Category Archives: Sarah Palin

Thought on Gov. Palin

Posted on by | 3 Comments

So Gov. Palin went out on her book tour, all over the media, attracting huge crowds, driving the Left to invent new “facts” with which to attack her (and also driving her book to the top of the bestseller list), and I had nothing to say about it. Of course, as noted, I haven’t had much to say about anything else, either, in this space for a while; in particular, what with one thing and another, I just haven’t had the energy or the time to spare to engage with political goings-on the way I typically do. This is especially true given the goings-on that are going on; I know where the Anchoress was coming from last month when she wrote,

I didn’t even give the news more than a passing glance because it was all so depressing.

Before that, though, I had a couple folks accuse me of hero-worship for Sarah Palin, and I’ve been wanting to respond to that charge, because it isn’t true. I’m convinced that the secret of Barack Obama’s success is that he tapped into a deep latent hunger (and not just on the Left) for a secular Messiah—and that as such, his success contains the roots of his failure, because he isn’t up to the task, as no mere human being could be—and I want no part of it. I do have people I consider heroes, but I don’t even feel hero-worship for them; and Gov. Palin isn’t in that category anyway.

However, I do have a tremendous amount of respect for her, and I support her staunchly, not as a hero or some sort of saving figure, but as I believe the best and most promising leader in the American political landscape. She isn’t perfect, but no politician is—indeed, no leader in any walk of life is; what folks like USS Mariner’s Dave Cameron have argued with respect to baseball managers (that there are few who significantly improve their teams, a lot more who really hurt their teams, and the vast majority in the middle who have little effect) seems to me to apply to politicians as well. The thing is, for various reasons, I believe Gov. Palin to be one of the relatively uncommon politicians who has done and will do real good, and so I support her.

First among those reasons is the fact that I agree with her political philosophy and positions. It’s a simple thing, but not a small thing: what she has done during her time in politics so far and what she has argued ought to be done agrees quite closely with what I believe ought to be done. I’m sure there are areas in which I am not in agreement with her positions, but in the areas in which she’s made her own position clear (as opposed to supporting John McCain’s agenda during her time as his running mate), I really haven’t found any yet.

Second, I believe Gov. Palin to be a person of strong personal integrity and character. This is not to say she’s sinless, which would be an incredibly unreasonable expectation of anybody; but it is to say that she has shown the character to resist significant political temptation, and to hold fast to her beliefs and convictions even in the face of hostile opposition. The fact that she has endured the slings and arrows of outrageous media over the past year and remained pretty much the same person with the same set of beliefs is strong evidence for this conclusion. The fact that she showed with her resignation that she has higher priorities than holding political office, with the power and perks that go along with it, is further evidence.

Third, while I don’t claim that she’s a genius, I believe Gov. Palin is plenty bright enough to be President, and more importantly has shown herself to be a sufficiently quick study to stay abreast of the information flow that runs through 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Fourth, Gov. Palin isn’t just a thinker, she’s a doer. Even having left the governor’s office in Juneau partway through her one term, she accomplished quite a bit; and since leaving office, she has exercised considerable influence on the political conversation in this country through the decisive stands she’s taken and the arguments she’s offered for them.

Fifth, it was once said of Grover Cleveland, “They love him most for the enemies he has made,” and something of that sort might be said about Gov. Palin as well. The fact that she clearly worries the hardline Left more than anyone else on the Right suggests that she is truly the natural leader for the American Right at this point in time; the fact that she is scarcely less disturbing to the inside-the-Beltway “conservative” elite says, I believe, much the same thing. I have argued more than once that the divide between the elite political-media complex and the rest of the country is at least as important as our left-right divide, and that our country really needs leaders to emerge—preferably in both parties, from both liberals and conservatives—who actually represent ordinary barbarians and not just the groupthink of our incestuous media-political class, with a perspective that reaches beyond the Potomac and the Hudson. At this point, the only major political figure who answers that is Gov. Palin—and I fear that if our elites succeed in squashing her, there won’t be another for a long time, if ever.

And of Gov. Palin’s faith? No, that isn’t a major issue for me. The fact that she clearly sees religious beliefs as equally valid with any other type of belief to be held and argued in the marketplace of ideas, and to be used to support platforms and positions in the political marketplace, is a good thing, but she need not be an evangelical Christian to understand that. As to the content of her faith, I know she is conservative and everything I see seems to confirm that it’s real, but I have no idea whether the churches that have formed her have truly been Christ-centered gospel-driven congregations, or simply preaching a mishmash of morality, patriotism, and can-do spirit. I don’t know what she thinks of Joel Osteen or if she’s read John Piper or Tim Keller (or, for that matter, Jared Wilson). As such, I can’t say that I know enough to say anything about her faith one way or the other.

And besides, I won’t be voting to send representatives to a church council next November, nor will I be voting for a Theologian-in-Chief in 2012. I will be voting for politicians, and ultimately for a Commander-in-Chief. As such, I don’t want to confuse the issues. What matters most isn’t who’s the best Christian, but who’s likely to serve this country best in a given political office. My conclusion remains that the answer to that question for the 2012 presidential election is, at this point, Sarah Louise Heath Palin—and that’s why I support her.

A day that shall live in infamy

Posted on by | 3 Comments

68 years ago this morning, Japanese forces under the command of Admiral Chuichi Nagumo launched an unprovoked sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into World War II (though what would have happened in the Atlantic had Hitler not declared war on the US is hard to say). I appreciate Sarah Palin’s comment on this anniversary:

On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan launched a surprise attack on the U. S. Naval Station at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in which thousands of Americans lost their lives and our naval fleet was severely damaged. The events of that day, which President Franklin Roosevelt vowed would “live in infamy,” proved for many Americans that aggressors would not simply ignore us if we ignored them. The attack on Pearl Harbor launched America into the Second World War, and our Greatest Generation did not hesitate when asked to sacrifice for their country. American men enlisted in droves, American women went to work in the factories that became our “Arsenal of Democracy,” and many Americans gave what little money they had to buy the war bonds that funded it all. They stormed the beaches at Normandy and fought on little known islands in the Pacific in the name of liberty. They don’t ask for our thanks, but I hope we will continue to give it because the sacrifice that began at Pearl Harbor is one of the many events that have defined the United States of America as “the last best hope of man on earth.”

—Sarah Palin

I agree wholeheartedly with that. The lesson of Pearl Harbor, I think, is that in this fallen, broken world, sometimes war is necessary to prevent the triumph of evil and tyranny; it wasn’t actually Edmund Burke who declared that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,” but whoever said it first was wise (and in line with Burke’s thought).

Our refusal to fight others will not result in their refusal to fight us; there are nations in this world that are ruled by evil people, and if we are seen to be weak (in their terms), such powers will only be encouraged to aggression. Thus has it ever been, throughout history; thus will it ever be, until Jesus comes again. The curse of Santayana lays on all who do not accept that fact.

Re-Defeat Bill Owens in NY-23

Posted on by | No Comments

Or, Why Sarah Palin’s Coattails May Have Been Bigger than Credited

Check this out:

  • There was a virus discovered in some of the voting machines in NY-23, which were reprogrammed just before the election; none of the other voting machines by that manufacturer used across the district were checked.
  • “In Jefferson County, inspectors from four districts claim that ‘human error’ resulted in their ‘mistakenly’ entering 0 votes for Hoffman in several districts, resulting in Owens leading Jefferson County on election night though the recanvas of the computer counts now show that Hoffman is leading.”
  • “Doug Hoffman, the Conservative candidate in this election says that he was forced to concede after having been given erroneous election results on Nov. 3rd, in particular from Oswego County. Oswego County’s election night results were off by over 1,000 votes. . . . Hoffman is raising funds for a possible legal challenge to the results and requesting that the Boards of Election hand-count every vote. On Tuesday, he ‘unconceded’ the race. In light of the current concerns over the accuracy of the machine-counted votes, Hoffman may now have a legitimate reason to contest the election results.”
  • “The ImageCast machines have one more significant and scary flaw: USB ports. . . . [Using these ports,] software hacks or remote control of the voting machine could be implemented or a virus introduced. Since standard count audits are only done on 3% of the machines unless there is a malfunction, a functional hack or software change could adjust election counts with the County or State Boards of Election none the wiser.”
  • “The manufacturer of the machines, Dominion/Sequoia Voting Systems is the same company that Dan Rather accused of causing over 50,000 votes to go uncounted in the 2000 Presidential Election in Florida due to intentional oversight. Rather’s report claimed that Sequoia was well aware of the issues but proceeded into the election utilizing an inferior product and told election workers and technicians to ‘ignore the problems.'”

And it goes on, and on, and on . . .

Look for the smoke machine

Posted on by | 2 Comments

You’ve probably heard it before: “Where there’s smoke, there must be fire.” Like most proverbs, it makes a lot of intuitive sense; it fits the balance of probabilities. Follow it, and you’ll be right most of the time.

But not always, as I learned from the same source where I first ran across this proverb: Agatha Christie. Both of her main detectives, Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple, dealt at various points with domestic mysteries in small villages, which usually featured “spinsterish old cats” (not unlike Miss Marple herself, actually, save for the latter’s complete absence of malice) declaring that Dr. So-and-so must have murdered his poor wife, because everyone was saying so, and “where there’s smoke, there must be fire.” Usually, in those stories, there proved to be no fire at all, but someone else determinedly laying down a smokescreen.

To be sure, those were mere fictions to entertain an evening, but they highlight an important fact: certain kinds of people, and people in certain kinds of situations, find smokescreens very useful. They can misdirect the attention of people who might be watching; they can cover one’s activities; and of course, they can conceal evidence, including evidence of one’s own guilt. And because people are generally predisposed to think, “If there’s smoke, there must be fire,” one can often use them to convince the public of negative things about one’s enemies.

This is, I think, the basic strategy of the Left for dealing with Sarah Palin. Should they ever find any actual fire in her life, you may be sure they’ll pull every alarm they can reach and turn it into the biggest media conflagration in recent memory; but in the absence of that, they’ve settled for taking every chance they can spot, twist, or invent to blow smoke at her. It doesn’t matter whether there’s even the thinnest shred of a reasonable justification for doing so—they’ll do it anyway.

In one recent ludicrosity, they’ve taken her observation about “In God We Trust” being moved from the face of the presidential line of dollar coins to the edge and put words in her mouth to accuse her of falsely blaming the current administration for that act. Before that, they tried twisting Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s words to make it look like he was dissing Gov. Palin. They falsely accused her of trying to force the Iowa Family Policy Center to pay her for a speaking event. They twisted her statement about death panels in the Pelosi/Obama/Reid health care plans. They continue to peddle old lies such as the accusation that she tried to ban books. (And yes, the “they” in these cases usually includes Politico‘s Jonathan Martin.) And the list goes on, and on, and on, and on . . .

Why are they doing this? They’re creating a smokescreen, figuring that people are conditioned to think there must be a fire around somewhere; if Gov. Palin’s enemies can just keep the smoke thick enough around her, they expect voters to infer a fire, never mind that they’ve never seen any actual evidence of one. Meanwhile, those of us on the Right (who aren’t in thrall to one of the other 2012 contenders, or enthralled by the bright lights of the Beltway media) keep hooking up our fans and trying to blow the smoke away. Which is a laudable and necessary thing to do, and certainly we’ll be hard at it from now through November 2012 and, very likely, beyond. Lies must be fought with truth, and liars must be answered; the sincerely misled must be given the opportunity to clear their eyes of the smoke. It is a worthy exercise for its own sake.

At the same time, though, we need to recognize that our fans aren’t big enough to clear the air; and as such, we need to find ways to make another point to the electorate: watch the smoke. Watch the smoke and realize that it keeps changing—the color and direction are never the same twice. The storylines keep shifting, new accusations keep being made—often contradicting previous accusations. One might start to wonder if all this smoke is in fact coming from the Caterpillar‘s famed hookah, given the way it seems to enable one to believe six (mutually) impossible things before breakfast. Watch the smoke and realize it’s all implication, allegation, suggestion, prediction, and third-hand claims; realize that for all the smoke, no one has yet actually found any fire. Watch the smoke, and learn the real lesson: when there’s a little smoke, or a fair bit of smoke, yes, there’s probably a fire; but when the smoke just keeps on billowing by without a hint of a spark or any cinders on the breeze, stop expecting a fire—and look for the smoke machine.

(Cross-posted from Conservatives4Palin)

Reflections on the revolution in Berlin

Posted on by | No Comments

I’m still feeling awful, but a distinctly better shade of awful than I’ve been the last two days; my sincere thanks for all the good wishes, and I can at least say that I’m heading in the right direction. I still haven’t been up from the horizontal much today, but I had to stop and take note of the anniversary of the most amazing thing I’ve seen in my lifetime so far. From the celebration around the inaugural this past January, I get the feeling that many in this country would put Barack Obama’s election in that slot, but for me, nothing yet tops the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. The Wall didn’t all physically come down on that day twenty years ago, of course, but psychologically, that was the day East Germans forced their way through. It was an amazing victory for the forces of democracy over the forces of tyranny, and a vindication of Ronald Reagan’s belief that the Eastern Bloc could in fact be beaten, and was not simply a fact of life which must be accommodated. It may have been the greatest triumph for human rights that the world has seen in the last half century; I can’t say for sure, but I’m not thinking of anything to top it at the moment.

It was of course a victory won by many; in the West, as John O’Sullivan pointed out, President Reagan was in fact the last of the three great leaders in the fight, joining Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II. I think, though, that the psychological moment was President Reagan’s, coming in June of 1987 when he stood at the Brandenburg Gate and threw down a challenge to the leader of the Soviet world: “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Later on in his speech, he declared, “Across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.” For his words, he was mocked by many, and ignored by many more; but in the end, the truth of his words was proved when the wall was torn down, not by Mr. Gorbachev, but by the combined weight of the East German people.

The one thing that amazes me is that our president is not going to Berlin to honor the fall of the Wall and those who brought it down. German Chancellor Angela Merkel invited him, and he said no. He didn’t hesitate to go to Berlin to celebrate himself when he was merely running for president; why would he not go when he is the president to celebrate this great victory for the cause of freedom and human rights? I’m not the only one wondering, either; here, for example, is Rich Lowry:

Wouldn’t Obama at least want to take the occasion to celebrate freedom and human rights—those most cherished liberal values? Not necessarily. He has mostly jettisoned them as foreign-policy goals in favor of a misbegotten realism that soft-pedals the crimes of nasty regimes around the world. During the Cold War, we undermined our enemies by shining a bright light on their repression. In Berlin, JFK called out the Communists on their “offense against humanity.” Obama would utter such a phrase only with the greatest trepidation, lest it undermine a future opportunity for dialogue.

Pres. Ronald Reagan realized we could meet with the Soviets without conceding the legitimacy of their system. He always spoke up for the dissidents—even when it irked his negotiating partner, Mikhail Gorbachev. Whatever the hardheaded imperatives of geopolitics, we’d remain a beacon of liberty in the world.

Obama has relegated this aspirational aspect of American power to the back seat. For him, we are less an exceptional power than one among many, seeking deals with our peers in Beijing and Moscow. Why would Obama want to celebrate the refuseniks of the Eastern Bloc, when he won’t even meet with the Dalai Lama in advance of his trip to China?

For what it’s worth, I think his refusal to meet with the Dalai Lama was far more significant, and far more worrisome, since that concerned an ongoing struggle against tyranny in this world; but this still bothers me, not least because it dishonors the many, many Americans whose service in the cause of freedom contributed to the fall of the Iron Curtain twenty years ago. As president, honestly, you just can’t do that to your people. This also concerns me because it suggests a significant historical tone-deafness on the part of President Obama—and ever since Santayana, we all know what happens to those who don’t learn the lessons of history.

By contrast, Sarah Palin seems to understand the magnitude of this anniversary:

Twenty years ago, the ultimate symbol of the division between freedom and tyranny was torn down. The Berlin Wall was constructed for one purpose: to prevent the escape of East Germans to the freedom of the West. The Wall’s cold, gray façade was a stark reminder of the economic and political way of life across the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.

Ronald Reagan never stopped regarding the Berlin Wall as an affront to human freedom. When so many other American leaders and opinion makers had come to accept its presence as inevitable and permanent, Reagan still hammered away at the Wall’s very premise in human tyranny, until finally the Wall itself was hammered down. Its downfall wasn’t the work of Reagan alone. Our president’s actions were joined with the brave acts of many individuals who stood firm and united in facing the Soviet Union. The Berlin Wall came down because millions of people behind the Iron Curtain refused to accept the fate of enslavement and their supporters in the West refused to accept that the “captive nations” would remain captive forever.

Though that long, tragic episode in human history had come to a close finally with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it wasn’t the “end of history” or the end of conflict as some had hoped. New conflicts confront us today throughout the world which call for courage and resolve and dedication to freedom. The new democracies and market economies that have emerged in Central and Eastern Europe still require our friendship and alliances as they continue to seek security, prosperity, and self-determination. But as we reflect on present and future challenges, let’s take time to celebrate the anniversary of this awesome victory for freedom. The downfall of that cold, gray concrete Wall should be a lesson to us in hope. Nothing is inevitable. Tyranny is no match for the hope and resolve of those who work and fight for freedom.

—Sarah Palin

Remind me again why it was that he was supposed to be qualified to be president and she was woefully unqualified even to be VP?

Thoughts on the off-year races

Posted on by | 2 Comments

Sarah Palin called last night’s elections “A Victory for Common Sense and Fiscal Sanity”, and on the whole, I’m inclined to agree with her:

Congratulations to the new Governors-Elect of Virginia and New Jersey! I’d also like to offer a special word of support to the new Lieutenant Governor-Elect of New Jersey, Kim Guadagno, the first woman to hold that office.

Of course, the real victors in this election are the ordinary men and women who voted for positive change and a return to fiscal sanity. Your voices have been heard.

The race for New York’s 23rd District is not over, just postponed until 2010. The issues of this election have always centered on the economy—on the need for fiscal restraint, smaller government, and policies that encourage jobs. In 2010, these issues will be even more crucial to the electorate. I commend Doug Hoffman and all the other under-dog candidates who have the courage to put themselves out there and run against the odds.

To the tireless grassroots patriots who worked so hard in that race and to future citizen-candidates like Doug, please remember Reagan’s words of encouragement after his defeat in 1976:

The cause goes on. Don’t get cynical because look at yourselves and what you were willing to do, and recognize that there are millions and millions of Americans out there that want what you want, that want it to be that way, that want it to be a shining city on a hill.

The cause goes on.

—Sarah Palin

In retrospect, it’s nothing short of amazing that Hoffman came within two points of winning in NY-23; from a conservative point of view, he was clearly the best candidate in the race, but that doesn’t mean he was a particularly effective candidate. Certainly, having the GOP machine working against him and spending close on a million dollars to the ultimate benefit of Democrat Bill Owens didn’t help, but an even bigger issue is that he ran a poor campaign, while Owens ran a far better one. That he came that close despite the weakness of his campaign and Scozzafava’s endorsement of Owens (which packed considerable punch, given her far greater name recognition and the Hoffman campaign’s low profile in much of the district) shows the appeal of conservative ideas. Michelle Malkin is right to say,

NY-23 is a victory for conservatives who refuse to be marginalized in the public square by either the unhinged left or the establishment right. A humble accountant from upstate New York exposed the hypocrisy of GOP leaders trying to solicit funds from conservatives by lambasting Pelosi and the Dems’ support for high taxes, Big Labor, and bigger government—while using conservatives’ money to subsidize a high-taxing, Big Labor-pandering, bigger government radical. The repercussions will be felt well beyond NY-23’s borders. Conservatives’ disgust with the status quo has been heard and felt. They have been silent too long. They will be silent no more.

The GOP leadership knows it cannot afford to rest on its laurels, continue business as usual, and bask in yesterday’s electoral victories without confronting its abysmal abdication of principled conservative leadership in NY-23.

As Hoffman said in his concession speech, “This is only one fight in the battle.”

Onward. Upward. Rightward.

The truth is, while it’s definitely a downer that Hoffman’s half-court shot rimmed out at the buzzer, he was a JV player called up as a fill-in; had the varsity been doing its job, someone with a better shot would have been out there. His defeat is an indictment of the GOP establishment in New York, not of the principles Hoffman espoused—and compared to what the varsity did in New Jersey and Virginia, it’s ultimately far less significant.

As C. Edmund Wright says, the fact that the NY GOP screwed up the playcalling in their race only changes the dimensions of the overall rout, not the fact that the Democrats got routed. Bob McDonnell blew out Creigh Deeds for the governor’s office in supposedly-blue Virginia (perhaps scaring three Democratic first-termers in the House in the process), and Chris Christie won his gubernatorial race in true-blue New Jersey by an unexpectedly comfortable margin, despite the presence of an independent candidate. While these races weren’t referenda on the President, Michael Barone points out that they’ve served as useful indicators of national political trends before, and the voting patterns in these races suggest that they may do so again. Along with that, Maine(!) voted down same-sex marriage by a solid (though not overwhelming) margin, making defenders of the traditional definition of marriage a perfect 31 for 31 in state referenda.

Jay Cost makes an important point when he says one must be careful not to over-interpret electoral results, but the conclusions he does draw seem to jibe with the results of Gallup’s latest polling: having swung to the left in reaction to George W. Bush’s second term, giving the Democrats their big victories of 2006 and 2008, the electorate now appears to be swinging back to the right in reaction to the opening of Barack Obama’s time in office. Will this add up to a big year for the Republicans in 2010? Who knows? It could, though. If it does, I just hope those who profit from the swing are true Republicans, conservatives with integrity, not more of the same elite/establishment types who led the party to the debacle of the last two election cycles.

Sarah Palin, authentic feminist

Posted on by | 2 Comments

There’s been a fair bit of commentary since Gov. Palin’s abrupt arrival on the national scene about whether or not she’s a feminist (or even, on the part of certain wack jobs, whether or not she really qualifies as a woman); she’s never been shy about saying she is, while of course folks on the Left have coronaries at the idea and denounce her as a traitor to her gender. Why? Well, abortion of course is the key issue, but more specifically, William Jacobson was right to point out that the nubbin of the Left’s hatred of Gov. Palin comes down to four little words: Trig Paxson Van Palin.

If Sarah Palin had aborted Trig, the left would have been okay with it. If she hid Trig offstage and out of sight, all would be good. But treat the child as you would any other child, and that cannot be tolerated.

There is something about a Down syndrome child in plain view which has exposed the moral and emotional bankruptcy of the left-wing of the Democratic party. And they hate Sarah Palin because deep down, they hate themselves for being who they are.

The modern leftist-feminist orthodoxy is completely sold out to the abortion industry, and so cannot tolerate the suggestion that Sarah Palin, pro-life mother of a Down Syndrome baby, could possibly be considered a feminist; and so the discussion of her feminist views has raged on. Notably absent in the conversation has been much of a deep historical perspective on the meaning and essence of feminism.

Fortunately, that has now changed, courtesy of a young woman named Jedediah Bila, who is actually a scholar of feminism. In an essay published in six parts entitled “I’m a Feminist. Now What?” (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6), she writes on “Authentic Feminism: The Founders, The Distortions, and An Exemplary Modern Icon”—that modern icon being, quite rightly, Gov. Palin. Don’t let the number of parts fool you, it’s really not all that long a piece; indeed, my only real complaint with it is that it’s broken up so many times without proper internal linkage. If you’re not an historian or a history buff, you’ll learn a lot from it—and even if you are, you’ll still learn a fair bit, because Bila is thoroughly steeped in her subject. I certainly did (though my area of knowledge is much more 17th-c. America than 19th-c.).

Of particular interest and importance is Bila’s point that the founders of feminism were united by, among other things, “their harmonious, fervent opposition to abortion.”

In her publication The Revolution, Susan B. Anthony states: “. . . Yes. No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death…” In the very same publication, Elizabeth Cady Stanton affirms, “When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit.” In Woodhull’s and Claflin’s Weekly, Victoria Woodhull asserts, “The rights of children as individuals begin while yet they remain the foetus.” Alice Paul’s assertion that “Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women” has long been echoed by modern pro-life activists, and our “mother of feminism,” Mary Wollstonecraft’s doctrine with respect to abortion is clearly reflected through her Vindication, leaving little open to interpretation: “Women becoming, consequently weaker in mind and body, than they ought to be . . . either destroy the embryo in the womb, or cast it off when born. Nature in everything demands respect, and those who violate her laws seldom violate them with impunity.” . . .

So ultimately, what do we have here? We have a founding movement in which women devoted their days and nights to the acquisition of women’s rights, systematically struggled for the application of Rousseau’s Enlightenment fundamentals to both genders, and maintained that a woman’s choice of abortion reflected a weakness she’d come to inhabit (thanks to exploitation, sexual objectification, and a society that repeatedly indoctrinates women with the notion that abortion is their ticket to liberty). Who, in our current political society—more specifically, what woman—most closely echoes the convictions of these very brave, never forgotten heroes of herstory?

With that question, as you can probably guess, Bila comes to Gov. Palin. She lays out the significance of Gov. Palin’s membership in Feminists for Life, giving a brief history of that organization, which was founded in fairly early resistance to the hijacking of the feminist movement by the population-control/eugenics movement. She then exposes (and nicely fisks) some of the irrational and unhinged vitriol that’s been spewed at Gov. Palin by many on the Left who consider themselves feminists. In so doing, she sets up a telling contrast between the founders of American feminism and those who claim to be carrying their banner now—a contrast that does not flatter Gov. Palin’s hysterical critics. And then, magnificently, Bila closes with this:

So what does all of this mean for women, for feminism, and for the future of our country? Upon revisiting Sarah Palin’s statement that, “I am a feminist, whatever that means,” I can’t help but wonder if I’d have said the same thing. After all, what does it mean these days? Does it mean that one must condone abortion? Has a movement whose birth was so profoundly inspirational, whose leaders possessed uplifting intellectual and moral fortitude, been reduced to a single-issue agenda? Does it mean that a pro-life woman will be labeled an anti-feminist simply by nature of her pro-life ideology, which happens to be directly in line with that of the founding feminists? . . .

I can only hope in the months and years to come that women of all walks of life, of all parties and families, of all economic and social classes, take a moment to revisit what so many courageous women risked their reputations, their comfort, and sometimes their lives, to fight for. I pray that they see to it that the authenticity of their purpose and selfless beauty of their vision remain unscathed by the countless revisionists determined to corrupt that pure, righteous movement to suit their party or personal platforms.

Sarah Palin, I stand by your belief in women. I stand by your faith in the magnanimous potential of all human life. And, most importantly, I stand by your Wollstonecraftian integrity and unapologetic homage to the foundations of one of the greatest movements to grace our country’s history.

Through her essay, Bila offers and substantiates a pointed assertion, one that will no doubt infuriate the Left: the true representatives of authentic feminism are not the likes of Gloria Steinem. Rather, they are Sarah Palin and those who stand with her. She is the true heir of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and the one who carries their mantle. My thanks to Jedediah Bila for making the case, and for substantiating the fact that when Gov. Palin calls herself a feminist, she’s only telling the truth.

(Cross-posted from Conservatives4Palin)

Sarah Palin’s second act

Posted on by | No Comments

This is not something I would have expected to find in the Washington Post:

He was called a dumb actor—a mere mouthpiece for wealthy controllers on the right, who fed him lines and pointed him toward a lectern to deliver them. He communicated well and knew how to act the part, having trained in those arts. But he was really an empty suit.

Today, many rank that man—Ronald Reagan—among our greatest presidents.

That he was not the derogatory things he had been called was a matter of record. Well before running for the presidency he had wedded himself to the core ideas he espoused in that office—anticommunism, smaller government and lower taxes. For years, he had spoken and written about them. Yet, even some who served in Reagan’s administration were surprised when, in his twilight years, the treasure trove of documents in his own hand emerged, demonstrating his long involvement with these issues.

Now, Sarah Palin faces a similar challenge. . . .

Supposedly, there are no second acts in American life. But history refutes that notion. Presidential candidates who have lost earlier races, including Reagan, have returned victorious. Americans love an underdog—especially one they suspect was treated unfairly.

Sarah Palin may fit that bill.

Palin’s activities indicate that she intends to remain in public life. There are signs that her viability remains strong. That her new book is ranked among Amazon’s bestsellers, even before its publication later this month, reflects that Palin still commands interest.

To strengthen her viability, Palin must seize this momentum and mobilize her supporters. Developing and espousing a small set of conservative values that become her “brand”—as did Reagan—will be critical. She has time.

The chap who wrote that, Darryl Jackson, is a former federal prosecutor and assistant secretary of commerce who’s competing for a slot as a columnist with the Post. As such, I have to salute his courage here, because this isn’t the sort of thing that newspaper’s readers generally want to hear; it didn’t impress the judges, either (though they had some valid criticisms of Jackson’s writing style). Even so, he has a point: those who thought they’d buried Gov. Palin—and who are now whacking her with spades trying to get her to cooperate and stay dead—did so far too prematurely to be credible.

The 2008 campaign as “reality TV”

Posted on by | No Comments

Looking back through my archives for something else, I ran across this piece from Dr. Violet Socks that I’d intended to post some time ago. Apparently, I managed to forget about it, which even for me is a bit on the absent-minded side. It’s a few months old now, but I think it’s still worth posting as a feminist perspective on Sarah Palin. Dr. Socks is hard-left, strongly pro-abortion and strongly anti-Christian; she’s also as fair-minded as you can reasonably expect anyone to be, and recognizes the horrible irony of those who call themselves feminists trying to destroy one of this country’s leading female politicians. It’s a great post, and I encourage you to go read it; Dr. Socks gets off some beautiful observations about Barack Obama and the media caricatures of the last campaign:

[Gov. Palin’s] speech also delivered some welcome punctures to the national gasbag known as Obama. And that’s another thing: it has not escaped my attention that many of the things Palin is accused of, falsely, are actually true of Obama. This is a guy who, as a U.S. senator from Illinois, didn’t even know which Senate committees he was on or which states bordered his own. (And don’t even get me started on Joe “The Talking Donkey” Biden, who thinks FDR was president during the stock market crash and that people watched TV in those days.) I’m not saying Obama’s a moron, but he’s sure as hell no genius. People say Sarah Palin rambles; excuse me, but have you actually heard Obama speak extemporaneously? As for being a diva, surely we all remember the Possomus sign and the special embroidered pillow on the Obama campaign plane. The fact is, Obama is an intellectually mediocre narcissist with a thin resume who’s lost without a teleprompter and whose entire campaign had all the substance and gravity of a Pepsi commercial. Yet people say Sarah Palin is a fluffy bunny diva.

So: are we back to Obama after all? Is this a transference thing? Are people subconsciously frustrated by the fact that Obama is an empty suit, and are they transferring that rage to Palin? . . .

One other observation, and then I’ll quit: it is striking to me how much of the political discourse in 2008 revolved around people who don’t exist. The main players last year, if you recall, were Obama, the genius messiah whose perfection and purity would save the planet; Hillary, the evil racist lesbian who killed Vince Foster with her bare hands before plotting the Iraqi invasion and then attempting to have Obama assassinated; and Sarah Palin, a crazed dominionist who hates polar bears and personally arranges for Christian girls to be raped by their fathers just so she can charge them for their rape kits.

None of these characters are real, of course. Yet, weirdly, people were much more interested in these fictional beings than they were in the real individuals who were vying for political office last year. There were times in 2008 where I felt that the entire national discourse had become one of those scripted faux-reality shows, where nothing is real and the producers edit everybody into barking stereotypes. And the people at home just watch and point and snicker. We’re actually having an election here, I kept wanting to say. These are the people who want to run the country. Don’t you want to know who they really are?

Sarah Palin on safari: big-game hunter bags another RINO

Posted on by | No Comments

Dede Scozzafava read the handwriting on the wall—or perhaps we might say, in the polls—and realized her campaign for Congress was dead as last month’s fish. She might have stayed in and fought for every vote she could get, but the most she could have managed would have been to give the race to the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens; to give her credit, she responded to the situation in an honorable way, suspending her campaign and endorsing Doug Hoffman. Her formal announcement was completely classy, and leaves a much better impression than her campaign’s earlier decision to call the cops on the Weekly Standard‘s John McCormack; clearly, they didn’t handle that well, but the grace and character she showed in stepping out of the race more than cancels that out, I think.

(Update: Umm, no, she didn’t; despite what she said about acting for the good of her party, she turned around and endorsed Owens, which is the main reason undecideds broke 3-1 for him in the last 72 hours and gave him the race over Hoffman. I hope she enjoys her revenge, and I have to give her points for execution. -10 for class, though.)

This is a major win for Sarah Palin, Fred Dalton Thompson, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Dick Armey, Rick Santorum, Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck, and the other Republicans who had the courage and the native wit to revolt against the GOP’s revolting choice as its candidate in NY-23 and back the candidate who actually believes in what the Republican Party stands for. It’s especially a major win for Gov. Palin, because her endorsement of Hoffman was clearly, by a large margin, the biggest single factor in his moving from third to first in the race. After endorsements from Levin, Thompson, Robert Stacy McCain, RedState, and others, Hoffman was gaining support and his fundraising was picking up, but he still hadn’t raised all that much, and he didn’t have a lot of volunteers on the ground to build support and get out the vote. With Gov. Palin’s endorsement, that changed, especially as her endorsement drew other heavyweights like Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former New York Gov. George Pataki to do likewise.

All in all, while it was a collaborative effort, Gov. Palin is definitely one who gets major credit, perhaps the most credit, for taking down the Scozzafava campaign. Back in Alaska, she put a few trophies on the wall of her war room of “Republicans” who weren’t upholding the ideals and positions of the Republican Party; now, with her endorsement of Doug Hoffman, she’s added another, her first from the national scene. The national GOP establishment had best pay attention—and so had Blue Dog Democrats.