Book Review: Going Rogue by Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin. Many people like her immensely. Many people can't stand her. Many people think she would make a better president than any other major-party candidate in 2012. Many people think Curious George would do better.

If you delineate the border between Palin-lovers and Palin-haters, you understand much about American politics. They love her here in Middle America. To blue-collar Republicans, she talks sense in a way they don't often hear from politicians. But to educated east-coast Democrats, she is the anti-christ. She is everything wrong with populist politics. They look at Sarah Palin and see a menace to society.

Why is she so polarizing? Much of it, I believe, is due to the media. The media has done much to tarnish Sarah Palin's reputation. This could be good and it could be bad. If Palin were Rod Blagojevich, we certainly would want her tarnished so that she would never show her face in the public square again. If, however, she were Ronald Reagan, we would not want her tarnished.

So which is she? Sarah Palin's 2.5 year stint as Governor of Alaska was, in the beginning, wildly successful. As Alaskan Dewey Whetsell explains, everything she did worked and she did everything with high approval ratings and bipartisan support. (This is included at the end of Palin's book.)

But then, at the Alaska State Fair, in August 2008, Palin got a call from a man named John McCain, who was running for president. Would Sarah like to be a vice-presidential candidate? Yes, Sarah would. Depending on Palin's political future, she may one day rue that decision.

Suddenly, this cute, folksy mother of five catapulted onto the national stage. The Media, who had already crowned King Barack, were stunned. How dare this bumpkin stick her nose in? "Concerns" and "questions" arose. When frivolous ethics charges surfaced against Palin (like wearing an Arctic Cat jacket and talking to reporters in a hallway--apparently taboo on the Loony Left), these were trumpeted for all to hear.

Fast forward almost a year. The campaign is over, McCain-Palin soundly defeated. Palin calls a press conference and resigns the governorship. Once again, the country is stunned. Was it an admission of guilt? Was there another shoe about to drop? Had the pressure gotten to her? Was she dropping out to plan her presidential run? Or was she, as she said, unable to afford the legal bill for those ethics charges and left the public sector to make some money? No other shoe dropped and she appears sane, so it must have been the latter two.

I'm not talking about the book, am I? Well, that's because to understand Sarah Palin's book, one must understand Sarah Palin. And that's something that many people fail to do.

The writing is average. Palin charms sometimes, but at other times I wish she would stick with grammatical and verbal convention. Every cutesy word she makes up detracts from the seriousness of the work. Her life certainly has been busy, and fulfilling.

It's interesting that, until she reached the national stage, everyone liked her. Sarah could do no wrong on the Wasilla City Council, as mayor, on the various commissions she served on, and finally as governor. So she was a good pick for John McCain.

Her political beliefs are very, very right-wing. She is hardcore, man. But she makes it work. Without animosity, and without bias, she perfectly rode the line between big business and big government as governor.

God is on every page of Going Rogue. She invokes Him and His plan constantly. This could be real or it could be artificial--who am I to judge? But it's nice to see it in a book written by a popular politician.

Her family life is concerning. She has five kids and a largely absentee husband (work). But she still found time to govern the largest state of the union. That raises questions about her priorities. Would a truly devoted mother take on this more-than-full-time job? Part of me wonders how well her kids have been brought up. Bristol Palin's teenage pregnancy makes me wonder as well. Palin does not, in the book, chastise Bristol at all, nor does she admit any failings as a parent, or any failings at all.

Her TV appearances during the campaign were awful. Frankly, just terrible. This only increased the Media's dislike, and Tina Fey's SNL parody skewed many people's views still further. It was so accurate and so devastating.

After the campaign, though, she cleaned up her act. In Going Rogue she raises serious questions about her handling by the McCain camp, and indeed, as she tells it, it was wildly mismanaged. But the campaign itself was basically imploding before the election, and aides were fighting over the pieces.

Now, Sarah Palin lost to Hilary Clinton by one percentage point in a poll of Most Admired Women, beating such notables as the Queen and Oprah. For a politician whom I had never heard of in June 2008, that's quite an accomplishment.

Sarah Palin remains an enigma. My own view of her has skewed wildly, from love to serious distaste and back to cautious optimism. Go for it, Sarah, but just prove that you are who you say you are. Whatever else Sarah Palin does, she is not going to die quietly. Her book has already past up Barack Obama's and Bill Clinton's bestsellers. Maybe she will do the same for the American electorate.

Mosings44

Thoughts on President Obama and the aftermath of Election 2008.

The Republicans suffered a searing electoral defeat in November; Barack Obama was swept into office by a substantial margin, and Republicans lost ground in both the House and the Senate. Though a bleak picture overall for conservatives, the election did yield some rather unexpected bright spots. 

1. The people of American's most populous (and most liberal) state affirmed, by a surprisingly broad margin, the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman. The people of California passed Proposition 8, which provoked the fury of diseased sybarites throughout the state. The sweet and fluffy LGBT community yelled racial epithets at African-American people because...you guessed it...they don't support gay marriage. In Colorado, they burned a Mormon Bible outside of a Mormon church because many Mormons also do not support gay marriage. So life is back to normal out west; but the sanctity of marriage has won a small victory. 

2. McCain-Palin didn't win. Frankly, the ticket was a bit of a disaster. I respect Senator McCain greatly, but his campaign was a shambles and his team's handling of Sarah Palin; the whole vapid "Drill, Baby, Drill" and "bulldog with lipstick" routines were probably more shocking than anything to sane Americans. I don't blame this on Palin; I read a recent article written by an Alaskan who said that, back home in the Yukon, Palin wasn't a hard-charging, mindless partisan, but a sincere, canny leader, unafraid to stand up to the Republican machine and compromise with her erstwhile opponents. Much as I respect her, however, she does not inspire confidence. I am sure she does a capable job as Alaska's governor. However, as Alaska goes so the lower 49 do not. Alaska has always danced to its own tune, and this case is no different. Sarah Palin is and will remain an oddity out of the north; maligned through no fault of her own. McCain simply is not a man I would trust to lead this country through the troubled waters it now faces. Where Obama exudes assurance and icy calm, McCain is inflammatory and, in a gravelly way, shrill. 

3. I have always believed that the Republican party is more effective as a minority party. Fighting a heroic rear-guard defense against the forces of big-government liberalism. The Democratic party is, after all the party of government; it's their natural habitat. The Republicans are the minority party, then, going into an administration that seems so far determined to run an accountable and, at least on the surface, bipartisan White House. Whether that will be the case in the long run remains to be seen, but perhaps given competent Republican leadership, the party can regain control of itself and perhaps make gains in, if not 2010, then 2012. 

Notice that I was positive about McCain's loss, not Obama's win. There is a strong distaste for Obama among conservatives, which I can certainly understand. His power over the electorate is unbelievably strong, almost unnerving. I am not, however, greatly dismayed about the course of this country as we move into the 44th presidency. Barack Obama has picked Republicans for his cabinet; he chose conservative mega-pastor Rick Warren to deliver his inaugural dedication; he supports the sanctity of marriage; and last but not least, he plans to cut taxes by $310 billion. 

Barack Obama's cabinet picks so far have been startlingly reminiscent of Clinton's. In fact, I have not seen any yet that didn't serve in some capacity in the Clinton administration. This is both a good and a bad thing. It is good because these people presumably have experience, and Clinton's Third Way policies are certainly not the worst Democratic tradition Obama could choose to emulate. It's bad because the Clinton administration was corrupt; it's biggest achievement the perjurous defense of Clinton from legitimate impeachment charges. 

Barack Obama exudes leadership, like Master Yoda's aura in the force. He is icy calm at all times. His voice is deep and soothing. I'm trying not to make him sound like a Hindu god here, but you've all seen his unbreakable composure. Most of my political life has been during the Bush administration, watching a man who is either viciously cunning or a complete dolt make mercurial decisions in which men have died. Bush's famous actions on 9/11 notwithstanding, his presidency has been insular; he has been almost as distant and removed from the people, and they from him and the real process of governing this country, as an ancient, implacable Chinese dynastic emperor. Obama promises to involve the people in the legislative process once again. If Obama is the man he promised this country, then this country is in good hands--regardless of his policies. If Obama is the reasonable man of sense I expect him to be, he will see the stupidity of withdrawing our troops from the Middle East as so many Democrats have called for; and hopefully find a better course. 

I have not joined the Obama bandwagon. He could be dangerous if he uses his unshakeable charisma to guide the American people down the wrong road; like a master leading a trusting horse to the knacker's yard. If he leads this country astray, America will break him. But I hope that God will bless his presidency, and that he will be the true leader that Bush was not. 

Predictions: The Obama Presidency + 2012

Obama Presidency Predictions

Obama's staff picks so far have been astonishingly Clinton-era; nary a new face. Clinton-ite, and pusher behind the NAFTA Free Trade Agreement that most people point to when they talk about Clinton's "centrist" policies, Rahm Emanuel, as previously mentioned, will be chief-of-staff. John Podesta, another rabid liberal partisan will be head of Obama's so called "Transition Project," which appears to be a way that Obama can lead before he's actually sworn in.

For the Cabinet, the odiously liberal HuffPo has a Dem-insider post about likely Cabinet picks.

Attorney General: The HuffPo says that former Bush AG Alberto Gonzales brought "controversy" to this post, but seems to have forgotten Janet Reno's bloody attack on religious nuts in the early nineties...ever heard of Waco? Arizona governor Janet Napolitano is reportedly in line for this post. Young, Black governor Deval Patrick is also being considered for this post in young, Black president Obama's cabinet.

Treasury Secretary: Tim Geithner, Chairman of the New York Federal Reserve, and a protege of Clinton-era TS Robert Rubin, is being considered, as well as another Clinton-era TS, the former president of Harvard, Larry Summers. Summers was fired from his (tenured) post at Harvard when he suggested that there may be inherent differences between men and women in the fields of science and engineering....Amazing. Both of these men are Clinton "centrists."

Secretary of Defense: Robert Gates, the current secretary, is probably going to stay for a while. After that, Colin Powell's name is being bandied around, but he's already served in the post under two presidents and has shown no interest. Richard Danzig, former Navy Secretary, is also being considered.

Secretary of State: The laughable John Kerry is reportedly angling hard for this job; other candidates are, surprisingly, a Republican; RINO Chuck Hagel of Nebraska; and three boring Obama policy advisors. Although, if Robert Gates is kept on as Defense Secretary, another high-ranking Republican cabinet secretary is unlikely. (Although, as Glenn Beck noted on Monday, Gates is not a registered Republican.)

Other posts:

Sec. of Agriculture: Former governor Tom Vilsack, of (you guessed it) Iowa--although he was a staunch supporter of Hillary Clinton (where is she in these discussions, by the way? Obama seems to have totally ignored her.) We Wisconsinites are much better at agriculture than the poor sappy Iowans, so may I humbly suggest to President Obama that you rid us of...err, I mean, appoint WI governor Jim Doyle to the job? Word around here is that Doyle would accept a post if it were offered to him, but it might lose the Wisconsin governorship to the Democrats.

Energy: Many people, from PA governor Ed Rendell to CA governor and Republican Ah-nold Schwarzanegger are being considered.

Education: Joel Klein or Caroline Kennedy.

Policy-wise, Obama seems to be following in Clinton's footsteps, with many old Clinton names and policies. He seems committed to ending the war in Iraq, and possibly Afghanistan as well, although he may renege on that promise if as president, he is made aware of the blow to US image it would be and the other reasons against pulling out. He would have to weigh whether upsetting the anti-war wing of the party with a phased withdrawal (like Bush's plan) would lose him more votes than the possible awful consequences to our image abroad, not to mention middle-eastern policy and politics and the possibility that emboldened terrorists would

Predictions for the 2012 Election

This all depends on Obama's presidency. Will he be Carter or Clinton? He is certainly angling to be the next Clinton, but if the economy heads even farther south, that would reflect badly on him as it did on Carter, and if he withdraws from Iraq and Afghanistan, there is a serious possibility of war in the Middle-East, possibly between Pakistan and Afghanistan, or Iran and Iraq (2.0). If Obama is a weak brand for re-election in 2012, the challenger is all the more important. If Obama seems strong or moderate, as Clinton was in '96, the LAST thing we want to do is nominate another Dole (like McCain would be then.)

Mitt Romney (who would be the first Mormon president) is already gearing up for 2012, and barring anything unexpected, he is the frontrunner: his strong economic experience would be a huge asset. Conservatives are likely to support Louisiana Republican success story Bobby Jindal, who would be the first Indian-American president, who has governed post-Katrina LA with grace and aplomb, or Sarah Palin. We will see in 2012 if Palin's image has been permanently dented by the McCain camp's mishandling of her: the whole "bulldog in lipstick" thing, I've heard, is very different than the image she cultivated as Alaska governor, and probably boiled up by the McCain people. If she put that behind her, she would be strong in 2012. If not, she would be a goof on the Dan Quayle scale. Mike Huckabee is not to be ruled out. All of these candidates seem good for 2012, just as none of them seemed particularly good for 2008. Ideally, I would pick Jindal-Huckabee, but they are so publically Christian that it might be hard. Romney-Palin could be worse, as could Romney-Huckabee or Huckabee-Romney. Romney-Jindal would be a strong ticket, but anything with Palin on the top might not fly.

Enjoy four years of the Obamaniac!

The Down Syndrome Holocaust

I have never been comfortable with people who have Down Syndrome. I've had limited exposure to them, but they have always disturbed me. They are humans constrained by a chromosomal accident; a defect that has left them impaired but in no way sub-human. They are largely dependent on others throughout their lives. Even in adulthood, they remain much like children.

I am not comfortable around them because I, like many other people, sense that they are defective. If humanity was an assembly line, they would be miscast rejects.

But humanity is not an assembly line. It is, or should be, a compassionate race.

The human race's conduct towards Down Syndrome children has been a shameful travesty in recent years. 91-93%, yes, that's 91-93% of unborn children who may have Down Syndrome are aborted. Out of one hundred Down Syndrome babies, only seven or nine survive the womb. Abortion is always a terrible thing, but when victims of a certain genetic disorder are singled out like this, it reeks of holocaust. The Left's worse crime in recent years has been the resurrection of the culture of Eugenics: perfection of the human race through selective breeding and, implicitly, the destruction of "unfit" individuals. It is this motive that underpins much Leftist thinking on Abortion, assisted suicide, and the recent move in the United Kingdom to deny healthcare to old and obese people in the hope that they will die and cease being a burden on the system. When healthy, strong men and women of the world look at the old, the obese, the disabled, and those with Down Syndrome, they say or think, "You freaks! You impede our evolutionary progress. It is not economical to care for you. You will now be slaughtered for the good of the tribe."

This post-"Enlightenment" age claims to be the most civilized and advanced yet. But beneath the shiny veneer of technological progress, our barbarism is just as blatant and poisonous as anyone before us. We shake our heads at bloodthirsty soldiers from the past, but are our abortion providers, our Dr. Kevorkians more civilized? The answer is, not at all. The same mindset of purging the world of those you see as unfit to live is the very essence of Nazism and fascism. Thus, the Left in supporting the Eugenecist abortion doctors and the Michael Schiavos of the world comes full circle; in the end there is no difference between communism and fascism.

There is open revulsion in the affluent leftist classes for anyone who chooses to keep a Down Syndrome baby. In Ramesh Ponnurru's excellent "Party of Death," one woman who told another woman that she had a child with Down Syndrome met shock and something along the lines of, "But why didn't you dispose of it?" This sentiment also underpins much of the unflinching animosity towards Sarah Palin in leftish circles. She dared to keep an imperfect child, instead of letting its brains be suctioned out, where the Left insists that all women must abort their defective children, to keep their lives uncluttered. In dark corners, you will find people dissing Palin for the most idiotic reasons, but it all circles back to the fact that she's Pro-Life. Feminazis are scandalized. But we did this for you, dearie. They insisted on choice, but it is unthinkable to make the right choice to them.

CNS News has an interesting article, about a British study that found that for every six hundred Down Syndrome babies (almost all aborted), four hundred more babies without the defect are miscarried due to the invasive testing. In their zeal to protect civilization from the malformed, the Eugenecists have caused the death of thousands of normal babies. The first and last enemy of civilization is the persecution of the weak by the strong. The Jews by the Nazis. The Armenians by the Turks, the Kurds by Hussein, the Chechnyans and Georgians by the post-USSR Russia. And the innocent Down Sundrome babies by the abortionists. A tragedy, but beyond that. A lasting bloody stain on the tapestry of civilization.

If I sound angry, it's because I am. The blood of these children is on the hands of the abortionists, and beyond that on us as a culture; we let it happen. These crimes will be answered for.

I'm not uncomfortable with Down Syndrome people because of them, it's because of me. It's entirely my attitude, and my fault. I viewed them with sympathetic distaste, only one step away from the mindset of so many, who view them as pitiable, brain-dead things.

Hitler had deformed babies burned alive. The abortionists of today just suck out their brains.

The Anti-Palin Conspiracy

Since Senator McCain's nomination of Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as his Vice-president, a move that many on the Right viewed with jubilant celebration and the Left viewed with unanimous despairing horror, the news media has quite frankly gone beyond belief in attacking her. Even Barack Obama made a questionable reference to her--he may have called her a pig--but more on that later.

Briefly, they claimed that her Downs-Syndrome son Trig, born in April, was actually a sham, and that the baby was really her grandson by her 17-year-old daughter (who did, as it happens, become pregnant--and decided to keep the baby and marry the father). How incredibly absurd. Unless she resorted to a fake pregnancy belly and kept the First Daughter of an American state out of photographich surveillance for months and months, it would be utterly impossible. What am I talking about, it IS utterly impossible. What a disgusting lie.

Then, they said, she fired her cop ex-brother-in-law, and his immediate supervisor who refused to fire him. (Innapropriately.) She did fire both of them, but in fact the cop in question was a known idiot, who shot animals illegally and used a taser on his stepson without legitimate reason; and his supervisor was obviously fired for standing in Palin's way over it. Frankly, I can see where the controversy comes from. However, she did the right thing. She knew the man was a moron, and she didn't want him as a cop in her state. So she fired him and his kvetching supervisor.

And there are far more:

• Palin did not cut funding for special needs education in Alaska by 62 percent. She didn’t cut it at all. In fact, she increased funding and signed a bill that will triple per-pupil funding over three years for special needs students with high-cost requirements.

• She did not demand that books be banned from the Wasilla library. Some of the books on a widely circulated list were not even in print at the time. The librarian has said Palin asked a "What if?" question, but the librarian continued in her job through most of Palin's first term.
  

• She was never a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, a group that wants Alaskans to vote on whether they wish to secede from the United States. She’s been registered as a Republican since May 1982.
  
  
• Palin never endorsed or supported Pat Buchanan for president. She once wore a Buchanan button as a "courtesy" when he visited Wasilla, but shortly afterward she was appointed to co-chair of the campaign of Steve Forbes in the state.
  
  
• Palin has not pushed for teaching creationism in Alaska's schools. She has said that students should be allowed to "debate both sides" of the evolution question, but she also said creationism "doesn't have to be part of the curriculum."

This from factcheck.org.

Even The Obambi himself has made veiled insults, and some of the idiotic media sniffing around is certainly at his campaign's behest.



The story behind this video: In her acceptance speech at the convention, Palin told a joke about the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull. The answer was lipstick. Here Barack Obama makes a completely un-subtle attack on Palin, referring her to a pig. He insisted he wasn't talking about her personally, but watch the crowd's reaction: THEY thought he was talking about her.

And Obama's step down of late hasn't been limited to Palin. Oh, no. In a recent ad, Obama accuses McCain of being out of touch and incapable of leading the nation because he can't use a computer. That would certainly be bad under normal circumstances. But John McCain was a prisoner of war for years, and in the course of that sustained lasting injuries, one of which prevents him from being accomplishing complicated hand-motor skills, like typing on a computer. So McCain can't use a computer, but only because he suffered bravely under Vietnamese torture for years while Obama was in Muslim school in Jakarta. Quite a contrast, eh?

In conclusion, this media blitz like never before has highlighted the truly breathtaking bias in the news media. They hate Republicans, and Palin registers like a bogie on their radars. Attack her with everything we've got, they say, playing fast and loose with the truth along the way. An incredibly low and scary attack on a strong, principled woman, who deserves to be the next Vice President of the United States of America.