On Syria...

Reader, friend, former colleague, and Idaho real estate mogul Doug S. sends along this tongue-in-cheek summary of all the reasons why we shouldn't intervene in Syria.  The Wall Street Journal today summarizes the reasons why we should.  Foreign Policy tells us what the big consequences of a Syria attack will be.  Michael Yon publishes the pithiest Obama criticism, a comment by Adam Holloway (member of the U.K. Parliament): “Outrage is not a strategy.  I thought military action always had to have a purpose behind it – so what is the endstate here?  Hit, and then hope?”

Me?  I'm with Sarah Palin: let's let Allah sort it out...

Quote of the Day...

Sarah Palin, on the U.S. getting involved in the Syrian civil war:

Let Allah sort it out.

Oh, Sarah, please run for some national office. Please?

Sarah Palin at CPAC...

My favorite moment comes just after 9:45, and another at 10:50.  There's a lot of red meat in here, and the audience ate it up...

Iowa Passion...

A new Sarah Palin video release, excellent as always.




If she's not planning to run for President, then why is she making these videos?

The Lady is on Fire...

Complete with the screechy voice.  It's impossible for anyone to reconcile the left's portrayal of her intellectual capacity with the content of that speech.  It's also impossible to miss the fact that she's the only national politician who effectively leveraged the recent events in Wisconsin – which she, alone, recognized as watershed events as they occurred.  Sarah Palin taken as a complete political package is one very impressive politician, whatever one may think of her views.

The 2012 election cycle promises to be even more interesting – and consequential – than the 2010 cycle.

Commentary on Palin...

Suddenly there seems to be a lot of commentary on Sarah Palin.  Specifically, why the left hates her with such a passion.  Here are three takes on that (one of these via my brother Mark D.): one, two, and three.

One thing that occurred to me as I read these: “Sarah Derangement Syndrome®” is a pretty darned good diagnostic for unthinking progressivism.  That is, if you're trying to gauge how well informed someone is (politically), and whether they think of themselves as progressive, the answer to a single question (“What do you think about Sarah Palin?”) is probably all you need...

Endorsement...

Paul Ryan's Roadmap for America's Future just got a celebrity endorsement: from Sarah Palin.

Smackdown...

If you're unfortunate enough to know who Keith Olbermann is, then you know that what he needs more than anything is a good smackdown.  That's exactly what has happened here, delivered by none other than Bristol Palin, of all people.  Money quote:

I have never claimed to be perfect. If that makes me the "worst person in the world" to Mr. Olbermann, then I must apologize for not being absolutely faultless like he undoubtedly must be.

Definitely read the whole (short) thing.

Primer for Congressional Noobs...

And a darn good one, at that.  From that well-known intellectual giant, Sarah Palin.

Her political clarity and ever-present common sense are a wonderful tonic for the politically disenchanted.  In that sense, the Palin phenomena reminds me of another in my lifetime: Ronald Reagan's rise to the national political stage. 

The Message...

Here's a simple, concise, and beautifully written summary of what happened in this year's elections, and what needs to happen in 2012:

The meaning of the 2010 election was rebuke, reject, and repeal. We rebuked Washington’s power grab, rejected this unwanted “fundamental transformation of America,” and began the process to repeal the dangerous policies inflicted on us. But this theme will only complement the theme of 2012, which is renew, revive, and restore. In 2012, we need to renew our optimistic, pioneering spirit, revive our free-market system, and restore constitutional limits and our standing in the world as the abiding beacon of freedom.

Written by Sarah Palin in the National Review.  You know Sarah – she's that woman whose intellect the left (and half the right) loves to despise.

Hmmm...

That ability to communicate a conservative message so clearly...does that remind you of anyone???

Predictable...

There's absolutely no surprise here...

The Sarah Palin Homunculus that Lives Inside Liberals' Heads...

IowaHawk is at it again.  WARNING: put your drink down before reading...

Sarah Palin, Live...

Don't miss her comedy debut near the end – she's surprisingly good...

Sarah Palin's Speech...

I watched Sarah Palin's Tea Party Convention keynote this morning on YouTube.  Awesome speech, and chock full of points I agree with.  Some nice comedic moments, too, like her one-liner aimed squarely at Obama: “How's that hopey-changey thing workin' out?”  There was relatively little that I flat out disagreed with, or that grated.  In particular, the overt religious ideology that permeated her book was absent.

The woman can sure give a speech.  I'll take her folksy, common-sense style over Obama's supposed oratory magnificence any day of the week. 

Could I support her in a run for President?  Possibly, though I don't think it's likely.  It's impossible to predict now what's going to happen in 2012, though one scenario being frequently batted around is an Obama vs. Palin matchup.  What would I do then?  Most likely I'd be torn between sitting out the election (for lack of a candidate I believed in) or voting for Palin as a way of saying “No more Obama!”

Watching her give this speech gave me another thought, though: it seems at least possible that Sarah Palin will emerge as the leader (or figurehead) of a political movement whose aggregate capability was attractive to me.  It would be, then, more like a team of people running rather than just Sarah Palin.  If that turned out to be the case, I'd find a vote for Palin much less troubling.

One prediction I think is a safe one: Sarah Palin will somehow be involved in the 2012 presidential race (even if not as a candidate), and her presence will make the race much more interesting – and probably more about the issues that I care about than otherwise...

Sarah Palin on Copenhagen...

A politician talking something that sounds like sense to my ears:

But while we recognize the occurrence of these natural, cyclical environmental trends, we can’t say with assurance that man’s activities cause weather changes. We can say, however, that any potential benefits of proposed emissions reduction policies are far outweighed by their economic costs. And those costs are real.

How refreshing!

From Sarah Palin's Facebook...

On Sarah Palin's Birther Remarks...

What Ace said, except that my perspective is not as a Republican, but rather as an observer of how politics actually works....

ClimateGate: Sarah Palin Weighs In...

On her Facebook page, Sarah Palin says:

Policy decisions require real science and real solutions, not junk science and doomsday scare tactics pushed by an environmental priesthood that capitalizes on the public’s worry and makes them feel that owning an SUV is a “sin” against the planet. In his inaugural address, President Obama declared his intention to “restore science to its rightful place.” Boycotting Copenhagen while this scandal is thoroughly investigated would send a strong message that the United States government will not be a party to fraudulent scientific practices. Saying no to Copenhagen and cap and tax are first steps in “restoring science to its rightful place.”

Can't disagree with that, though some of the other things she says I might quibble with...

Going Rogue...

Last night I finished reading Sarah Palin's Going Rogue.  A few reactions:

• It's certainly no literary masterpiece, and I suspect she'd be quick to agree with that.  I had no problem staying awake while reading it, but I wasn't riveted by either the prose or the content.
  
  
• She's very quick to use her religious beliefs instead of thinking.  By this I mean that you'll find her quite casually attributing an event to God's will (and not thinking it out any further), or justifying a position with by invoking God's desire instead of a thought-out ideology.  Palin invokes Reagan frequently in the book, but Reagan was in fact a very different kind of political animal – he was religious, of course, but his religion was the foundation for his ideology, not the ideology itself.  Palin comes across as having very little ideology beyond her religion and a vague, general sort of Alaskan independence, libertarianism, and scrappiness.  I like the latter elements; the first one scares me.
  
  
• The last ten pages or so were the most interesting part of the entire book.  In this section, she comes closest to offering a vision of what we might expect from her in the future.  I read it closely, as I strongly suspect that Palin will be a factor in our nation's future politics.  I was disappointed, not so much by what's there, but by what's not there.  There is no clear vision, no clear agenda, no clear ideology.  I still know only vaguely what Sarah Palin believes in (other than God) – and I suspect the same thing is true of her.  I don't see a Ronald Reagan or Maggie Thatcher here, but rather a cartoonish copy, without foundation, wrapped in an attractive package.  I wish I could say otherwise.
  
  
• I'm less likely to vote for her now (for any office) than I was before reading the book.  I can still imagine circumstances where I might vote for her as the lesser of two evils.  For example, if one could imagine (say) a 2012 ticket of Obama/Pelosi vs. Palin/Romney, I might well hold my nose and vote the Republican ticket – not so much because I was attracted to it, but because the alternative was so much worse.  But I would certainly not be an enthusiastic supporter of hers.
  
  
• It seems to me unlikely that Palin would actually be able to clinch the Republican ticket in 2012.  Not impossible, but unlikely.  More likely is that she could make a robust run as an independent, like a modern Ross Perot.  I can easily imagine her forming a strong third party with the “tea party” folks as her base.  I can imagine any number of partners for her (Glenn Beck came immediately to mind, though the thought sends shivers of fear through me).  Would such an independent ticket have a chance?  The probabilities are against it; a more likely outcome is a badly split vote on the right, and a unified vote from the liberal opposition – not a pleasant outcome for me. 
  

Quote of the Day...

From Tim Blair:

The biggest story of the past few weeks: Sarah Palin’s massive CLOTHES budget. I join with political observers of all persuasions in demanding that the attractive Alaska governor wear far fewer clothes.

Read the whole thing.

The Truth Leaks Out...

...if only ever-so-slightly. The lamestream media does one thing very, very well: it “shapes” the news by withholding some information and accenting others. The media's treatment of Sarah Palin is a textbook example of this – the distorted picture they present doesn't even resemble the real person.

Don't take my word for it – here's Elaine Lafferty, the former editor-in-chief of Ms. magazine and a lifelong Democrat, who recently worked with Sarah Palin and got to know her a bit:

It's difficult not to froth when one reads, as I did again and again this week, doubts about Sarah Palin's “intelligence,” coming especially from women such as PBS's Bonnie Erbe, who, as near as I recall, has not herself heretofore been burdened with the Susan Sontag of Journalism moniker. As Fred Barnes—God help me, I'm agreeing with Fred Barnes—suggests in the Weekly Standard, these high toned and authoritative dismissals come from people who have never met or spoken with Sarah Palin. Those who know her, love her or hate her, offer no such criticism. They know what I know, and I learned it from spending just a little time traveling on the cramped campaign plane this week: Sarah Palin is very smart.

I'm a Democrat, but I've worked as a consultant with the McCain campaign since shortly after Palin's nomination. Last week, there was the thought that as a former editor-in-chief of Ms. magazine as well as a feminist activist in my pre-journalism days, I might be helpful in contributing to a speech that Palin had long wanted to give on women's rights.

Now by “smart,” I don't refer to a person who is wily or calculating or nimble in the way of certain talented athletes who we admire but suspect don't really have serious brains in their skulls. I mean, instead, a mind that is thoughtful, curious, with a discernable pattern of associative thinking and insight. Palin asks questions, and probes linkages and logic that bring to mind a quirky law professor I once had. Palin is more than a “quick study”; I'd heard rumors around the campaign of her photographic memory and, frankly, I watched it in action. She sees. She processes. She questions, and only then, she acts. What is often called her “confidence” is actually a rarity in national politics: I saw a woman who knows exactly who she is.

Froth away, Ms. Lafferty! This little leak in the lamestream media container is quite refreshing...