Readers of this blog will not be surprised to hear that I welcome Sarah Palin’s resignation of the Alaskan governorship with open arms. John McCain’s misguided decision to appoint her as his running mate last Fall was a slap in the face to the American electorate and it left me utterly cold on all things Republican. It’s not so much that I dislike her as a person. After all, I know nothing about her as an individual. But what she has put out there for public consumption leaves much to be desired, particularly for someone seeking the powers that go with higher office. She strikes me as uninformed, intellectually lazy (yes, I prefer my leadership smart), disingenuous (standard for all politicians, really), incapable of original thought, and downright goofy. Not to mention she has a set of “values” that I simply cannot reconcile, which resonates with me personally as a potential voter. Now that I think about, she sounds an awful lot like W, which probably explains my visceral reaction to her.
Her resignation speech perfectly encapsulates the issues that engineered (for now) her fall from grace. It provided a fascinating look into the politician herself, who embodied a strange and conflicting combination of traits that would leave any sober observer confused about pretty much everything, ranging from the temperature outside to whether Palin made proper use of the word “apathy”. Among many other head scratchers, she said life is about choices yet she is ardently anti-choice when it comes to a woman’s right to choose. She lamented the “quitters way out”, yet the whole point of her speech was that she was indeed quitting. She’s doing what is right for Alaska by stepping down, which would mean that Alaska is best without her. She shat all over lame duck politicians, inferred that her political opponents don’t love America, complained about the unfair media focus on her (which took on shades of Megan McCain’s pouting performance on Bill Maher), and tried to frame stepping back as stepping forward, which is eerily reminiscent of how the neocons frame the concept of “victory” in Iraq. And she talked about dead fish and point guards passing for victory, which no doubt elicited nods of approval from Godfather fans the nation over, not to mention the likes of Chris Paul and Jason Kidd, while leaving the rest of us wondering if we left the iron on when we departed for work this morning.
For those who missed her strange, rambling, and incoherent speech, check the clip below:
The media response to her resignation is falling along typical ideological lines. Liberal pundits are falling over themselves with schadenfreude while a lot (though not all) of her conservative compatriots scramble to her defense. The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol, who basically helped create Palin the VP candidate (he also helped engineer the war in Iraq, making for a nice double), has taken a cautiously optimistic stance on the move, hedging his bets along the way but sounding implicitly positive. Mary Matlin called the move “brilliant” and Kathryn Jean Lopez at the National Review believes that this is a “real opportunity for her to show us her stuff”. Of course, this all presupposes that she’s doing this not for the betterment of Alaska but for the sake of her own political career, perhaps extricating herself from the unflattering spotlight of the Alaskan governship so she can rev up for a senatorial run or, later, a shot at the Presidency. This would fly in the face of those espousing the theory that she is human after all and is stepping down for the sake of her family, which J.R. Dunn suggested over at American Thinker. It would be an admirable move if he were proved correct, but my guess is this has much more to do with political ambition than a sense of familial obligation.
Alas, I’m sure we will see her again on the national stage, and we, as a country, will be the poorer for it. She simply doesn’t have what it takes, in my view, to lead a small township, much less the entire country. Granted, she has been grilled by the national media and that grilling has had its fair share of low blows. For instance, jokes about her children were often inappropriate. That being said, her abilities (or lack thereof) were fair game and the hits she took on that front were reasonable beyond a doubt. Of course, there were other nitpicky moments having to do with her wardrobe, alleged affairs, etc., but she isn’t the first politician to be lambasted for things trivial. Lest we forget the Republican attack machine that resulted in Bill Clinton being impeached for getting a beejer in the Oval Office.
In any event, after watching the speech, I couldn’t help but be reminded of one of the great movie quotes in recent memory (from Billy Madison), which I’ve slightly edited and pasted below for your enjoyment:
[Mrs. Palin], 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.
