Happy Birthday, Track Palin

*
Happy 21st, Pfc. Palin, and thanks for your service to our country. May God bless you and keep you safe.

- JP

Track to Sarah: You only leave if you move up to something more worthy

From Diyala Province, Iraq, where he was stationed with the "Arctic Wolves" (1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division), Army Pfc. Track Palin tried to talk his mother at home in Alaska out of resigning as that state's governor. That's among some more details from Sarah Palin's memoir Going Rogue revealed by ABC News' Kate Snow:

"Are you going to let those idiots run you off?" Track Palin asked, according to the book. "You can't tap out!"

[...]

Palin describes how she arrived at her subsequent decision, also controversial, to give up the Alaska governorship despite her son's advice, which was: "Don't let the jerks get you down!"

"His view was that you don't quit. You don't violate your contract. There is pain, you push through it, you stick it out," she writes. "Then he brought it home: 'No dishonorable discharge. You only leave if it's honorable -- that means you move up to something more worthy.'

"Then it was my turn," she adds. "I asked him if he thought protecting Trig and his sisters was 'more worthy.' I asked if fighting through the bull so that I could reveal truth and fight for what is right for our state and our country was 'more worthy.' I asked if breaking free of the bureaucratic shackles that were now paralyzing our state was 'worthy.'

"I finally said out loud what I knew I had to do," she writes. "'I'm not a quitter, Track,' I finished. 'I'm going to fight. And that's the point.'"

We like the way Sarah Palin ends her book with a call to arms. Her last three sentences:

"Stand now. Stand together. Stand for what is right."

Those are not the words we would have chosen, but Sarah Palin has a lot more class than we do. And her words are much more inspirational than the line we would have borrowed from the Firesign Theater, "Eat flaming death, fascist media pigs!"

- JP

Palins honored at Stryker welcome home ceremony

From a report by Anchorage television station KTUU:

In Fairbanks, more than 4,000 soldiers with the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th infantry division were honored Thursday.

It was standing room only at the redeployment ceremony at the Carlson Center to welcome home the men and women who spent the past 12 months in Iraq.

[...]

"Standing before you and throughout this arena are the combat-tested warriors of the Arctic Wolves, the best Stryker brigade combat team in the United States Army, and the finest soldiers our Army has ever seen," said Col. Burt Thompson, the Brigade's commander.

The soldiers were recognized for their bravery and commitment to helping Operation Iraqi Freedom, but today's ceremony was also meant to honor those wounded in battle and those who lost their lives.

It also served to say "thank you" to everyone who helps support the brigade.

"To Sarah Palin who for the last year was the senior mom of the brigade," said Thompson.

Former Gov. Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, were recognized as distinguished members of the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, which their son, Track, is part of.

"Ma'am, thanks for being here today and for allowing your son to serve in our brigade," Thompson said.

[...]

Soldiers said when they left Iraq, it was more stable than when they got there a year ago. Col. Thompson summed up the past year in two words: mission accomplished.

Video and still photos after the jump.

- JP

Jimmy Orr on the signifigance of the straw poll

Jimmy Orr with some perspective on this weekend's Values Voters straw poll:

Sorry, but Huckabee beating Romney at a political conference more than three years before the next presidential election? Missed that one. It didn’t come across the ESPN ticker yesterday.

But since this is a political blog, we’ll give it its due. And we’re not diminishing the conference or the Family Research Council. It’s just too early to put much into it.

[...]

At this stage, it’s all a tie. And it will all be forgotten shortly.

But if you get down in the weeds, Palin’s numbers are notable. Some may argue that she performed poorly. But she, unlike the other second place finishers, didn’t attend. She was in Alaska welcoming home her son Track from duty in Iraq.

[...]

All in all, does it mean much? Nope. But it gives a glimpse into what some social conservatives are thinking.

Welcome home, Track. God bless you, and your family. Thank you for your service to your country.

More: Giovanni’s World has a few more words to say about the straw poll.

- JP

Sarah Palin proves her critics wrong again

The Palin-bashers of the nutroots Left frequently remind their drooling readers that the former Alaska governor is such a rank opportunist that she will seize on every occasion which presents itself so that she can make political hay and advance her career.

But the record suggests otherwise. Consider that the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate had the chance to address a GOP women's group at the Reagan Library in what would have been the photo op of the decade. Picture Palin at the podium with the Boeing 707 (Special Air Mission 27000) which served The Gipper as Air Force One perfectly framed overhead in the shot. No ambitious pol would pass this one up, right? Wrong. Palin declined the invitation, just as she passed on several other prime political opportunities.

And now she's done it again. According to Ralph Z. Hallow of the Washington Times:

Nearly 2,000 social conservative activists from 49 states gather for a Values Voters Summit in Washington Friday and Saturday, but movement favorites former Gov. Sarah Palin and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will not be addressing the throng.

[...]

Mrs. Palin, who resigned as Alaska's governor in July, and Mr. Gingrich, the former Georgia congressman, are the two biggest draws for conservatives across the country.

Despite their physical absence, Mrs. Palin and Mr. Gingrich will be part of the straw poll - the first major sampling of social and religious conservatives' preferences for 2012.

"The Palins are expecting the return of eldest son Track this weekend from a yearlong deployment with an Army combat brigade in Iraq," Palin spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton told The Washington Times.

As we reported Monday, Track's unit, the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division will complete its rotation home with the last soldier stateside no later than Oct 2.

Why the nerve of that woman! Passing on a prime political opportunity and putting her family before her career. Come to think about it, that's exactly what Sarah Palin did when she resigned as governor.

One of these days, the Sarah Snipers are going to wake up and realize that they have reached the point of diminishing returns by smearing former Governor Palin. It's turning off independents on both sides of the mid-field stripe. Their guy has a negative approval index to the tune of minus eight points; every major item on his agenda is opposed by an increasing majority of Americans (56 percent now oppose his health care "plan"); he is making enemies out of our allies and sucking up to our enemies; he's spending our money like he actually had it; he's run up the national debt and deficit to several times that of his predecessor -- in sum, his presidency is an EPIC FAIL. They are going to have to stop attacking citizen Sarah Palin and get their defense on the field to guard the goal line, or it's GAME OVER.

- JP