Sunday - July 12, 2009

Too early to write off Sarah Palin. She will be back, says Leonard Doyle of The Telegraph.

Never did care for Letterman and never thought he was funny.  But apparently many think boring is funny so I’m in a minority or he wouldn’t have that job.

This was a long piece and so I didn’t post all of it. The rest is at the link below.

Sarah Palin may have quit as governor of Alaska, but after gauging the mood in Washington, Leonard Doyle says it’s too early to write her off

By Leonard Doyle
Published: 9:30PM BST 11 Jul 2009

Last Tuesday, Alaska’s Governor Sarah Palin showed up on a beach in a fisherman’s bib and waders, hoping to clear the air about her decision to quit her job by the end of the month. But instead of providing the answer to whether she intends to launch a “Palin for President” bid for the White House in 2012, she became fodder for David Letterman, the late-night comedian.

“Is it just me, or is anybody else here having naughty thoughts about Sarah Palin in those waders?” he asked, pointing to endlessly looped footage of the telegenic governor clothed in rubber.

A few weeks ago he was advising her to update her “slutty flight-attendant look” and made an outrageous on-air sexual jibe about her daughter, which he later only half-apologised for.

When the jeering died down, it was not immediately clear whether Palin still had her eyes on the White House. Some of the governor’s friends believe her real aim is to develop a lucrative career on the lecture circuit, perhaps with her own TV talk show – indeed Levi Johnston, the estranged father of Palin’s grandchild, claimed last week that he had heard her talk several times of how nice it would be to take advantage
of the lucrative deals currently on offer. But her currency is based on the likelihood that she will declare herself as a presidential candidate some time next year.

And if anyone from small-town America can grow up to become president, surely it is Sarah Palin. She remains by far the most attractive woman in US politics. Even in her grungy, blood-streaked overalls, she cut a compelling figure for the cameras. But why she quit the top job with 18 months still left to serve remains a mystery.

Speaking to the journalist Andrea Mitchell, she said it was because she “loves Alaska”. She then complained bitterly of multiple and frivolous ethics investigations which had effectively paralysed her administration. The governor was also incensed at the growing mockery of her infant, Trig, who has Down’s syndrome.

America’s liberal elite chortled at the explanations. When someone pointed out that she shot her first rabbit on her back porch aged just 10, the media deemed that, at 45, she had shot herself in both feet.

More jeers were to follow every time the governor updated her thoughts on Twitter. In one early morning burst, she wrote: “Couple of thoughts for the day on beautiful bright AK morn: ‘You have to sacrifice to win. That’s my philosophy in six words.’ “

The governor’s BlackBerry produces half a dozen such haikus on any given day.

“Caribou Barbie is one nutty puppy,” was how The New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd summed up the situation. Vanity Fair magazine, the bible of America’s chattering classes, dissected what it called Governor Palin’s “narcissistic personality disorder”. On the cable news channel MSNBC, someone described Governor Palin as “incompetent”.

But it was Maureen Dowd’s spoof column, headlined “Sarah’s Secret Diary”, that captured the condescension in which so many sophisticates view her. “No one understands me. It’s like I’m speaking some Eskimo dialect or something,” Ms Dowd wrote, channelling Governor Palin’s style. “Andrea Mitchell follows me all the way to Kanakanak Beach and I get a French manicure and set up this huge photo op for her, even though she spooked the salmon.”

The liberal caricature of Governor Palin has previously been that she is a hopelessly erratic leader. Now she was being redefined as a “quitter” who could not stand the heat of political battle, and is therefore unfit for the Presidency.

The media is often a poor predictor of events in the US. It was slow to identify Barack Obama’s chances of winning the Democratic nomination and the Presidency. It completely missed the story of the global economic collapse. And thus predictions about the end of Sarah Palin’s political life seem premature.

Even though the Democrats believe they are unassailable in the face of a leaderless Republican Party, the country’s mood is fickle. There are signs that the tide is already turning against President Obama in some areas as he struggles to end the worst recession since the 1930s. In Iowa, a key bellwether state, his polling numbers are declining sharply.

THE REST OF THIS EDITORIAL HERE

Posted by peiper     on 07/12/2009 at 01:29 PM   
Filed Under: • Editorials • Sarah Palin •  
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