Oh, this is not going to go over well with the Palin-bots…
[podcast]http://public.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/atc/2009/11/20091117_atc_18.mp3[/podcast]
Transcript is available over at NPR
A snippet:
Palin positions herself as a populist, but her populism is entirely cultural. She never misses an opportunity to tell us
how weepy she gets when she thinks about our country and its military. She fires the governor’s mansion chef, who is bored because her kids won’t eat his fancypants food. She swoons over a meal of homemade blueberry pie from “hardworking, unpretentious, patriotic” Alaskans — unlike, one presumes, those uppity Berkeley snobs who prefer tarte Tatin at Chez Panisse.
A little of that goes a long way, and I wouldn’t begrudge Palin a bit of it if her populism had any economic substance. Early in Going Rogue she talks in detail about how Exxon exploited the people of Alaska in the Exxon Valdez disaster. And her experience tangling with oil companies taught Palin about how big business colludes with government to create a crony capitalism that harms the common good.
And yet, she’s incapable of understanding how the uncritically pro-business economic agenda she touts makes this possible.
“In national politics, some feel that big Business is always opposed to the Little Guy,” she writes. “Some people seem to think a profit motive is inherently greedy and evil, and that what’s good for business is bad for people. (That’s what Karl Marx thought too.)”
Karl Marx! Well, say no more! Along those lines, Palin’s economic program amounts to nothing more than tax-cutting, deregulating and the endless repetition of shopworn GOP talking points.
This is the Republican Party’s great populist hope?
I got to hand it to Ron Dreher; he does speak the unvarnished truth about stuff like this. I have not always agreed with him. But I have always respected his opinion. Looks like I will be saving my nine dollars for something of more substance. Good on Ron for speaking the truth about something like this and not sucking up to the party or to Palin or her followers.
If we had more people like this on the Conservative side; maybe, just maybe our Party and our movement would be in better shape.
Update: …and as expected, the Palin-bots are out in force. Between you and me; I will take the word of a “Conservative Douche bag” over a guy who quit the Washington Times; because he got his feathers ruffled any damned day of the week. I just do not get these moronic idiots, who run around with their noses up Sarah Palin’s twat ass. They think because she so damned pretty and because she is a woman; that she is entitled to be President of the United States. How about Sarah Palin be a real Conservative woman and stay home and raise her children, so no more of them end up pregnant? How about she stay home and take care of her “special needs” child, that she used as bumper sticker and campaign prop; and leave the Politics to the real people, that actually know how to run a City, State and yes, a National Government. Because it is quite obvious to the rest the world that this woman is not cut out for national politics. There, I said it, and I am damned proud of it; and if any of these dumb ass Palin-bots want to come after me, I say bring it on, bring it the hell on, because I will destroy every last damned one of you.
America’s elite and Palin-haters worldwide should not be so quick to dismiss or disregard the future of Sarah Palin. No other national political figure so completely fills Middle America’s vacuum of frustration and hate for the Left and Right as Sarah Palin.
Middle America has been abandoned by the Left and Right, who have saddled it with a $700 billion taxpayer bailout, an unnecessary and costly war, a soaring deficit, and an overall neglect of the pocketbook issues that impact Middle America every day. Where are job creation, quality public education, affordable healthcare, and fiscal responsibility, to name a few?
Middle America is mad as hell at the Left and Right and they just might be willing to roll the dice on someone like Palin, who lacks an Ivy League education, is a working class hockey-mom with a disabled child, and who has blue-collar roots like many of the folks in Middle America. The status quo on the Left and Right have produced nothing material for Middle America, which may toss conventional wisdom into the toilet and throw the lever for Palin, figuring it has nothing to lose, and it may be right.
The Ivy League educated on the Left and Right have delivered little to nothing for Middle America, perhaps precisely because they are out of touch with the issues that someone like Palin understands personally.
However, to say that Palin is a salmon swimming upstream is an understatement. The results of a CBS News survey released Monday indicate that 66 percent of respondents do not want her to run for the White House in 2012. Seventy percent of respondents to a CNN/Opinion Research poll said she is not qualified to be president.
More difficult for Palin is the fact that the trend is not her friend—public opinion is moving in the wrong direction right now.
In the CBS survey, 43 percent of GOP respondents said Palin would have the ability to be an effective president. Only 11 percent of Democrats and 29 percent of independents agreed.
However, there is an opportunity for Palin among independents, where Palin’s rating is 41 percent favorable, and 48 percent unfavorable, according to Gallup.
These numbers are not great, but there is plenty of time if she can move the needle by appealing to Middle America and independents, which is where elections are won or lost.
Clearly, Palin has put the monkey on her back, especially with her resignation from Alaska’s governorship in July, a self-inflicted wound that will be difficult to explain away. However, don’t put it past Palin to put lipstick on this pig and paint herself as a victim of politically motivated and baseless ethics charges that prevented her from successfully serving the people of Alaska, forcing her to do the noble thing and take the bullet by resigning.
We can say what we want about Palin, but no Republican in recent history has created such frenzied excitement across the country as she has. Just take a look at the fervor she stirs as she wheels across Middle America on her book tour.
Perhaps this is a misreading of the tea leaves, but one could argue that she creates a wee bit more excitement than Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee, the two Republican front-runners for president in 2012. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed woman just may be queen.
A. Muser
http://americanmuser.wordpress.com