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Sunken ships loosen bitter lips.
Michelle Malkin, National Review. . . The finks turned to Newsweek and Fox News to spread petty rumors about Palins intellect and character. The magazine peddled anecdotes from sources horrified that Palin greeted top advisers at her hotel room gasp! wearing nothing but a towel and wet hair. Fox News reporter Carl Cameron breathlessly reported that his unnamed McCain sources told him Palin lacked a degree of knowledgeability necessary to be a running mate because, they claimed, she didnt know which countries were parties to the North American Free Trade Agreement and didnt understand that Africa was a continent, rather than a series, a country just in itself. Lets assume for a moment that the McCain rumormongers are telling the truth about Palin (and I dont believe they are). Who would it damn more: Palin, or McCain and his vetters, who greenlighted her for the vice-presidential nomination? Dont need a fancy Ivy League degree to figure that one out. In introducing her to America, McCain praised her independence and backbone: She stands up for whats right, and she doesnt let anyone tell her to sit down. The inside snipers are now roasting her for that very attribute redefined as going rogue because she had the nerve to try to schedule media interviews on her own. The nerve of her! Palins response to the campaign fragging? At a late Wednesday night airport press conference in Anchorage, immediately upon landing home after the election defeat, she smiled cheerfully. The Alaska governor shrugged off the foolish things said by the McCain saboteurs, and simply said, Its politics. Its rough and tumble and youve got to have a thick skin just like Ive got. Hollywood savaged Palin. Journalists mocked her. Liberal blogs slimed her. Opponents cursed her, Photoshopped her, hacked her e-mail, hanged her in effigy, called her bigot, Bible-thumper and bimbo, and attacked her husband and children. But nothing Palin endured during the election season compares to the treatment shes receiving from these backstabbing blabbermouths who worked on the same campaign she poured herself into over the last three months. Sarah Palin worked her heart out. She energized tens of thousands to come out when they would have otherwise stayed home. She touched countless families. I didnt agree with everything she said on the campaign trail. But she vigorously defended the Second Amendment and the sanctity of life more eloquently in practice than any of the educated conservative aristocracy. And she did it all with a tirelessness and an infectious optimism that defied the shameless, bottomless attempts by elites in both parties to bring her and her family down. Liberty needs a virtuous people to survive; self-governance requires virtuous leaders. Knowledgeability is a necessary trait in political life, but it is not sufficient. The elitist critics of Palin, so blindly enamored of Barack Obamas ability to hold forth for hours on theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, ignored the Founding Fathers counsel: Character counts. In times of adversity and crisis, it counts more than IQ points, instant trivia recall and bloviation skills. . . . Posted by: Mike 2008-11-07 |
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