Amy Siskind doesn't understand Sarah Palin

*
Amy Siskind is a feminist who has in the past written positively of Sarah Palin, but in her latest commentary reveals that she doesn't "get" Gov. Palin at all:

Neither party is going to bestow their 2012 nomination on a woman simply because it is time to do this for our country. The Democratic National Committee had this opportunity in 2008 when Hillary Clinton was betrayed by the ever-present boys club. If voters want to get a woman into the White House, it is time to stop using a shoehorn and start using a sledgehammer.

Sarah Palin alone can wield this tool. Having resigned as governor, she no longer answers to the Republican National Committee. In fact, as the de facto leader of the up-and-coming Tea Party movement, the Republican Party answers to her. That is, if the Republicans hope to avoid what Dan Quayle describes as letting the Tea Party go Perot. If they hope to pull off a victory in 2012, they need Palin. And if Palin wants the White House, she needs to earn the votes of the disenfranchised women.

Yet it is unclear whether Sarah Palin will rise and capitalize on women’s sentiments. Since her re-emergence on the public scene, she has done little to show herself as a woman who will stand up for women, as a self-described feminist in Going Rogue.

Palin has failed to endorse important women of the Republican Party, and is actively supporting numerous challengers to Democratic women incumbents. She has become outspoken in her antiabortion views, turning away from what was a key factor in making her one of the country’s most popular governors and the de facto leader of the Tea Party: letting the people decide.

Following the links provided by the author in her original post, we see that her perception of Sarah Palin having "failed to endorse important women" of the GOP is based solely on the former governor's endorsement of Rick Perry over Kay Baily Hutchison in the Texas GOP gubernatorial primary. That Sarah Palin has endorsed and will campaign for Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) -- who last time we checked was very much a woman -- doesn't seem to have been a factor in Ms. Siskind's reasoning at all. Nor does the fact that Hutchison lost the Texas primary primarily because she was never able to explain either why she was running for governor or why voters should have chosen her over Perry.

Ms. Siskind also criticizes Gov. Palin for "actively supporting numerous challengers to Democratic women incumbents." Well, excuse us for pointing out the obvious, but why should a mostly conservative Republican such as Sarah Palin not campaign against mostly liberal Democrats? File that one in the folder marked "Well, duh!"

The author also laments that Gov. Palin "has become outspoken in her antiabortion views," as if this is some recent turn of events. Sarah Palin has always been pro-life. She was pro-life as governor of Alaska, and she wasn't shy even as a candidate for mayor to let that fact be known. While it is true that she became an even more outspoken as an advocate for life after the birth of her youngest child, Trig, who has Down syndrome, that happened well before Amy Siskind ever wrote her first word about Sarah Palin.

Truth be told, Amy Siskind wants Sarah Palin to support female politicians simply because of their gender, with no weight given to the political philosophy which guides them. In the Siskind view, no other factor has any relevance. Sarah Palin is simply not as one-dimensional as is Ms. Siskind, a fact of life that the author can't seem to come to terms with.

Yes, it is indeed high time for our nation to elect a woman to the presidency, but not just because she is a woman. To vote for a woman simply based on gender is as wrong as voting for a person on the basis of race, even though it has also long been time for our nation to elect a president who happens to be a member of an ethnic minority. That so many people voted for Barack Obama for no reason other than his ethnicity has saddled our nation with a radically left-leaning administration which has been woefully ineffective in dealing with the problems that are hurting so many American families. One would think that someone as seemingly bright as Amy Siskind would have learned something from that lesson, but such is apparently not the case.

- JP

Amy Siskind: Give Sarah Palin Another Look

Amy Siskind, president and co-founder of The New Agenda, argues in a Sunday Daily Beast op-ed that Obama isn't doing much for women and that perhaps its time for women to reconsider supporting Sarah Palin:

Maybe it’s time that women gave Sarah Palin another look. Palin, back in the headlines for rushing out a new book ahead of schedule this fall, is fresh, open-minded, a centrist and a party noncomformist. Hey, sisters in women's advocacy: Let's end the decades-long cold war with Republican women candidates. If we want progress to be made on issues of importance to women, our organizations need to master a skill at which men have always been adept: negotiation.

[...]

Sadly, for women, things haven’t panned out all that well with this administration. Despite receiving 56 percent of women's votes, President Obama's record on women's issues thus far is sparse, and suggests something that he either has a tone-deaf nature—or, if you’re inclined to a more sinister view, that he may be uncomfortable with women.

He surely hasn't surrounded himself with many. Of his 24 Cabinet picks, only six were women. Perhaps even more telling are President Obama's czar picks, which do not require Senate confirmation. Of the 35-40 picks he’s made to date, only three have been women. That’s less than 10 percent.

Here's what we know: Sarah Palin did not have a governor's seat handed down to her, she earned it. She understands what it is to be a woman having to fight obstacles—some overt and others subtle—that only a woman can understand.

I know I'll hear from critics who claim that Palin would not share my policy views. But what makes them so sure? As governor of Alaska, didn't Sarah Palin appoint Justice Morgan Christen, who is pro-choice and a former board member of Planned Parenthood, to become Alaska's second female Supreme Court justice? Granted, it’s only 2009, and we are three years away from the next presidential election. But doesn’t that give us ample time to open a dialogue and explain why women's issues are so important to our country's future?

Ms. Siskind is taking quite a beating in the comments section, where Obama's far-left attack squads are pelting her with smears and lies about Sarah Palin. The last thing leftist loons want to talk about is the failed Obama presidency when it's so much easier for them to just bash Governor Palin and Ms. Siskind for daring to say anything positive about her. We've never been Michael Savage fans, but perhaps he was on to something when he said that "liberalism is a mental disease."

- JP

Amy Siskind on what could have been

The New Agenda's Amy Siskind reflects on the excitement she and her friends felt when John McCain announced that Sarah Palin would be his running mate a year ago:

"While I might disagree with Sarah Palin on many policy issues, she seems, well, familiar. I feel like I 'get' Sarah and can relate. I admire what she has accomplished despite the odds and the barriers that our society places on women as they reach for leadership roles. I would have been thrilled to have her in the White House."

"The New Agenda did speak out for then Governor Palin a year ago – our first three press releases a year ago were in defense of Gov Palin. We were proud to be the first and only national women’s group to have Gov Palin’s back!"

And today?

"Sigh, I couldn’t help think about what could have been."

"Our country can be proud, yes, for electing its first African American President. But I can’t help but wonder, as Secretary Clinton makes women’s issues her main focus abroad, sigh, what could have been. And as Sarah Palin pursues a path less travelled now, sigh, what could have been if she were in the White House."

Perhaps what could have been is soon to be, Amy. There are many of us in this fight -- women and men; Black, Caucasian and Latino; Catholic, Protestant and Jew; libertarian, conservative and not so conservative; young, old and middle age; blue collar, white collar and tan collar -- and many more joining Sarah's troops every day. Like John Paul Jones, we "have not yet begun to fight."

The next three years should be both interesting and invigorating.

- JP

Commentaries on the Liberation of Sarah - Pt. 6

This is the sixth in a series in which TX4P recommends some of the best writing which chronicles the liberation of Sarah Palin from the ball and chain of the Alaska governors office to her new role as a leading American conservative coalition builder.

Amy Siskind is a 42-year-old mother of two from Westchester, NY. Like many others who supported Hillary Clinton for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, she believes that sexism in her party cost Clinton, to whom they remain fiercely loyal, the nomination. In August of last year, she co-founded The New Agenda, a non-partisan organization dedicated to improving the lives of women and girls by bringing about systemic change in our society's institutions. She has often spoken out in defense of Gov. Sarah Palin, as she does here in her latest Daily Beast column, "Sit Down and Shut Up":

If a woman gets too much power, she becomes a threat and she must either be silenced, discredited or simply disappear.

[...]

So is it any surprise that a brave woman from Alaska might decide to take a road less traveled? Why not? The fraternity of leadership couldn't quite get her to be silent or disappear, so it tried the next best thing: discredit her. Better yet, while discrediting her, let's go after her children—that will work like a charm.

But Sarah Palin, perhaps unwittingly, found a way to short circuit this whole diminution and demolition process. She decided that she didn't want to be in the fraternity after all. She would rather charter her own sorority and set up her own rules.

Robin of Berkeley is a self-described "recovering liberal" in Berkeley who crossed over from the dark side to the light. She is a regular contributor at American Thinker, where her latest is titled "Sarah Palin vs. the Marquis de Sade":

Let's call them by their true name. When an actress calls for gang raping Palin, she's a sadist. When people torch Palin's church with children inside, they are sadists. When bloggers call her a c___t and scorn her disabled son, they are being sadists.

[...]

A society gone mad, a "return to the primitive," as Ayn Rand described it forty years ago when she witnessed the growing power of the Left. Adults who have the impulse control of two year olds marching around, unhinged and uncontrolled, like Lord of the Flies. Teens beating up each other and teachers and uploading the video on YouTube.

Good people like Palin and Carrie Prejean being victimized in a manner so malicious that the intent is nothing short of destroying them. And the Powers that Be which could stop the growing brutality at any time by calling off the dogs, calling for order, won't do so because it serves their needs. After all, it's what Saul Alinsky preached: control the masses by keeping them agitated and paranoid.

Clearly Nebulous is the name of the next author's blog, and since we don't know her, we assume it's also the internet handle of this married mother of seven who took up blogging to "find a little lucidity." She seems crystal clear in "The Only Big Loser in Palin Resignation":

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post had an op-ed back in May of 2008 that discussed a study of why so few women run for office in America. The main reason seemed to be that women recoiled from "dirty politics" and were reluctant to jump into the ring.

So what do Marcus and her ilk proceed to do? Attempt to tear down Sarah Palin every chance they got.

[...]

Thanks to the incessant attacks of the Democratic party, the media, the late-night comics, and the liberals in LA-LA Land, the governing bodies of this nation may continue to have a dearth of the contributions that women could be making to the hallowed halls of our legislatures. And the vicious lefties will have no one to blame but themselves.

But not if Sarah Palin, myself, and every other brave female soul out there have our say... despite them all.

This next post, while not directly related to Gov. Palin's resignation, was one we couldn't leave out of this collection of writings by the ladies.

Darleen Click blogs at her own Darleen's Place and also contributes at Protein Wisdom, where we found "Woman professor arrested for child endangerment: BLAME PALIN!!":

Bridget Kevan got... arrested for dropping her kids and friends (two 12 y/os, and an 8, 7 and 3 y/o) at the mall and returned to her home for a rest... But none of the above will quite prepare you for Judith Warner’s diatribe in blaming Professor Kevan’s plight on Sarah Palin... The real Palin is everything Judith should applaud save for one thing — she’s a conservative... While Judith was pounding out another blog post for her NYTimes Friday deadline, Sarah was running a state.

Judith would have you believe that using the word "elite" in a disparaging tone is synonymous with being anti-education.

Judith has a lot to learn.

Other posts in this series:

Commentaries on the Liberation of Sarah - Pt. 1
Commentaries on the Liberation of Sarah - Pt. 2
Commentaries on the Liberation of Sarah - Pt. 3
Commentaries on the Liberation of Sarah - Pt. 4
Commentaries on the Liberation of Sarah - Pt. 5

- JP