too many voters (including many Republicans) were pissed off at Jorge Bush and weren't in any way reassured that McCain wasn't going to follow up wit more years of abandoning what the Republican party was supposed to stand for.
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You know, I'm really beginning to wonder about this country...
Sarah Palin blamed by the US Secret Service over death threats against Barack Obama
Sarah Palin's attacks on Barack Obama's patriotism provoked a spike in death threats against the future president, Secret Service agents revealed during the final weeks of the campaign.
By Tim Shipman in Washington [The Telegraph, UK]
Last Updated: 4:04PM GMT 08 Nov 2008
Palin's tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists Photo: Reuters
The Republican vice presidential candidate attracted criticism for accusing Mr Obama of "palling around with terrorists", citing his association with the sixties radical William Ayers.
The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling "terrorist" and "kill him" until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric.
But it has now emerged that her demagogic tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists to go even further.
The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin's attacks.
Michelle Obama, the future First Lady, was so upset that she turned to her friend and campaign adviser Valerie Jarrett and said: "Why would they try to make people hate us?"
The revelations, contained in a Newsweek history of the campaign, are likely to further damage Mrs Palin's credentials as a future presidential candidate. She is already a frontrunner, with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, to take on Mr Obama in four years time.
Details of the spike in threats to Mr Obama come as a report last week by security and intelligence analysts Stratfor, warned that he is a high risk target for racist gunmen. It concluded: "Two plots to assassinate Obama were broken up during the campaign season, and several more remain under investigation. We would expect federal authorities to uncover many more plots to attack the president that have been hatched by white supremacist ideologues."
Irate John McCain aides, who blame Mrs Palin for losing the election, claim Mrs Palin took it upon herself to question Mr Obama's patriotism, before the line of attack had been cleared by Mr McCain.
That claim is part of a campaign of targeted leaks designed to torpedo her ambitions, with claims that she did not know that Africawas a continent rather than a country.
The advisers have branded her a "diva" and a "whack job" and claimed that she did not know which other countries are in the North American Free Trade Area, (Canada and Mexico). They say she spent more than $150,000 on designer clothes, including $40,000 on her husband Todd and that she refused to prepare for the disastrous series of interviews with CBS's Katie Couric.
In a bid to salvage her reputation Mrs Palin came out firing in an interview with CNN, dismissing the anonymous leakers in unpresidential language as "jerks" who had taken "questions or comments I made in debate prep out of context."
She said: "I consider it cowardly. It's not true. That's cruel, it's mean-spirited, it's immature, it's unprofessional and those guys are jerks if they came away taking things out of context and then tried to spread something on national news that's not fair and not right."
She was not asked about her incendiary rhetoric against Mr Obama. But she did deny the spending spree claims, saying the clothes in question had been returned to the Republican National Committee. "Those are the RNC's clothes, they're not my clothes. I asked for anything more than maybe a diet Dr Pepper once in a while. These are false allegations."
Speaking as she returned to her native Alaska, Mrs Palin claimed to be baffled by what she claims was sexism on the national stage. "Here in Alaska that double standard isn't applied because these guys know that Alaskan women are pretty tough, on a par with the men in terms of being outdoors, working hard," she said.
"They're commercial fishermen, they're pilots, they're working up on the North slopein the oil fields. You see equality in Alaska. I think that was a bit of as surprise on the national level."
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It's the politics of personal destruction, made mainstream by the Master, Der Schliekmeister.
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The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling "terrorist" and "kill him" until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric.
Funny how no-one but one reporter heard anything like that. Not even the Secret Service heard it.
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Since when do we have government functionaries in effect telling prospective Presidential candidates not to run if they are too "controversial?"
This is a very ominous development.
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I spoke to one of her friends briefly.
She is upbeat becuase quite frankly, she is a truly nice person (not politician hypocrite nice, but real "hey that dude/chick is a really cool person nice) who loves life, Alaska and the good ol' USA.
On the other hand she is a bit shall we say, disappointed in the behavior of certain folks. Those of us up here who like and appreciate sarah as the one person who can lead the repubs out of this mess are waiting with anticipation for heads to roll now and in the future.
One politico up here wrote "the Alaskan landscape is littered with the bodies of those who crossed her".
She has a 65% approval rating. She hasn't hesitated to press the flesh before and go right to the people, which isnt hard in a state of 200,000 folks where you don't even need the libtards in Los Anchorage to win...Shes governor for another term and she will run for pres in 2012
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"The blame lies squarely on Jorge. McCain had zero chance, mostly because Jorge sold out just about every traditional Republican attribute and left the party with no compass. McCain's biggest problem wasn't himself OR Sarah Palin, it was that too many voters (including many Republicans) were pissed off at Jorge Bush and weren't in any way reassured that McCain wasn't going to follow up wit more years of abandoning what the Republican party was supposed to stand for."
+1
It really didn't matter who the Dems ran this time around. George Bush is so unpopular (for whatever reason deserved or undeserved) that a blindfolded chimp with a pencil in his teeth stood a better chance at winning the Oval Office than anyone the Republicans ran. Was John McCain the best choice for office? By no means. But he was the best the GOP had - which is a sorry statement in and of itself. Personally, I voted for Alan Keyes (as a write-in, I live in Texas and knew McCain would win it easily regardless of who I voted for) so that I could truthfully say I voted for a black man but not a socialist.
I thought Sarah Palin was a brilliant choice. The fact the press went so insane when she was chosen proves how scared they were of her and the impact she would make. Even the National Organization of Women endorsed Obama instead of the candidate who had a WOMAN as his back-up. That is very telling.
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I saw a poll today, I think it was on Fox News Network, on who should run for President on 2012 for the Republicans, and 65% was for Palin.
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Sarah Palin exemplifies the essence of what is happening in American politics: the ever-growing separation of "We the People" from established government and authority. Consciously or unconsciously she touches those who feel alienated from an increasingly insulated and arrogant political power structure. If there is a cult of Obama, there is going to be a counter-cult of Palin. Nothing "they" can do will stop this.
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Sarah Palin exemplifies the essence of what is happening in American politics: the ever-growing separation of "We the People" from established government and authority. Consciously or unconsciously she touches those who feel alienated from an increasingly insulated and arrogant political power structure. If there is a cult of Obama, there is going to be a counter-cult of Palin. Nothing "they" can do will stop this.
Good point.
The biggest problem I see right now is all the gullible fools I hear from that believe all the media character assassination efforts. I would have thought people would be smarter about that. Also, some people seem to act like politicians should all be 100% perfect. If not, they go real negative on them.
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It doesn't take much to make an uneducated hick look like an uneducated hick.
The media sharks sniffed blood in the water, and did what sharks do best when they smell blood in the water.
While I agree somewhat with MechAg94, I think we're going about it the wrong way. I know I sure as hell don't want Joe The Plumber, or most Idiot Americans in positions of government power. I WANT smart "Elitists" in power.
The problem is with the elitists that feel that they are better than others; and act that way.
65% of Americans say they believe in ghosts. I don't want the unwashed masses in government. Sorry.
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It doesn't take much to make an uneducated hick look like an uneducated hick.
The media sharks sniffed blood in the water, and did what sharks do best when they smell blood in the water.
While I agree somewhat with MechAg94, I think we're going about it the wrong way. I know I sure as hell don't want Joe The Plumber, or most Idiot Americans in positions of government power. I WANT smart "Elitists" in power.
The problem is with the elitists that feel that they are better than others; and act that way.
65% of Americans say they believe in ghosts. I don't want the unwashed masses in government. Sorry.
Isnt Sarah Palin the (reasonably successful) governor of a state? Doesnt she have at least a decade of experience in various offices before that? You make it sound as if she just rolled into the bus station with a piece of straw in her mouth and without shoes.
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I'm not here to idealize Sarah Palin--or anyone.
For the most part I subscribe to the "best government is the least government" model and "leave us the **** alone" philosophy.
Priority one for me is to ask which prospective holder of power is the least dangerous to our personal liberties. Right now, warts and all, Palin scares me less on that score than most of the alternatives.
Palin, as I have said in prior posts, is to me "not fully-formed," but I have no doubt that she is educable. At least she retains some humility, something most of the rest of them conspicously lack.
We will see, in due course, just how smart and sophisticated Barack Obama really is. So far color me skeptical.
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I don't want the unwashed masses in government.
We seemed to do damned good while the unwashed masses really were in charge. They were farmers and tradesmen who came to Washington to SERVE THE PEOPLE and went home after one or two terms and resumed their trade.
They did not spend 20 to 50 years serving their own egos and becoming multi millionairs while serving.
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65‰ of Republicans polled said they were supporting Palin for 2012.
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If Obama wants reform, let him start by promoting strict term limits. Then I'll believe him. Not before.
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WildAlaska,
I'll trade my Canadian, Berkley educated, democrat socialist governor for Sarah. And I'll throw in a trout fishing trip on the Muskegon river.
grampsterfromthesocialistrepublicofwhatusedtobeMichigan
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65‰ of Republicans polled said they were supporting Palin for 2012.
If the GOP was smart, they'd make her and Jindal the face of the GOP and have them as the "voice of the opposition" to Obama's liberal policies for the next four years.....
...but then, has the GOP been smart lately? :rolleyes:
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...but then, has the GOP been smart lately?
McCain showed some smarts when he picked Palin but the dumb took over again.
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A lot will be different in four years. There is no telling who will be the repub. frontrunner. Remember, the election we just had was "supposed" to be be between Hillary and Guiliani.
I do hope it is Palin, though.
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I saw this response to the attacks on Palin a few days ago: Operation Leper (http://www.redstate.com/diaries/erick/2008/nov/05/operation-leper/).
I hope the guilty parties never work on the Republican side again. Classless, backstabbing, elitist trash should be working for the Democrats or MSNBC.
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It doesn't take much to make an uneducated hick look like an uneducated hick.
The media sharks sniffed blood in the water, and did what sharks do best when they smell blood in the water.
While I agree somewhat with MechAg94, I think we're going about it the wrong way. I know I sure as hell don't want Joe The Plumber, or most Idiot Americans in positions of government power. I WANT smart "Elitists" in power.
The problem is with the elitists that feel that they are better than others; and act that way.
65% of Americans say they believe in ghosts. I don't want the unwashed masses in government. Sorry.
I couldn't disagree more.
The "educated elite" by definition do not have your best interests at heart or even necessarily the county's. If you think they do, then it is likely that you are the "ignorant hick". I'll bet they would see you that way for certain. They see us as people who can't take a crap without them telling us how to do it properly. They see government's role as caring for us for our own good, NOT getting out of the way and allowing us to make decisions for ourselves. I don't want someone like that in my government if I can help it, which often I can't.
I don't need a politician who looks good at press conferences or on TV, that is all fluff and largely meaningless. I want one who will genuinely takes things in consideration and makes good decisions, and who understands when a government solution is neither needed nor required and might actually be worse. I think Palin might be someone who comes close to that, but I sure hope there are others out there as well.
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Good instapundit post on McCain's (non) reaction to his staffers' scapegoating his VP for their (and his) screwups.
Mash the link for links to original articles.
http://www.pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/archives2/027080.php
November 12, 2008
MELISSA CLOUTHIER: Shame on John McCain for Not Defending Sarah Palin. "What rock is Senator McCain hiding under and why can’t he show himself for a moment to defend his running mate? . . . Once again, John McCain’s actions betray the character traits conservatives abhorred about the man during his years in the Senate: He would spit in a friend’s eye to win the favor of an enemy." On the upside, he's making a lot of Republicans feel better about losing to Obama. It's all part of the healing!
UPDATE: Reader Edward Tabakin writes:
I have a simpler explanation for why McCain isn't defending Palin against the smears. He hates her. She drew bigger crowds, more enthusiastic crowds, more loving crowds that he could ever get. Remember, the initial plan was to send her out to small towns and rural America, to rally the bitter clingers of Bibles and guns to McCain's side. But there came a moment -- maybe in the Friday rally where he announced her as his pick, maybe during the convention -- where both McCain and Palin realized that she could go to Klamath Falls National Forest and draw a bigger crowd than he could in Red State, Texas, and that forced McCain to do joint rallies with Palin. She could whip the crowds up for him, get a big, big roar, bigger than he could get on his own. The problem was, for her, the cheers were from the heart; for him, from a sense of duty. It's the political version of the eternal triangle.
My feeling is that anyone caught in that situation might have that sort of reaction. That it's happening to Senator McCain makes it all the sweeter.
Ouch. But I think there's something to this. I mentioned early on that the campaign faced problems with the #2 overshadowing the #1. Of course, this response only makes McCain look smaller.
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My favorite lesbian commentator on Palin and her detractors.
There is more at the link.
...reporters have been too busy playing mini-badminton with every random spitball about Sarah Palin, who has been subjected to an atrocious and at times delusional level of defamation merely because she has the temerity to hold pro-life views.
How dare Palin not embrace abortion as the ultimate civilized ideal of modern culture? How tacky that she speaks in a vivacious regional accent indistinguishable from that of Western Canada! How risible that she graduated from the University of Idaho and not one of those plush, pampered commodes of received opinion whose graduates, in their rush to believe the worst about her, have demonstrated that, when it comes to sifting evidence, they don't know their asses from their elbows.
Liberal Democrats are going to wake up from their sadomasochistic, anti-Palin orgy with a very big hangover. The evil genie released during this sorry episode will not so easily go back into its bottle. A shocking level of irrational emotionalism and at times infantile rage was exposed at the heart of current Democratic ideology -- contradicting Democratic core principles of compassion, tolerance and independent thought. One would have to look back to the Eisenhower 1950s for parallels to this grotesque lock-step parade of bourgeois provincialism, shallow groupthink and blind prejudice.
I like Sarah Palin, and I've heartily enjoyed her arrival on the national stage. As a career classroom teacher, I can see how smart she is -- and quite frankly, I think the people who don't see it are the stupid ones, wrapped in the fuzzy mummy-gauze of their own worn-out partisan dogma. So she doesn't speak the King's English -- big whoop! There is a powerful clarity of consciousness in her eyes. She uses language with the jumps, breaks and rippling momentum of a be-bop saxophonist. I stand on what I said (as a staunch pro-choice advocate) in my last two columns -- that Palin as a pro-life wife, mother and ambitious professional represents the next big shift in feminism. Pro-life women will save feminism by expanding it, particularly into the more traditional Third World.
As for the Democrats who sneered and howled that Palin was unprepared to be a vice-presidential nominee -- what navel-gazing hypocrisy! What protests were raised in the party or mainstream media when John Edwards, with vastly less political experience than Palin, got John Kerry's nod for veep four years ago? And Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, for whom I lobbied to be Obama's pick and who was on everyone's short list for months, has a record indistinguishable from Palin's. Whatever knowledge deficit Palin has about the federal bureaucracy or international affairs (outside the normal purview of governors) will hopefully be remedied during the next eight years of the Obama presidencies.
The U.S. Senate as a career option? What a claustrophobic, nitpicking comedown for an energetic Alaskan -- nothing but droning committees and incestuous back-scratching. No, Sarah Palin should stick to her governorship and just hit the rubber-chicken circuit, as Richard Nixon did in his long haul back from political limbo following his California gubernatorial defeat in 1962. Step by step, the mainstream media will come around, wipe its own mud out of its eyes, and see Palin for the populist phenomenon that she is.
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Well said. I like lesbians, actually. Generally get to the point and aren't afraid of expressing it. Truth is so much fun to watch and read when expressed by someone with knowledge and wit.