Jack Kelly: The real Sarah Palin

She's not the snowbilly of media caricature.
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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Jack Kelly quotes a number of lamestream media journalists who were forced to admit that the Sarah Plain revealed by the last week's massive email release turned out to be a different person entirely from the caricature of her that they themselves had labored so hard to burn into the American psyche for the better part of three long years. Among the usual suspects cited by Kelly is Politico's Molly Ball:

Ms. Ball described her as "the long-lost Palin." But the real Sarah Palin wasn't "lost." The news media hid her. Journalists were too busy scouring her personal life for hints of scandal to report on Ms. Palin's accomplishments in public office.

"When my co-host, Mika Brzezinski and I arrived at the Republican National Convention (in 2008), we were met by excited network chiefs and newspaper reporters who were chasing down a sleazy Internet rumor that Trig Palin was not Palin's child," said MSNBC talk show host Joe Scarborough. "Mika received a number of calls from her friends at the major networks gleefully passing along the Internet lie before cheering for Palin's demise."

Some pundits declare Ms. Palin won't run for president and couldn't win if she did. Is this what they really think? Or is it what they hope Republicans will believe if they say it often enough?

Nonstop criticism has hurt Sarah Palin in the polls. It would be difficult to overcome the false picture painted of her. But the emails, and a forthcoming documentary, are steps in that direction. Furthermore, their now naked -- and increasingly comical -- partisanship has hurt the credibility of her adversaries in journalism.

Back when the reputation of the "mainstream" media was better and its monopoly near total, another conservative derided as stupid and extreme prevailed when he emerged on center stage and dispelled the media caricature of him. Republicans already think Sarah Palin is more like Ronald Reagan than is any other presidential aspirant. If she chooses to run, she may resemble the Gipper in yet another way.

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The left's standard response when anyone makes comparisons between Reagan and Palin is, "She's no Ronald Reagan." But they miss the salient point that she has never claimed to be what elder Reagan son once described as the reincarnation of his dad. Even most die hard Palin supporters don't go that far. Instead, we make the case that she is something much more threatening to the leftist agenda than Reagan's ghost wearing a dress. gov. Palin is a true Reagan believer, one who is dedicated to putting his principles, too long ignored by his own political party, back into practice to save this Republic. That's the real Sarah Palin, and she's as real as Reagan conservatism gets.

- JP