If a Tree Falls in Alaska
I confess to have been a little bemused by yesterday’s Palin Quitteroonie. I think because everyone seemed to be assuming that she was doing it to concentrate on her next presidential run. Even if it’s 2016 instead of 2012, who on earth would think it’s a good idea to establish your executive credentials by quitting your executive job and going on a Clintonesque speaking tour? People have been telling her (via Conservative media outlets) for months that she needs to quit the choir-preaching and start doing little local radio interviews and things to get her rhythm down, and she hasn’t done that either, so it’s like, despite all initial signs indicating that she was a good, savvy politician, she keeps moving backwards.
Telegraph Blogs – Toby Harnden: Sarah Palin is now the joke her opponents wanted her to be
Politicians prepare for the presidency by serving in office, improving people’s lives and broadening their skills and expertise. They don’t prepare by resigning prematurely with a big look-at-me media event so they can go on lecture tours, do television shows, speak at party events or whatever Palin is intending.
Her speech today was basically drivel – the usual of cliches and empty phrases that ultimately mean nothing until there is some substance behind them. Not only has she not added any substance in the 10 months she has been on the national stage but she seems to glory in her belief that she doesn’t need to.
It’s a great shame because this is a politician with real talent and popular appeal. She has faced some vicious, irrational hatred from the Left – most conspicuously the loony tune stuff from people as prominent as Andrew Sullivan suggesting that her son Trig was not in fact hers but her daughter Bristol’s.
But whatever bias and vitriol Palin has faced does not excuse her ridiculous, posturing resignation. She has rendered herself a joke, playing right into the hand of the opponents of the Republican party by fulfilling the stereotype of her as an intellectually idle, self-absorbed, overweeningly ambitious empty vessel who thinks she can just wing it to the White House.
Unless she’s not winging it to the White House:
The Corner – Mark Steyn: Cutting bait
As a political move for anything other than the 2010 Senate race, today’s announcement is a disaster. And I’m not sure it’s a plus for the Senate – and, even if it were, the manner and timing suggest it was not a professionally planned event and therefore is unlikely to have any grand strategy behind it.
So Occam’s Razor leaves us with: Who needs this?
In states far from the national spotlight, politics still attracts normal people. You’re a mayor or a state senator or even the governor, but you lead a normal life. The local media are tough on you, but they know you, they live where you live, they’re tough on the real you, not on some caricature cooked up by a malign alliance of late-night comics who’d never heard of you a week earlier and media grandees supposedly on your own side who pronounce you a “cancer”.
Then suddenly you get the call from Washington. You know it’ll mean Secret Service, and speechwriters, and minders vetting your wardrobe. But nobody said it would mean a mainstream network comedy host doing statutory rape gags about your 14-year old daughter. You’ve got a special-needs kid and a son in Iraq and a daughter who’s given you your first grandchild in less than ideal circumstances. That would be enough for most of us. But the special-needs kid and the daughter and most everyone else you love are a national joke, and the PC enforcers are entirely cool with it. …
National office will dwindle down to the unhealthily singleminded (Clinton, Obama), the timeserving emirs of Incumbistan (Biden, McCain) and dynastic heirs (Bush). Our loss.
Or, here’s an idea no one’s thought of yet: Maybe she wants to run in California!
July 4th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Mr. W. read her remarks yesterday as a brilliant move towards the conquest of Washington; Im w/ Steyn, seeing them as her retirement from politics. We have a friendly spousal wager over who’s right. I’m thinking maybe she’ll headline some “cause” related to energy since she’s claiming this move will be good for Alaska and the country.
Happy Independence Day!
July 4th, 2009 at 11:47 am
I dunno. I think she has to do the Reagan thing and go on the GE Speaking Tour if she wants to prep herself for politics, which perhaps is what she’s trying to do here. But she’s already been governor of California, and quit halfway through it! She can’t go back, do the GE Tour, and then start over as governor again. It’s silly. She should have finished up. Which is why I’m with Steyn, too. I wonder if the Letterman thing was just the creaking camel’s back (I mean, his apology was premised, for crying out loud, on having the wrong daughter), and then the mystery backstabber unloading again for that profile in Vanity Fair (or wherever that was this week) broke it entirely.
July 4th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Hi Ninme,
I see two strategies on top of the ole Occam’s thingie,
Wilderness Years approach. She’s going to write down in a book the new Conservative Philosophy and spend the next two years selling it to all Americans who are rapidly growing disillusioned with the unicorns and other promises. If she does it properly it appeals NOT to the voter but to the TAXPAYER and it puts TAXPAYERS into the categories that conservatives understand: those that like to raise other people’s taxes and then not pay any that they owe and that of taxpayers that feel that there should be value for money paid. Lining up for a run at President in her own right with lots of attention paid to CONSERVATIVE media and not much if any attention paid to the MSM. Let’s see what she can do with new media.
Positioning to run for Senator and maybe even kick Murkowski out.
The perils in the first approach are obvious. The MSM hate her with a passion and will go to self destructive lengths to vilify her and paint any position she takes on any topic as stupid and idiotic. That’s pretty much how we ended up with McCain. The MSM hated and despised him the least and so vilified each of his primary opponents enough to push McCain over the top in the Republican Primary even though he has spent a lifetime in the Senate trampling on the Conservatives.
July 4th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
I’m with MS, also, although I have a sneaking hope it’s part of a master plan. I’m thinking of a Constitutional ammendment involving the phrases “Alaskan wilderness” and “Congress: Survivor”.
July 4th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Hmm, well, I did think of the book idea today waiting for my Independence Day Hamburger quota to be filled. I think tho that if she were to write a book entitled something along the lines of “This Whut They Done To Me” and named names, she’d be carried into any office of her choice on the shoulders of a grateful nation. However, and you’re right, because if there’s a single typo in the bloody thing, it’ll be final and irrevocable proof that she’s an idiot and the press corps would feel duty bound to go to Wasilla and string her daughters’ underwear from the telephone poles. Which, actually, I’m surprised they haven’t thought of already.
If that doesn’t happen, “Congress: Survivor” might just save not only American political culture, but the television industry as well! They can’t afford NOT to!
I don’t see how she can run for senate. The obvious retort to anything she says would be “And how long will you be in office this time, governor?”
July 4th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Ahhh Ninme and such an obvious answer presents itself to the question, “2 years is enough to qualify any jackass to run for president!”