printI’m glad I waited a few hours pursuant to the announcements on cable that Sarah Palin had resigned, before posting this. For that is how long it has taken to get the truth from the horse’s mouth. To listen to David Shyster of MSNBC, with his version of news, you’d think Palin was leaving politics. This was the crawl caption plastered below Shuster’s facetious face:
Palin Leaving politics for good.
A bit of wishful thinking.
The same odious character was quick to conduct the ubiquitous interviews with Palin’s Alaskan GOP rivals. You see, beamed Shyster, a lot of sensible Republicans believe Palin lacks gravitas (something Barney Frank oozes).
Why my prudent wait? For the first few hours following the announcement, the cable culprits failed to screen Palin’s brief press conference announcing her resignation. When they finally did, the short resignation speech was truncated, and only the incoherent parts excerpted, as Anderson Cooper pulled ugly faces, and his colleague Candy Crowley feigned horror.
Why?
Our faux journalists and their producers are quite capable of screening and re-screening clips they like at a rate that would drive the placid Dalai Lama to a homicidal rage.
Granted, Palin, as I have said before, doesn’t know when to stop rambling. That much is true. But her announcement was, for the better part, perfectly coherent and even inspired in places (hell, anyone who favorably mentions the Tenth Amendment and States’ Rights inspires me, if only fleetingly).
Here it is. Decide for yourselves.
Update (July 4): To those on whom distinctions, made in plain English, are lost, this post, of course, is a critique of the coverage of the Palin resignation, not an endorsement of the woman’s political plank, an impossibility for this classical liberal.
For more on Palin—her empty homilies to our dead-as-a-doornail Constitution, her profoundly feminist, mod approach to her daughter’s foray into siring a (poor) bastard baby, her promises to erect unconstitutional government departments to serve the retarded, her whooping it up for equally unconstitutional, immoral wars, her selling her soul by soaking up McMussolini’s creed; on-and-on—all in the Sarah Palin archive, on your right.
Did she display promise? Of course. You’d have to be an idiot, or an envy-riddled female, or both, not to recognize her Reaganesque charisma (although he served as governor for 9 years, no quitting). But she has shown no learning curve.
Take this bit from her resignation speech:
“…this most recent trip to Kosovo and Landstuhl, to visit our wounded soldiers overseas, those who sacrifice themselves in war for our freedom and security… we can ALL learn from our selfless Troops… they’re bold, they don’t give up, they take a stand and know that life is short so they choose to not waste time. They choose to be productive and to serve something greater than self… and to build up their families, their states, our country. These Troops and their important missions – those are truly the worthy causes in this world and should be the public priority with time and resources and not this local / superficial wasteful political bloodsport.”
[SNIP]
I mean, what on earth are we still doing in Kosovo, and how does that relate to “freedom” here at home, the proper purview of a constitutional government?! This Bush-era neocon nonsense I do not miss. As for the “military” being so much better than the rest of us, to quote, “I confess to growing as sick-and-tired of the odes to the military in militarized America, as I have of the constant fretting over the toll stratospheric state debt will take on ‘our children.’ (What about all us stiffed working stiffs?) About the country’s under-educated, over-indulged, hyper-sexed, super-confident kids I don’t care. (I’m confident the homeschooled among them will survive on this road to serfdom.) The military is certainly no more deserving than the rest of us…”
Her list of past accomplishments is impressive. I don’t blame her for speaking about the character assassins and how much they cost either. Someone needs to call a spade a spade. I hope she keeps her promise and does not go quietly into the night. We need her moxie.
Sarah said to trust her with the decision she made and I will, but I believe we have not heard last from her.
Ilana, I hope Mrs. Palin spends the next couple years boning up, i.e., studying the archives of your writing. A dynamic and sincere politician armed with the ideas of classical liberalism is exactly what this nation needs.
I’ll email a link to your website and hope for the best.
[Don’t raise your hopes, my friend. I suspect that Palin thinks no one can teach her much of anything, judging from the little learning she’s done since her meteoric appearance on the political stage. Her only redemption will be reaching out to Ron Paul.]
I have always found David Shuster to be a despicable creep (especially after he denounced Dr. Ron Paul as a “crackpot“), though the same can probably be said for most of the liberal-left hacks that work at MSNBC. The only one worth listening to on MSNBC is the great Pat Buchanan.
I have never really understood the media’s obsession with trashing Sarah Palin. I personally find Palin quite uninteresting and cannot see what all the commotion is about. If I had to guess, I would think that the liberal-left, for all its talk about feminism, hates the idea of a pro-life woman with family values in politics.
Sarah Palin will get my vote. I truly hope that she runs for president. She is the only politician who continually renounces “Big Government”. I love that. She truly understands the Constitution. What other politicians do you hear doing this? Plus, she hunts moose.The rest of all the political figures, especially the liberal ones, are deadly afraid of her. The reason is: Sarah is a real, genuine person. There is no facade with her and this is what scares these other people. This is totally opposite of most politicians. You bet. My gut feeling tells me she WILL run in 2012. We will need her after 4 years of what this communist will have ruined. Martin Berrow
[I could not disagree more, M.; the woman hasn’t a “feel” for the Constitution. Not based on her positions during the McCain collaboration. I agree with Alex here, as I have stated more than once. The evidence does not support the Palin adulation coming from freedom lovers.]
I’m not sure why the Palin gushing continues in the Comments Section of this blog. For reasons previously listed, I am not a fan of Palin – she is a hypocrite if she espouses traditional Christian ways of thinking and then runs for the Presidency. I don’t care for Christianity per se (although it is responsible for some of the greatest achievements in civilization), but I don’t like conflicting ideology. It makes someone less than sane, less than reasonable. Most truth is surprisingly simple. This is such a case.
There is a better candidate for freedom Mr. Glisson and Mr. Bleckert; Ron Paul. The reason he isn’t charismatic enough for the average dolt has less to do with his character and more to do with his unwavering message of freedom, something that Pasty Palin does not have.
I also dislike the gushing over Palin (and to a certain extent, Ron Paul) because too many people are putting their trust in a political system that, by it’s nature, favors it’s own growth. More effort should be placed in pushing a good solid education into ethics and economics of personal freedom than cheering for a candidate who is going to run in a corrupt, stinky system.
Come on. Stop gushing over Palin. She isn’t that great, and this is getting kinda silly now.
~Alex
[Very good post Alex; but there are posting rules; no posting anon. Please supply email in your next, most-welcome post.]
Remember why McCain picked Palin in the first place—to energize the socially conservative Republican base that was in danger of abandoning him. She did that; she delivered the votes from this group (and it’s hypocritical of anyone from the McCain campaign to diss her; the buck should stop with the top guy as he was the one who made the selection.) But, there’s a difference between social conservatives and constitutional conservatives; and it’s not clear to me that Palin falls into the latter category, unlike Ron Paul.
Yes, it seems to me that she has made the best decision for the people of Alaska, if 80 percent of her time (as her brother states in the linked article) was spent on defending herself from ethics violations. Yet, if she has Presidential ambitions, she should be aware that an even greater percentage of her time will be spent defending herself from attacks from people who hate her (or say mean things about Trig or her underage daughters.) Given this, it would be inconsistent for her to run for President in 2012—unless by that time, the Presidency has become a position of absolute power. Hmm.
Alex
FYI , I voted for Ron Paul in the 1988 general election for president and again voted for Paul in 2008 in the Republican primary in Ca.
I stated in a previous post that Palin was one of the candidates i was looking at to support in 2012, not the only one, If in 2012 it came down to a choice between Barry and Sarah , at this point i would vote hands down Sarah.
Her bit about visiting the troops is rife with disgusting horse manure…Sarah, if you want to serve something greater than yourself, go enroll in Ron Paul U. and get yerself educated and pass that awakening on to your family before you look elsewhere. That would be a truly important mission….a cause worthy of undertaking. As you say Sarah, life is short and time is a wastin’….
Sarah’s egotistical rambling “announcement” did not contain the word “resign” (e.g. it skipped the bottom line). She denounced “quitters” but violated her own oath of office by quitting without even a legitimate health or scandal reason. She cites “the troops” but if her son or “the troops” did what she is doing, they would be court-martialed for desertion. How are the troops building up their families? And what does “the world needs more ‘Trigs’, not fewer” mean – should we induce Down’s syndromes in healthy babies? Did this ridiculous Ditz even run the speech by anyone? It is the looniest nonsense I have seen since Ross Perot quit over lesbian photographs of his daughter. This “hell yeah”, basketball, “gotta”, dead fish, parents’ refrigerator, Baby Trig, Kosovo … drivel without even mentioning her resignation makes her sounds like a candidate for drug testing or psychoanalysis. Does she think people want her in charge of the NUKE-YOO-LAR trigger? Does she have any concept of: (1) logic, (2) honor, (3) principles, (4) duty, (5) humility, or (6) balance? Her speech makes Sotomayor look like Socrates. Worst yet, this resignation confirms the judgment of the liberal media that she is just a CLOWN.
[More please. LOL]
While that pathetic “speech” indicts her far more than anyone in the liberal media ever could, here is an profile of Sarah’s political career that can serve as a worthy epitaph to our gorgeous political meteorite who has (most likely) burned out for good:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/08/sarah-palin200908
Apparently, she was basically an attractive ambitious redneck with a slightly above average IQ and some decent political instincts who moved too far too fast and got in way over her head. Who knows how far someone like her could have gotten had she been a minority or had some competent “handlers” who could have molded her into something slightly more stable?
Unlike Nixon, a brilliant but brooding man, it is hard to picture a comeback from this. However, the country and the Republicans might settle for ANYTHING in 2016 after 8 years of the Big Man Messiah’s Obammunism.
Enough already! These supposedly Christian politicians don’t even treat our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ with such reverence. “The troops” didn’t sacrifice anything for our freedom in Kosovo, in fact “our troops” didn’t even go into Kosovo until after Serbia (and the Chinese embassy) had been bombed into submission by Bill Clinton, Wesley Clark, and Tony Blair. As for freedom in Kosovo, when did the rampant proliferation of human trafficking, narcotics smuggling, burning down historic Serbian Orthodox churches, and providing bin Laden’s friends with yet another European hangout count as victories for liberty? In Kosovo the United States aided a violent, narco-terrorist group with links to Osama bin Laden against a Christian people who had been our allies in World War II and had done us no wrong. The whole story of Serbian “ethnic cleansing” of Albanians was as real as Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons program. In fact, it was the Albanians that have cleansed Kosovo of its indigenous Serbian Christians, with Western complicity. Again, Sarah Palin needs to get away from the cameras and go read some actual books on these subjects.
I think Palin is a sharp person, one who needs some guidance on issues she knows little about. For all the geniuses who left negative comments regarding Palin, I would like to see how you would have done with a large family, a governorship, being pulled into the VP position – in second position to the incompetent and fence-stradler, seeker of leftist adulation McCain – and under a media attack the likes of which we have not seen since the days of Richard Nixon. I found her instincts on the mark, on energy, less government, on foreign policy, but I admit she should seek guidance on some of the fine details that can make a winning debater of one with the right instincts. I see her developing into a viable presidential contender. My problem with Ron Paul is that he has the worst instincts on foreign policy. His foreign policy is that we should stay out of other nations’ business. And that there is no justification for any action before we are physically attacked. But then Dr. Paul it is too late. By then, the jihadist nuclear device has been detonated over Kansas effectively taking the United States of America back to the 18th century. How do we prevent that Dr. Paul? How do we stop that without spies, interventions, preemptions?
After reading Myron Pauli’s view on Sarah Palin, I wonder why Mr. Pauli doesn’t run for President? After all, it appears that he has all the answers. While it is true that Sarah Palin is not perfect, Mr.Pauli needs to understand that he is not either, or anyone else. The other thing I will say in response to ILana is that Sarah had the reins pulled in tight on her because of McCain.This is why she is splitting away from over half of the Republican party. Martin Berrow
[Fair enough.]
Gushing, Gee, I like that word. My hobby is writing fiction. I gotta find a place to use that one. Respecting someone for having a fighting spirit isn’t gushing, well since character assassination is so popular, maybe. A: I too voted for Ron Paul in 88 for president. I still support Mr. Paul, but the hope for leadership needs to go to a younger person, maybe if we could quit whining and start looking. B. No, I’m not looking for Mrs. Palin to lead anything but a cafeteria line; no one likes her, except my cousin in Alaska (another hunter.) C: I agree with Alex that mixing religion and politics is a bad idea; however that’s only our opinion, mixing Christianity and politics is not being a hypocrite but following a time honored tradition. In 1534, a man called – John Calvin, started the religion, “Reform Christianity.” It was political from the beginning, considered, Conservative because they wished to conserve society. He wrote the ordnances for the City of Geneva to start. At the same time in Geneva/Paris, the Atheist’s started their government/religion in competition with Calvin, calling themselves Progressives (which is a religion in itself) 500 years of infighting to date and only the citizens have lost.
To Martin Berrow as to why DR. myRON PAULi does not run for President – there already has been an candidate who ran and even his name could not be uttered at the G.O.P. Convention without the Gestapo arresting the offending person! I probably have enough hubris to think that I have good ideas but I know that I am several hundred million dollars shy of being credible (like Ross Perot). And I’ll put Ilana Mercer in charge of shutting down HHS if elected!
Also – to Martin and Haym about Sarah being “smart” – did you read that “speech”?! She had days or months to work on it, run it by highly skilled professionals, and she came up with that rambling drivel! I’d call it smart only under some “affirmative action” program that throws her in with tree shrews, lemurs, and marmosets. I’ll concede that she’s sexy and likes to hunt and there is no shortage of male doofuses in the G.O.P. – but that speech leaves little doubt as to her judgment and maturity to be President. Would you rehire a WalMart store manager who quit impetuously like Sarah. Would she quit in the middle of a war?
[Okay, okay; you win BAB’s Commentator of the Year. Keep me laughing.]
Mrs. Palin clearly is a gutzy lady of high character. Something that the Republican Party clearly lacks is leaders with high character. I don’t anticipate Palin will run for President in 2012 but I’d vote for her. She’d have the Washington elites and Democrats in a state of frenzy. But, since she probably won’t run, and assuming Mr. Paul is not on the Republican ticket, 2012 will be another year to vote third party.
ProphetJames
MP, we do not know if her ‘quitting’ was impetuous or otherwise. As to her oratorical prowess (or lack of), I would submit that judging ability and maturity based on a speech is shallow. (O’messiah anyone?). Should I choose to make a final determination about her qualifications at this point, I would delve into what she has and has not put her signature on while in office. Should she be intent on furthering an agenda in a public arena, we will know more as time passes. I can only say at this point as I previously posted: I wish she’d spend time getting grounded in genuine principles of individual liberty from sources that the good ‘ole boys will never sanction.