Palin's Unfit to Lead (and Other False Assumptions)

Sometimes even reporters stumble upon the truth.

Did you know Sarah Palin was a charismatic and competent governor who took on the political establishment in her home state of Alaska? Politico accidentally lets the secret out:

The emails from her governorship, released Friday, brought back the memory of a long-lost Palin: the popular, charismatic, competent woman of the people.

Wow. Imagine if someone in the mainstream media had described her as a popular, charismatic, competent woman of the people when she came on the scene three years ago. Imagine if instead of trying to play gotcha politics, responsible reporters had actually reported the facts about her record - a positive record in Alaska. But wait, the emails redeem her even further:

She was hands-on and averse to partisan politics. She championed openness in government and had normal relations with the media. She was a little starstruck by her interactions with national politicians but unafraid to do battle with the chief executives of the world’s largest oil companies.

Amazing what a little empirical evidence will do to set the record straight. Unfortunately, the feeling of generosity at Politico is short-lived. Getting back to their preferred portrayal of the governor, writer Molly Ball reminds us the kind of person Palin really is:

Together with the newly released, pro-Palin documentary “The Undefeated,” which focuses on her rise to the spotlight, the emails are reminders of a sympathetic figure who was not yet the brittle, divisive caricature Palin has become. [emphasis mine]

And how, one might ask, did Palin become a brittle and divisive caricature? Is it some piece of legislation she signed into law? Something unsavory about her personal life? Fat chance. It's because the minute she was tapped as a vice-presidential candidate, the Left along with Hollywood and the hoity-toity political class had a desire to paint her that way. A smear job was conducted in order to ensure victory for their anointed prince and scare self-made, pro-life women from voicing their conservative values. One could reasonably conclude that if Palin had never accepted the GOP veep nomination and remained in the remote political wilderness of Alaska fulfilling her duties as governor, all the praiseworthy descriptors would still apply.

As I wrote about previously, no political figure has been attacked more viciously in my lifetime than Sarah Palin. The objections to Palin's leadership have never been objections to policy or objections to her governing style in Alaska. She has flubbed no executive decision as governor or mayor. The objection to Sarah Palin is that she's Sarah Palin, that she hasn't gone to Harvard or Yale (she's working class all the way) and that she doesn't sound like Barack Obama when he's speaking from his teleprompter. For the record, neither does Barack Obama (see below):

We have been told repeatedly that political animals like Anthony Weiner, despite his flaws, are the smart type of Washington leaders we need more of and the Sarah Palins of the world are divisive simpletons unfit to lead our nation. When will we stop listening to such false kernels of conventional wisdom from the political class?

Palin's emails don't prove there is a long-lost Sarah Palin as Politico suggests. Just that a nation has lost its mind, and any ounce of journalistic integrity is now buried under 24,000 documents.

Maybe It's Time to Start Rumors about Obama's Kids

The far left attacked Sarah Palin relentlessly and personally, including feeding the blogosphere vicious rumors about her children, until finally the popular Governor of Alaska cried uncle. No longer able to focus on her job without her entire family being scrutinized, Sarah Palin resigned Friday. Not to retreat, she said, but to start anew with her priorities intact. Now that we know the rules and the behavior that the media are willing to tolerate, I guess it's time to go after Michelle and the Obama children. Who knows? Maybe Barack will resign, too.

I'm kidding, of course. No one who truly considers themselves a conservative would wish such thuggish tactics on their worst enemy. Only progressives believe personally belittling the individual and their family is progress. Meanwhile former veep candidate John Edwards is a misunderstood saint, and we're still waiting for that dirty laundry to air. When the rumors proved true and the National Enquirer revealed his extramarital affair, campaign donations used as hush money, and a real bastard child, no one could find a bad thing to say about the situation. Their thoughts and prayers were with his family. Sarah Palin's, on the other hand, can go to hell, or at the very least become rape joke fodder for David Letterman. For the spoiled brats on the far left, the end always justifies the means.

Sarah Palin wasn't just scrutinized. She was stalked and harassed by the nutroots and a complicit media with all the furor of a jilted lover. Frivolous ethics complaints were filed against her by those seeking to destroy her political future, even after she was defeated at the polls last November. While conservatives tend to graciously extend a hand to those they beat in elections or concede without protest even after losing to a dead man, liberals are out for blood. For the left, defeating Palin democratically wasn't enough. She must be buried alive, and every rumor about her must be echoed online as if it were true. Palin's record as a reformer in Alaska was barely analyzed, her ideas were rarely debated, but her person was attacked more viciously than any American political figure in my lifetime.

It's no surprise to see bloggers at Huffington Post and the Daily Kos celebrating her resignation. Their dirty work has paid off for now. Heck, leftover Clinton hack and CNN analyst Paul Begala, who blamed Bush's victory over Gore in 2000 on racists and homophobes, still can't help kicking her when she's stepping down along with exhuming the corpses of long forgotten D-list scandals belonging to former representatives Mark Foley (2006) and Larry Craig (2007).

Way to stay classy, Paul. I'm assuming this gives me permission to bring up Chappaquidda every time Ted Kennedy's health bill comes up. For someone so concerned about homophobia, I certainly find it odd that Begala would bring up two resignations involving gay scandals. Ah, but to be gay and conservative, that is the true crime, just like it is to be a pro-life and conservative female governor.

The vitriol on the left is so strong, they are so blinded by ideology, that nothing is off limits. They attacked Palin's intellect, her belief in God and prayer, her socio-economic background, her fashion, her decisions regarding childbirth, her special needs child, her family and in-laws, choices of said family members, her hobbies, her husband's past, not to mention the false rumors of pending investigations. Even now they are contemplating all types of scandals as an explanation for her resignation. No wonder Palin seeks peace of mind away from the political spotlight. What normal person wouldn't?

This is not a victory for America. This is a victory for Saul Alinsky, Obama's twisted mentor, who wrote Rules for Radicals (a book dedicated to Satan). This is a victory for immoral behavior, the politics of personal destruction at the expense of a free exchange of ideas. We are now tolerant of everyone except those that believe or think differently from the majority. Which is to say we are least tolerant when it matters most. Today's mainstream media frets over the American who places his or her freedom above collectivism and champions individual liberty over government unity or the false comfort of conformity.

Sarah Palin has been exonerated from every ethics charge filed. Every rumor has proved to be false. No matter. The left wing bloggers paint her "guilty by google association." The thrust of this ludicrous argument is if you type in "Palin" and "scandal" or "unethical", you get tens of thousands of results, so there must be some substance to the accusations. How many of these articles actually defend Sarah Palin or cast doubts on the scandals, the blogger conveniently leaves out.

You can test the fallibility of this asinine theory yourself. If you google "Jeff Goldblulm" and "dead" you get 765,000 results, so by the left's flawed logic, that rumor must be true. You heard it here first: Jeff Goldblum is dead. And to think, Independence Day was just on over the weekend.



Of course, the left wing blogosphere being the echo chamber that it is, it only takes one nut like Andrew Sullivan to suggest that Sarah Palin may not be the real mother of Trig, who has Down syndrome, and the next thing you know it's being picked up by sheeple everywhere and repeated by dishonest propagandists like MSDNC's Keith Olbermann, the biggest douche in the woooorrrlllddd! So the lie feeds the lie feeds the lie. And who cares about the truth, anyway, when the end always justifies the means. Kill the conservative messenger and maybe the conservative message dies, too.

So now we are left with speculators and conspiracy theorists speculating and theorizing about why Sarah Palin resigned and what her future might hold. Will Palin run for president? I have no clue. I think she would be crazy to subject herself to more of the lies and innuendo that the political left has in store for her. When one of my neighbors, who is a Democrat, suggested Palin hadn't been attacked any worse than John Kerry in 2004, I had to laugh. I reminded him that the criticism never centered around Kerry's family, it was brought by people who served with Kerry in Vietnam, and it stopped the day of the election. Kerry was able to return to his leadership role in the Senate and work for his constituents unfettered. No such luck for Palin, who has accrued huge legal fees fending off the attacks.

Even this week, with North Korea launching missiles, with Iran jailing and killing protesters after a stolen election, with major legislation like cap-and-trade and health care reform making its way through Congress, with the economy sinking worse into a recession, and with Honduras exorcising their Chavez demons (without Obama's help), the Washington, D.C. media circus chose to focus its attention on emails Palin sent to McCain's campaign manager a year ago and a Vanity Fair article (by a writer even Clinton distrusts) that can only be described as a hit piece.

It defies logic how a governor of one of the least populated states can garner so much attention during one of the busiest news cycles of the year. If this is all part of the Rahm Emanuel/David Axelrod/George Stephanopoulos strategy to keep the spotlight off the imploding Obama economy, they are running out of conservative scapegoats. And that might be the most brilliant part of Sarah Palin's resignation.