Sarah Palin’s exit… or entrance?

Palin is done. The only thing someone has to do in a presidential debate is ask her how many days after she takes the oath of office will she decide she doesn’t like being president anymore.

“Quitting” is worse than a sex scandal in politics. History shows you can survive a sex scandal. But no major politician has resigned in the middle of a sitting term and lived to tell about it.

She’s done. And I imagine that’s the way she wants it. Now she is free to make gobs of money selling books and going on the talk show circuit. I don’t begrudge her this choice. I actually think, for her family’s sake, it was the right one. But let’s not pretend this will actually be for her political benefit.

When the going gets tough, Sarah Palin quits.

I’m sure her supporters cry “Oh the evil media” and how they hounded her to quit. I’m sorry but if a bad Letterman joke and negative headlines make you cry and run for cover you aren’t fit to be considered for any kind of important office. No politician in modern history has endured as much flak as Bill Clinton and then George Bush and love them or hate them neither quit and ran like Sarah.

Ahem Neal, you said: “Closer to home, a US Senator with a wide stance survived credible allegations of seeking gay sex in a public restroom. If that ain’t politically fatal, I’m not sure anything is.”

Care to revise your revisionist history there Neal? What challenge did Larry the lewd Craig survive? He did not run for re-election and the law prohibits U.S. senators from being recalled. He was smacked down by the senate ethics committee, and his guilty plea stood. He survived nothing. You Republicans said nary a thing about it, hyperventilate about Obama using a teleprompter?

If Sarah Palin quit because she was sick of the media BS, I respect her and her decision, it would be tough for anyone to endure that. If she quit to prep a run for president, she is getting high on her own supply and the Republican party is in for worse times ahead than are now.

Count now 2 out of 3 state jobs Palin has quit early. Is that really the record of your favorite candidate?

Be honest with yourselves, Republicans. If Obama quit his senator position 3 years before running for president would you think that was politically brilliant or would you be rolling on the floor laughing at his stupidity?

Take off your rose-colored glasses and recognize yet another Republican has blown their political brains out. The Republican bodies are piling up high these last few years and months.

I used to be worried there were no true conservative politicians anymore. Now I’m worried there are no true conservative voters anymore. This party is finished.

RIP Republican party. Nobody to blame but yourselves.

BTW, “she is getting high on her own supply” does not mean accusing her of doing drugs, it means she is getting high on her own product. What’s her product? Hype and personality, certainly not substance or experience.

Sarah Palin is Dan Quayle with tits.

Neal, Neal, Neal…

Once again, it is not your topic, but your biased, uninformed manner of writing that calls forth my response. And I quote:

“Let’s not forget that in the last few years we had a President who stained not just an intern’s dress, but the reputation of the office he held. And he survived.

Robert Byrd wore a white mask.

Ted Kennedy made a big splash with his most famous scandal.”

Nope. NONE of those things happened “in the past few years”. What HAS happened in the past few years are these little tidbits, and I find it amazing that you chose not to note any of them…

Republican Congressmen Rick Renzi (Arizona), Bob Ney (Ohio) and Duke Cunningham (California) were all convicted on corruption charges and are now serving sentences in federal facilities.

Republican Governors Mark Sanford (South Carolina) and Jim Gibbons (Nevada) have admitted to infidelity in their marriages.

Senator Stevens of Alaska was convicted on corruption charges.

And oh yeah…Republican President George Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney out and out lied to the American people, manipulating and manufacturing information (and the presentation thereof) to engage the US armed forces into a military conflict that was unnecessary, illegal and caused the death (4,000+) and permanent mutilation or injury (30,000+) to American men and women for absolutely no honest reason.

Let us not even mention the billions of no-contract bids that went to a company that the vice-President used to run and still receives profit sharing from (When asked to defend this, he stated “I feel comfortable doing business with aq company I know and can trust…this statement coming not long before it was revealed this company, Halliburton, has charged more than 1.3 billion for services that were NEVER rendered).

Let us not even mention the numberous times that administration obfuscated the Constitution…or even the manner in which Bush was actually put into office in the first place.

Now if you want to go back to YOUR timeframe of “past few years”, we CAN do that…Presidents Nixon (Watergate) and Reagan (Lying to Americans about Arms for hostages), Senator Livingston (infidelity and sexual fetishes), Speaker Gingrich (Cheating on his wife all the while bloviating on Clinton’s extramarital daliance)…but seriously, what’s the point?

Quite frankly, Mr. Larson, while you certainly have the constitutionally protected right to state your case in any manner you choose, and I will defend that right until I rejoin my creator, I find that with each posting you make here and with every similarly-developed comments you make on the airwaves, the credability of those statements and of you as a spokesman for the conservative point of view lessens…to the point to where you are becoming nothing more than yet another bag of wind akin tho Messers. Hannity, Olberman, Limbaugh, and O’Reilly…although, of course, in a much, much smaller version.

The truth is sir, that people who have your opportunity to present an opinion and cite parts of it as fact, also have the responsibility to BE fair and balanced, unbiased and objective, to present all sides.

If you can’t live up to that responsibility, then you’re nothing more than another blogger who spends his off hours eating Hot Pockets while watching SPIKE TV. I somehow thought you were better than that.

i hope that you are.

cheers!
Dennis Jones
Idaho Falls

Neal,

A lot of liberals are dancing. Lots of them.

I think, though, the more popular response from the left is akin to seeing an awkward domestic dispute in public. You try and look away, but it’s too much of a circus to not watch. Then, when it’s over, you’re not jumping for joy, but thinking to yourself, “That was strangely entertaining, but I’m sure glad it’s over.”

Palin was a trainwreck from start to finish. She lacked the ability to put together coherent arguments unless her script was written by the Republican Party (see Republican Convention 2008). Time after time she demonstrated that she hadn’t thought through policies further than soundbytes and “rah-rah” talking points.

She could very well get nominated by the Republican party, so perhaps it is a bit hasty to say that her political career is over. The Republicans are reeling right now. But no one who quit their elected term as governor for—literally—no good reason will be elected President.

Americans don’t want to elect a quitter. Republicans might. But not Americans.

And for that, yes, “liberals” are breathing a modest sigh of relief. But don’t mistake that for apathy.

I think this is what many people on the left find perplexing about conservative support for Sarah Palin. You say you admire her for her “grit,” and other wholly intangible qualities, yet you ignore that fact that, even in her exit speech, she couldn’t put together two sentences that resemble any sort of rational thought.

After the debacle that was George W Bush, why would you support a person who seems to share the same cowboy bravado as well as the same lack of foreign policy gravitas?

Perhaps what irks most “liberals” is that Sarah Palin is purely a caricature. Her “golly gee” persona masks her lack of depth, lack of knowledge and lack of understanding when it comes to the issues we’re trying to tackle as a nation.

And, when “liberals” think of the prospect of this kind of person getting enough attention that she could possibly challenge for the presidency? Well, it makes them shudder and worry that we might be looking at a return to the post-9/11 Bush America.

And that’s enough to make any liberal shudder.

Look, I don’t begrudge you for liking her. She is the every-man’s woman. She’s Caribou Barbie. She hunts and spits and fishes and shoots guns. She’s normal. But I’m not looking for “normal” in my politicians. I’m looking for people who really grasp the issues. Who are passionate not about creating some intangible persona akin to Jell-O which you can’t nail to a wall.

I listened to Palin’s speech last Friday, and one of my favorite scenes from Billy Madison came to mind:

“What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

Neil…

Well said. I would like to offer a few final thoughts…

1. I didn’t miss at all your main point. As I stated, that topic simply held no interest for me.

2. I question your assertion that you chose events that occurred 30 years ago as, and I quote, “closest to memory”, as opposed to those that happened a week ago. I submit that you chose those events because you knew they would curry favor with those on your side of the aisle who agree with you. Again, not surprising, but it would be nice to find someone in your position to deal the cards evenly and not skewed from one side of the deck or the other. Please forgive my wishful thinking.

3. As for you apology for not having the thinking skills I feel you should have, now it is you who have missed my main point.

I revel in your thinking skills and applaud that you care enough to articulate your thoughts and feelings. It is only through intelligent, serious, sincere debate that ideas can be shared and the compromise of intelligent thought be achieved.

That said, I do not take issue with yu simply or on principle BECAUSE you claim to be a conservative, but rather that AS a conservative, you seem blinded by truths that might stain your ideals…or those that you elect to represent them. You have in the past made several viewpoints on your radio show I (near) fully agree with, and were I in a position when you espouised them to do so I would have gladly called in and told you so. Similarly, should you comment on anything I agree with in this forum, I will be ecstatic to do so here.

And finally, in regards to your assertion that liberals are not dancing now that she has decided to terminate office…

I offer that the reason that they are not dancing or whooping or hollering in glee because she may no longer be a participant or candidate for the building with the big round room is also skewed.

If they are not dancing, I believe it is because Palin has not, nor will ever be a serious threat to the left (of which again, I am not a member) nor a viable candidate to hold national office. I consider her neither an idiot or a simpleton, but from an intelligence viewpoint, from an experience standpoint, she is simply not qualified to hold such office and I believe enough of the citizenry wise enough to realize that.

We recently finished eight years of a president to damaged the honor or the office he held far more than his predecessor ever could have, in large part because he was simply not qualified to hold the position. I doubt seriously the nation put us in that situation again…hopefully at least, anytime soon.

Neither side is always right or always wrong. What this nation needs now are people who can and will look at both sides of an issue and eradicate the extreme viewpoints, finding common ground in the middle. THIS is how we will, as a nation, find our way back to greatness.

When you look at it, the far flung, radical opinions of both sides are really nothing more than an appeal or acquiesence to a given side in order to sell advertising, keeping Olberman in $400 ties and Rush in Oxycontin. It is in the middle we will find solutions.

I enjoy your comments and our spirited debates here. I can only hope that the next time you make an offering here, you take the time to look and actually consider both or all sides and viewpoints and not just those of the majority of readers.

Neal,

Palin’s “normalness”, or as James says, her Caribou Barbie persona, spitting, hunting, fishing, etc., while greatly popular with folks in Idaho, lacks the normalcy we expect to see in a candidate seeking national prominence. Is it “normal” for one aspiring to national office to think that Africa is a continent , not a country or that being able to spot Russia from your back porch would qualify you to formulate Russo-American policy for the nation? That might be normal for some back-woods redneck but not for someone we want leading the nation.

My comparison of Sarah to Dan Quayle was not just an attempt at a cheap laugh…Quayle was no more qualified than was the last miserable failure (George Jr.) to lead the nation and Palin shows even less aptitude than either of those.

McCain lost my vote when he picked a bimbo with whom he would share the ticket. I still think McCain-Feingold would have had teeth and campaign financing would have greatly improved had McCain been elected. Alas, that meant risking it all if he had died in office and turned the reins over to someone with a high school sophomore’s intellect. Eight long disasterous years of that was already more than the country could bear under Bush.

Whoops I transposed those, I meant to say is it normal for one to think that Africa is a country, not a continent. I sound as sophomoric as she…

I’ll provide hip waders for everyone!

sorry spelled Quayle wrong.

James,

Am I resigning because I’m seeking a broader medium or simply because I’m too stupid to communicate effectively on this one? Sarah, doggonit, has left us all wondering as to her motives too.

If the over-under odds makers in Vegas have a mid-October date for when she makes her bid for the national stage…I’d think the smart money would favor the under. I just can’t see her waiting beyond September.

Its humorous how in the election cycle conservatives decried the messiah complex that they perceived had been built around Obama yet they can’t see they have done the same thing tenfold around Palin. Say what you will about Obama you can’t deny he is educated and an eloquent speaker who at least comes across as knowledgeable whereas Palin is a punchline gaffe machine who at best comes across as incoherent and at worst comes across as mildly retarded.

Thanks for the inside scoop, J.S. How are things shaping up there? Is there still a constitutional problem with the transition of your Lt. Governor to the Governor’s seat?

BTW, I own a business, support the right to own guns, and want less government involvement in my life. too. And I’m a liberal! Go figure!

I want less government. Oh yeah, and I have some sharp steak knives.