Sorry, Sarah… Goodbye, Governor Palin
Well, Sarah Palin is done with elected political office. She’s resigned. I’m not happy about it, but I can understand why.
Before I go there, let me first say that I do not think Sarah Palin would be the best GOP presidential candidate in 2012. I’m no longer starstruck by her. I see that she had some real deficiencies as a running mate for John McCain (though I still would have rather had her than any of the three other names on the major party tickets). She was ill-prepared for international issues. She was handled very poorly by staffers. Yeah, yeah, yeah…
I think she’s been a good governor for Alaska. I think she’s a smart woman. More than that, I believe she is incredibly principled. I love her values, and I don’t even mean that in the “crazy-religious-right” sort of way. Palin has been able to articulate a vision for a limited government and preservation of liberties better than most politicians today from either side of the aisle. Though she would not be conservatism’s best hope in 2012, she could have been by 2016 or 2020.
But that’s not going to happen. She’s done. From the first day she was introduced to the nation as McCain’s running mate, the media has been out to slaughter her image. She was immediately branded as dumb, cheap, and incompetent. She was held to a standard that no one else was. Since the campaign has ended, her political enemies have continued to press the attack against her (I believe because of the threat she represented). She and her family have had to fight dozens of ethics investigations – all of which have proved her innocent – and this has led to the amassing of more than $500,000 in debt for the legal fees.
I wasn’t going to blog about this because (you may have notice) I am trying to do less political blogging. BUT, you can thank the pompous jerk Anderson Cooper for this little post. He just confirmed for me exactly why I can understand Sarah Palin wanting to bow out of the public view – at least for a little while. After replaying large portions of her press conference today, his first words of commentary were: “A stunning announcement, not just grammatically, but politically.”
If I were not a pastor, I’d use language to express just how I feel about that statement. First of all, it was a fine speech. NO ONE speaks with perfect grammar. The spoken word and the written word are handled and composed differently. It is not as if Gov. Palin was dangling her prepositions. She was just talking. And Anderson Cooper makes that cheap shot comment, blindly following the asinine storyline that’s been developed around the caricature of Palin that is purely fiction.
How can anyone take the media seriously? I mean, they talk about Sarah Palin’s speaking abilities as if she is a bumbling idiot. But then they turn around and call the Messiah Obama some great, tremendous orator? I just went to youtube for a random sample of our fabulous Golden Mouth President, and here’s what I got.
Far from impressive, both in terms of content and presentation.
That’s it. I’ve made my statement. I hope I’m wrong. I hope that a decade from now Sarah Palin will reemerge and continue to serve our country. But I think she’ll probably now be on the sidelines, fund-raise, comment, cheer, and so on. And I trust that she and Todd know that is what is best for their family.
How could anyone defend the presentation of Sarah Palin’s resignation? After listening to her verbalize a series of words, I had no idea what she was saying! Thank goodness that CNN had a caption at the bottom of the screen, because I couldn’t figure out what was going on. And thank you to Sarah Palin for resigning from the highest political office she will ever hold.
I loved Sarah. I’d vote for Sarah. Politically, I agree with her. But, I think having a Christian woman pursue the presidency could mislead young Christian women. I’d support Sarah in leaving politics if that’s what she chooses to do. A Christian woman leaving home management to her husband is its own brand of liberalism.