Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Is Sarah Palin an Idiot?

My neighbor is a “sunshine Republican.”  Happy to associate himself with Reagan but caught up in the hatred stirred up against Bush he tilted to the left.  Though his politics probably mirror John McCain’s he was unsettled by Sarah Palin and I think he voted for Barack Obama.  Like so many he now has serious buyer’s remorse.  Yesterday he commented that Republicans lacked leadership and needed to get a face out front to rally the party.  As he prepared to drive away he added for emphasis “That Sarah Palin is an idiot!” 
That’s an interesting opinion given what we have been through in the last two years.  Let’s pretend for a few delicious moments that one third of American voters hadn’t stayed home in 2008 and John McCain had been elected President.  What would the result have been had McCain been incapacitated and a Palin administration squared off against the Pelosi-Reid Congress?
Can you imagine Palin signing the abusive and wasteful Stimulus package that created a National left-wing slush fund?  Absurd.  She would have vetoed the Omnibus atrocity that followed as well.  The result would have been that States and localities would have had to realistically deal with their spending problems rather than punt them into the next fiscal year.  How about Health Care?  With the Nation reeling with 7.2% unemployment on Inauguration Day – can you imagine President Palin focusing on Health Care?  Please. 
Palin would have nixed appointing 37 Czars and actually created a jobs task force.  Unlike gaff-a-minute Joe Biden, Sarah Palin at least knows that “J-O-B-S” is a four letter word.  Further unlike the entire Obama administration, Sarah Palin has the executive and business experience to have come up with credible solutions to create jobs instead of making unemployment worse.  Part of Palin’s charm is that she hasn’t set foot in either Harvard or Yale.  Though she doesn’t have an Ivy League vocabulary; she actually has the gift of common sense unsullied by liberal academics.       
In your wildest dreams can you imagine that little North Korean toad torpedoing a South Korean naval vessel with a Palin administration in the White House?  Iran’s Achmadinejad - any thoughts as to what President Palin would have said that smarmy fascist? 
Who would be greeted more warmly in Iraq and Afghanistan by our troops?  President Obama only began loving our troops when he became their Commander-in-Chief.  Sarah Palin might use a poorly chosen word from time-to-time but she is honest and genuine unlike the current office holder.  Our troops would adore a President Palin. 
How about the Gulf oil spill?  As Barack Obama is learning, the office of President is no place for on-the-job training.  On her worst day Sarah Palin would deal more effectively with everyone from British Petroleum to the Coast Guard to State and local governments who were battling the environmental damage.  While it is popular to demonize Palin for trivial things, don’t forget that she was the Nation’s most popular governor in 2008.  She had dealt effectively with both government bureaucrats and oil companies in Alaska.  Unlike Barack Obama, Sarah Palin knew exactly what Bobby Jindal needed and she would have provided.  Palin really would have been able to help on “day one.” 
Would Sarah Palin have tried to shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention facility?  She might have asked advisors “What are you going to do with those vicious barbarians?”  No one apparently had the presence of mind to ask Obama that question.  No doubt the terrorists of 9/11 would have had a first class military trial followed by a first class hanging with a new rope long ago under Palin.  The New Black Panthers who intimidated voters in Pennsylvania would be in jail under Palin’s Attorney General.  A Palin administration wouldn’t have stopped work on the border fence which might have prevented a crisis in Arizona.  But even if Palin had fumbled that ball, can you imagine her administration attacking the sovereign State of Arizona? A Palin Justice Department might actually be concerning itself with justice.
Would Todd Palin be jet-setting around the world hemorrhaging American tax dollars on vacations and entertainment?  Can you see Todd insisting that we fall in love with arugula and broccoli?
Given what we might have expected under a Palin administration I don’t see a down side.  Given how Barack Obama has savaged the country and our economy how could we have possibly been worse off with Sarah Palin in charge?    By now even Barack Obama must wonder on occasion if winning was such a good idea for America or for him.  Perhaps he will write a third book from somewhere in Jimmy Carter-land in 2013 and we’ll find out. 
If Sarah Palin is an idiot, what exactly does that make Barack Obama?
Going Rogue: An American Life 

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