Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

Palin P.S.

An occasionally savvy friend remarked to me a couple weeks ago that Palin’s path to political success (especially with women, who turned against her last fall in the polls) would come through being the Lifetime Channel candidate, with a feisty wronged-woman comeback story. Didn’t think she’d start down that path so soon and in so dramatic a fashion.

Discussions - 13 Comments

I went to The Economist for information and insight and that article directed the reader to It Came from Wasilla from Vanity Fair which is pretty rough. Is it true?

See, that's what I want to know, if the Vanity Fair article is true, even in part, or if it is just someone else being nasty.


Happy Independence Day to you!

Interesting dichotomy you present, Kate. What if some crucial aspects of the truth regarding Palin are nasty?

Kate, the VF article seems pretty pre-packaged, and the snarky tone leaves me to take it with a grain of salt. An entire section is spent matter-of-factly informing the reader how backward Alaska is (and by extension how backward and unfit for office anyone from that state must be). It looked like all of the sources concerning the election are McCain people (and what a great campaign they ran, eh?)

I don't trust the intentions of anyone who passes over our low-hanging VP to go after Palin.

Andrew -- Yes, so much of it is Republican accusations, not just of McCain's people, but also of some Alaskan Republicans. I don't know much about the law or anything else regarding the ethics issues. Art Deco in #17 of yesterday's Palin post looks at that stuff and I find his arguments about or explanation of those and their probable contribution to her decision to be persuasive: ruinously expensive, impossible to fight while in office and contrived by political opponents.

The one thing the VF author sneers about that I do know something about is the matter of Palin hurrying back to Alaska while in labor. There is nothing weird in that, because if you have a doctor who has been through your pregnancy with you and knows what your child's problems will be at birth, you do everything you can to get to him and not have some stranger handle your birth. That bit of snark was just ignorance.

I guess the answer to my question is that there is some truth in the article, but is thickly covered with sneering innuendo.

Maybe VF will skewer Biden in the next issue? You would think if a journalist was inclined to be snarky, Biden would offer prime material for snarking about.

Craig, I could wonder that about all sorts of politicians, even Biden and our president. Does nasty truth only matter in Republicans?

My Captcha words were "feistier Khomeini" which means nothing in relation to the thread, but struck me funny, anyway.

I have been home sick today while my family and all of America is off enjoying Independence Day. I have been slogging though a thick book about the history of public works projects in America and just about anything would be funny at this point.

Let's put it this way, who here thinks that VF would ponder printing an article favourable to Sarah Palin?

Dan, an unfavorable article may be true. I was wondering, and am still wondering, if under the sneering tone and misconstructions there are true things in the article. I have been reading on this site lately that The Economist is a good source for solid news and information. The Economist pointed me towards the VF article as a possible factor in Palin's decision to step down as governor. I confess in #7 that I had too much time on my hands yesterday, and therefore had time to wonder about something that is only in the greater political sense any of my business; why would Sarah Palin quit the governorship of Alaska instead of filling out her term and building for herself a track record of competent governance. That would have been good for her political career. I know many people who were (maybe still are) solid supporters. They may follow her in the "new direction" she claims for herself, but I find it hard to believe she will be able to get a majority of Americans to support her in any run for national office after this.

So, wondering about her and the future of conservative leadership in the US (will there be any?) I looked at the VF article as directed by The Economist and wonder if Palin is weird or if VF and all of the Left just think all conservatives are weird and therefore sneer and smear being ignorant and foolish. If Palin is corrupt and/or weird, I don't need her representation, thank you. If she isn't, but has merely been overcome by political enemies, then, whether she is politically viable or not, we owe her something, thanks if nothing else, for what she attempted in the name of conservative values.

If she goes home and raises her children, that will be extraordinary. That doesn't sound like what she means to do and I pity her children their loss.

Kate:

What is the book about public works projects you are reading? I'd probably be interested. Sounds nerdy or wonky, but I love those kind of books, and have even considered writing a book about two modern freeway projects (the Century freeway in LA, which took nearly a century, and a federal judge, to build, and the Big Dig in Boston--both examples of why modern government can't do things like we did just 50 years ago.

Steve,

History of Public Works in the United States: it is not new, but published in 1976. It is a little scary to think of the size of such a book brought up to date. This one is 690 pages long, is not badly written, really, though it has passages like, (chosen at random) "After passing through the filters, the water flows into clearwells located beneath the plant. From the clearwells...." So, maybe it is a bit wonky and nerdy. I am mining it for information to apply to my thesis for the MAHG program, which is part of my larger question about what the federal government must do and even can do. Those projects you would describe in your proposed book were truly nightmares, but so were many large public works projects in history. This book does not get into that, being more of a "Hurray for public works!" Even if nightmarish, if government doesn't do those things, who else possibly could?

Enjoy your class! By the description it sounded like great fun.

Palin insinuated to roaring crowds that Obama was a terrorist in the middle of the election, but I did not hear too many concerns about the impact of that on his children. No Mrs. Ponzi discourse on motherhood and children on that day.

To the extent that Palin's "wronged-woman" narrative has been milking the notion that an unfair, liberally-biased, "gotcha" media was out to destroy her (by, you know, asking crazy, unfair, hurtful questions like what sorts of books and magazines she reads), here's one of those funny-because-it's-true moments from Palin's past, March '08.

Admittedly though, David Letterman's hit piece on "60 Minutes" was quite vicious...

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