Burning Sarah At The Stake

I doubt we've ever seen the like in American politics of the public vilification of Governor Sarah Palin and her family.

The fact that she resonates so well with average Americans would be reason enough to destroy her as far as the Left is concerned because it's how they play the game.
Think of it as a classic meme in child psychology:"you impede me, so you're evil and I hate you..."

Or to put it another way, precisely because her impact and repoir with ordinary Americans is so feared, she has to be eliminated.

Of course it's not just Governor Palin's ideas and public record that have to be distorted, held up to ridicule and debunked...she and her family have to be destroyed personally, so that no other uppity woman ever thinks of going off the reservation without a small 'd' after her name and the proper Leftist views.

To that end, she's been characterized as an airhead and a buffoon, a redneck trailer trash breeder from yahooville. The parentage of her children has been questioned, her pregnant teen age daughter (something most families, even those in the public eye are allowed by common decency to deal with in private) made into a public laughing stock, vague rumours about a supposed affair were circulated and a trumped up 'scandal' regarding the firing of one of her cabinet officers was concocted by her political enemies in her home state who were involved in the Obama campaign and blown out of all proportion by the media.

Huge platoons of reporters for the dinosaur media as well as squads of Democrat operatives made the trek up to Alaska looking to find something, anything that would stick. They found virtually nothing, so they simply Made Stuff Up, lying about how Mayor Palin banned books in the Wasilla Library and how Governor Palin supposdly charged victims of sexual assault for their rape kits.

Later they stooped to hostile, heavily edited interviews and out of context soundbites to try and attack her credibility and make her look like an idiot.

Governor Palin happens to be an attractive woman with traditional religious beliefs and conservative and pro second amendment views..and she's pro-life. That last especially infuriated woman on the Left, and as usual when a conservative woman is involved, she was subjected to incredibly vile and sexist insults that wouldn't have even been tolerated for a second if she was a Leftist politician touting abortion on demand.

And needless to say, the Obama campaign not only refused to condemn any of this but actually encouraged it.

It's not only the Left that decided that Sarah Palin needed to be burnt at the stake but a number of establishment self-described conservative pundits on the Right. Instead of seeing her potent mixture of populism and traditional American ideals as a breath of fresh air, they saw her as an embarrassment,especially in the predominantly liberal circles they work, socialize and live in. They've forgotten, even if they once knew, that this was exactly the ideas, appeal and constituency that put Ronald Reagan in the White House for two terms by a landslide and developed enough revolutionary momentum to have had decent chance to engineer a permanent conservative majority in Congress - until George W. Bush willfully destroyed it.

The line coming from these folks nowadays is that Palin was McCain's 'mistake' and if he loses, it will be his pick of Governor Palin as a running mate that will be the thing that costs him the election.The ironic thing is that picking Sarah Palin was one of the few things McCain has done right in his campaign, especially since he's absolutely refused until recently to attack the Bush Administration's farcical mismanagement of the country or his pals in the most dysfunctional Congress in recent history.

Sarah Palin was exactly the jolt of electricity a tired underdog McCain campaign needed. She gave people a reason to turn on to the campaign, pumped up the McCain campaign's moribund fundraising and she hit the ground running in a way that was simply astonishing.

And no matter what sort of slime has been thrown on her, she still managed to keep on message,keep smiling and continue connecting with the huge crowds she drew in an astonishing way.

Lorne Michaels, talking about Palin's stint on Saturday Night Live that brought the show the highest ratings it had in fourteen years said it best:

"I think Palin will continue to be underestimated for a while. I watched the way she connected with people, and she's powerful. Her politics aren't my politics. But you can see that she's a very powerful, very disciplined, incredibly gracious woman. This was her first time out and she's had a huge impact. People connect to her."

The most surprising thing some people - especially those supporting Barack Obama - continue to say about Sarah Palin is that she's inexperienced and not ready.

Aside from her past record, after what she's had to deal with these last two months I don't think she'll have a problem dealing with the spotlight or the pressure of running the Senate and keeping it in line (yes, buckaroos, she was 100% correct about that one - read the Constitution where it gives the Vice President the responsibility of PRESIDING over the Senate) or with dealing with higher office in the future.

Among her other attributes, she's proved she can deal with the pressure and adversity. And no matter what happens November 4th, she's not disappearing...provided the treatment she's received hasn't simply disgusted her with the whole sordid mess of seeking public office nowadays
.

I hope not. We need her and others like her to put our beloved Republic back on course.