Stuart Schwartz: A Sarah Palin Christmas

Gift suggestions for the boys of the elite left
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Stuart Schwartz, taking note of the Palin Derangement Syndrome exhibited by the political and media elites on the one hand, and the booming cottage industry of Sarah Palin dolls and mementos on the other, has come up with a delicious idea. Why not give them the gift that will keep on making their heads explode?

For out elites, the plethora of dolls and figurines offer a unique and joyful gift opportunity: a Palin unable to talk back.

[...]

The "Sarah Palin Schoolgirl" action figure, for example, would be the ideal Christmas present for Keith Olbermann, the television commentator that even the left acknowledges is one of its most "sexist" and "misogynist."

This Palin action figure wears a plaid skirt, knee socks, and a suggestive blouse -- the stuff of sick fantasy. In other words, standard Olbermann treatment of attractive women (left and right agree that attractive women bring out the worst in Olbermann, who uses his NBC platform to "embarrass and humiliate" selected female targets). This lifelong bachelor is notorious for his inability to cultivate intimate relationships with women, and for his periodic fits of anger at talented and attractive colleagues of the female persuasion. A Palin action figure, with its short legs and limited range, would be perfect for a man whose dates usually bolt somewhere between the appetizer and entrée.

Palin dolls are perfect gifts for both the macho wannabee's and the sensitive moderns of the mainstream media. They can easily become the "must-have" dolls and figurines for the New York media male who is unafraid to play with dolls. We're talking New York Times here, home of men who can look at another man's "perfectly creased" pants (as did Times columnist David Brooks at those covering the legs of Barack Obama) and know, just know that he is destined for greatness. Brooks considers Sarah Palin a "joke," but her doll -- that may be another matter.

Hate the woman, love the doll. A Sarah Palin dress-up doll is the perfect gift for the newspaper of record's version of a man's man, a Clint Eastwood-in-a-tutu who admits to sometimes feeling a "frisson of pleasure" when, mouse in hand, he sallies forth to do battle with misguided Americans who are intent on defying the "toffs" of the media and political elites. Yes, he really used the word "toff" to describe the Tea Party perception of insiders like himself. He has been quite forceful in showing his disdain for those not part of the "educated class" and admiration for those who possess "several graduate degrees."

He is, in fact, one of the tough toffs of the Times. He is part of a media elite for whom nothing says Christmas more than, perhaps, the joy of accessorizing. All over Georgetown and the Upper West Side of Manhattan, in the Times and Washington Post newsrooms, at PBS and CNN, our educated classes will croon with delight at the prospects opened by the raft of Sarah Palin playthings. Imagine the boys of mainstream media settling down for a Christmas day marathon of mixing and matching outfits, of "Going Vogue" with Sarah.

[...]

For the boys of the elite left, Christmas -- with its trappings of religion and reminder of a tacky citizenry -- can be a toff...er, tough time of year. But when the going gets toff, the toff get going -- right to the Christmas tree to unwrap their Sarah Palin dolls.

[More]

- JP

Stuart Schwartz: Sarah Palin and the Haters of American Normal

Sarah Palin is quintessentially American. What gives her the right to be happy?
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It's open season on Sarah Palin, declared by the elite establishment on both the "Crazed left and sclerotic right" observes Stuart Schwartz at American Thinker. "Stop her now," is their battle cry, which is loudly trumpeted in the usual suspect media -- the New Republic, The Atlantic, New York Times and MSNBC MSPDS. Even on Fox News, Bushie Karl Rove is leading the RINO squadron in sortie after sortie on the GOP's 2008 vice presidential candidate, Schwartz remarks:

From left and right, insiders all, the anger is palpable at what James Lewis of American Thinker terms "American exceptionalism in the flesh -- and downright attractive flesh at that."

Why do they hate her? Lewis hits the nail on the head. Sarah Palin is quintessentially American. She is a throwback to the days of the founders, when citizens became politicians because the common good demanded service -- not because political office offered wealth, power, and a pool of Beltway interns ripe for sexual exploitation -- and followed their tenure with a return to private life. But we now live in the age of professional politicians, the self-proclaimed best and brightest who make decisions for an electorate too simple to understand "the facts or the truth." Or so says Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts politician who is to "haughty" what Paris Hilton is to "self-involved."

And so anger and angst bubble over, spilling out as the grandees realize Sarah Palin is just so darned...normal! Lewis describes her as a "beautiful, strong, intelligent, articulate, healthy-looking, truth-telling...gun-totin', sports-lovin', all-American woman." And that "sunny disposition" sets them off, for Sarah Palin is a fiery red poker plunged into the pasty white of the collective metrosexual gut. Elizabeth Wurzel, the best-selling author who blogs for the Atlantic, howls with pain at the realization that Palin is actually "the most visible working mother and female politician in America, that she is the best exemplar of a woman with an equal marriage, that she has put up with less crap from fewer men than those of us who" are the official feminists within the media and political elites.

[...]

But Sarah Palin is not Elizabeth Wurzel smart. Nor is she Karl Rove savvy, Keith Olbermann articulate, or Barack Obama cool. No, Sarah Palin is just plain normal. And not just any normal -- she is American normal, the kind of normal that wrenched a nation away from a calcified European aristocracy and established what Abraham Lincoln described as "a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." It is no coincidence that the United States is the single nation that, for the entirety of its existence, has had immigrants fighting to be included in a community structured upon individual "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," as our Declaration of Independence puts it. And now that normal is being challenged by those who want to control every aspect of American life.

[...]

Sarah Palin for president? The screams of the elites are in a crescendo, and it's not even 2011. The roar is deafening: She's not a Karl Rove or Nancy Pelosi, they cry, a John McCain or a Barack Obama, a Hillary Clinton or a Lindsey Graham. She's not Washington or New York or Manhattan or San Francisco. She's Sarah Palin, and she's Alaska, for Obama's sake!

And your point is...?

[More]

Joining the list of usual suspects noted by Schwartz is former New Jersey governor and still Vichy Republican Christine Todd "Landslide" Whitman. Whitman, a leading enabler of abortion, including partial birth abortion, founded a political action committee called It's My Party Too (IMP-PAC), with the goal of electing RINOs at all levels of government. Whitman claims that Gov. Palin's resignation shows 'attitude' against constituents. By that same "logic," Whitman's veto of a partial abortion ban showed "attitude" against innocent infants. Gov. Palin can wear Whitman's opposition to her as a badge of honor.

- JP

Stuart Schwartz: Sarah Palin and the Multitude of Dummies

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Stuart Schwartz has penned another outstanding American Thinker commentary in which he shines a light on the tyranny of America's ruling class elites and their media support troops. Some excerpts:

We are dumb. So say the folks at the top of our leadership ladder.

And they name names: Sarah Palin, taxpayers, Tea Party supporters, viewers turning away from the mainstream networks, newspaper and magazine readers canceling subscriptions, those without degrees from an elite university -- all dumb.

Stupidity is the face of American exceptionalism for Barack Obama and his media and university supporters. New York Times columnist David Brooks, a graduate of the elite University of Chicago, says the nation's a "joke," that Sarah Palin and ordinary Americans should shut up and let the "educated class" lead. Bill Maher, who practices his contempt at HBO and honed his arrogance at Yale, labels us a "stupid people."

[...]

Our traditional media, both left and right, regard this newly aroused dummy class (us) with disdain and anger topped with a heaping helping of arrogance. The deputy managing editor of National Review, even while defending Sarah Palin from vicious, gratuitous attacks (yawn), makes sure his brothers and sisters-in-brains on the right know that he agrees "quite intensely" with attacks on her rhetoric.

Sarah Palin is the anti-Harvard. She did not attend an elite university; doesn't have a Kennedy, William F. Buckley, or Bush gene in her body; and offers cringe-worthy thoughts such as "I love my country" and that character counts.

As such, she displays the "gleeful ignorance" that afflicts the vast majority of Americans disgusted at the mess our elites are making of the country. So says David Frum, a member of the conservative elite media; on the other side of the aisle at the Washington Post, editorial writer Ruth Marcus piles on, insisting that the angry nation represented by Palin is dumb, incapable of learning.

And so we need the guidance of our betters. Or so goes the thought processes...

This one's a keeper. Read it all at American Thinker.

- JP

Stuart Schwartz: I am Sarah Palin's brain

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Stuart Schwartz hits one over the fence at American Thinker today with his op-ed I am Sarah Palin's brain. We've excerpted the opening stanzas:

I'm here, I'm healthy, and I'm doing very well, thank you. Contrary to what you're told by the elites of both right and left, I exist.

And, unlike the brains of our beltway politicians and pundits, mainstream media and Hollywood grandees, my neurons are not stuck on "I" or kicking into hyperdrive at the thought of controlling every waking moment in the life of Joe the Plumber or Josie the Beautician.

No, I am an AI am Sarah Palin's brainmerican brain, savvy and predisposed toward optimism, the kind of gray matter powering the doers of this country since our founding. Robin of Berkeley, the resident psychotherapist of American Thinker, says my "sunny disposition" allows me to "(glide) by like a majestic bird in flight."

Hey, I'll take it! Sort of ironic, isn't it, as I represent what Time magazine calls "a nation of dodos." Dodos, of course, can't fly; they just produce weekly news magazines, work at MSNBC, or nest in the newsroom of the New York Times. And Dodo birds are extinct -- there's a lesson in there somewhere.

Read it. Read it all here.

- JP

Winging Maureen Dowd

At American Thinker, Stuart Schwartz fires another round at Maureen Dowd. A previous shot in August against at the elitist NY Times columnist seemed to us to be a silver-bullet bulls eye, but the rabid writer managed to survive. Schwartz must have only (left) winged her. Some tidbits from his latest Go-Fo-Mo shooting safari:

Dowd faces a new information age in which readers continue to turn their backs on her and her employer of 26 years, leaving a shrinking readership of aging elites from academia, politics and media. Her readers are disappearing -- and that's even before the Obama death panels for seniors kick in.

The result: she has become increasingly angry and increasingly shrill. The old gray mare ain't what she used to be.

Ouch! Now that's gotta leave a mark, no matter how thick the horse's hide. Back on target:

Family, wealth, friendship, school, and lifestyle. You either have it or you don't, which is why Dowd so despises the latest gatecrasher, Sarah Palin.

A week ago, Dowd again let her have it with both claws. Sarah Palin is just a mom -- a vicious epithet in the world of Dowd -- who is "fanning the flames" against someone she views as "a Harvard smarty pants." Palin is either jealous of his Ivy education or as "brain-dead" as her Down syndrome infant (she didn't say it, but that's "the unspoken word" she used).

Palin, with her public education, doesn't understand that Obama is Harvard "charming and informed." Dowd knows that charm is infused into the DNA of Harvard graduates, as Democrat Barney Frank, class of 1962, can attest. Barney's Dowd-like charm was on display during a recent town hall, where he called a constituent questioning his support of health care "vile and contemptuous".

As we say in the Keyboard Kingdom, read it all here.

- JP

More Tasty Sarah Palin Treats From American Thinker

We mentioned Wednesday that American Thinker had been on a roll recently with some very good essays on Sarah Palin. The website's roll shows no signs of deceleration.

Stuart Schwartz has followed his excellent Peggy Noonan post with another bulls eye in the same vein -- "Maureen Dowd: Sarah Palin Scared":

You're Maureen Dowd and you're scared -- Sarah Palin scared. Others -- like columnists Peggy Noonan and Kathleen Parker -- are jealous. But you are scared.

[...]

Choices. Her husband is dumb, a "hunky Eskimo" with lead between his ears, perfect for someone "hopelessly over her head." He has a fishing boat and works for an oil company -- big deal! Aaron Sorkin has been in and out of your bed for much of the past decade, and he is a big deal. The talented creator of a hit television show could spend more on a weekend freebasing cocaine at the ritzy Four Seasons than Palin husband makes in a year. Now, Miss Alaska, who makes the best choices?

[...]

But you're Maureen Dowd and you're scared. New Yorker Film critic David Denby looks at you and sees a woman who is "essentially sour and without hope." And no matter what you do, what you say...the big 6-0 is around the corner. And your ritzy Georgetown place seems quieter.

And, what's worse, you suspect that Sarah Palin, when her time comes and she is faced with the Big 6-0, will just smile and say "You betchya" ...and celebrate.

J. Robert Smith, who wrote in June about how it's always open season on Sarah Palin, now examines "Palin and the Battle for the GOP's Soul":

Palin's new freelancing is sending a chill up the collective spine of the left. That same chill is making its way up the pliable spines of establishment Republicans and in-name-only conservatives. How do we know? By the vitriol they continue to spew at her, via the main stream media and their allies in the blogosphere. (Peggy Noonan, David Brooks and Kathleen Parker, raise your hands.)

[...]

Palin has what one would say about nature: an elemental force. It is seen but not terribly well understood. Supporters admire it; her foes dread it and fight it. In politics, that elemental force translates into powerfully connecting with average citizens. Status doesn't count when it comes to the "force." Aristocrat cousins Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt had it. But so did plebeians Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan.

[...]

The good ex-governor intends to remake the GOP, first by reaffirming basic conservative principles, then by drawing distinct lines from those principles to the everyday lives of voters. She'll take whacks at more than a few liberal shibboleths, whether they involve taxes, foreign affairs, national defense, welfare or public education.

[...]

Palin's aim is to cobble together a coalition of the willing, a majority coalition that may - just may -- give a rebirth to the Republican Party. But she can expect more than slings and arrows from the usual suspects on the left. There will be a cadre of establishment Republicans and quislings who will employ whatever subterfuges are necessary to derail the Palin Express.

Unlike the previous two authors, Stuart Williamson doesn't have a lengthy American Thinker bibliography. His first contribution to the website, however, is an auspicious debut, with "Sarah Palin: A Leader Without A Party":

The Democrats -- and the Republicans too -- may find the next stage of Sarah Palin's public career uncomfortable.

[...]

Remember, she made it clear in her resignation that she was going to remain "outside" the political fences. For she is going to turn her guns on the GOP -- big time. She wants nothing to do with the Republican National Committee, and not just because she has been reading Mark Levin's Liberty and Tyranny. She has fought the GOP top dogs since her first days in Wasilla. When she was appointed by the Governor to chair the Oil & Gas Conservation Commission and found out the Republicans were dealing under the counter with the private companies, she resigned and blew the whistle. When her party wouldn't support her for Governor she ran on her own -- against their open opposition -- and won. And promptly attacked waste and corruption within the Republican state government.

[...]

Sarah Palin has the intelligence, the political skills, the downhome eloquence, the vision and the dedication to influence the swing vote come fall of 2010. She will have attracted the support of power brokers unhappy with the floundering RNC and attracted those "comers" within the party who share her views. As the election nears, incumbents as well as new challengers for Congressional positions, will want to be identified with her.

Palin has the upper hand. She will call her own shots next year, whether the GOP likes it or not.

Feast on these three tasty mind entrees at American Thinker.

Bon apetit.

- JP

Commentaries on the Liberation of Sarah - Pt. 8

This is the eighth 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.

We didn't think it would be possible for Stuart Schwartz to top his previous essay on Sarah Palin, but "Hating Sarah Palin - and Us" is another excellent piece of writing for the former newspaperman and current Liberty University faculty member at American Thinker:

Welcome to Mainstream Media World, where Sarah Palin is...us.

Call it Palin Envy, Palin Derangement Syndrome or even Palin Jealous. But the irrational hatred pouring from a thousand well-fed mouths, dripping from manicured fingers, from the talkers and squawkers of mainstream media, is fueled by the increasingly angry certainty that we -- and Gov. Sarah Palin -- simply don't know our place.

Witness rabid Palin-hater Kathleen Parker, the Washington Post and National Review columnist who has scored regular guest status on MSNBC for finding more than a hundred ways to say Palin is dumber than a chimpanzee... which, Parker opines, shows how much "deadwood" "Miss Alaska" has between her "low-brow" ears. After all, her "oogedy-boogedy" Christianity doesn't recognize the primacy of the primate in human affairs, putting her "Clearly Out of Her League" amongst cultured folks.

You don't need the brains of a chimpanzee to recognize the gulf between the world inhabited by Palin and that of Kathleen Parker, Peggy Noonan (Wall Street Journal, National Review), and David Brooks (The New York Times and National Public Radio) to name a few of the leading conservative lights of Mainstream Media World. To them, Sarah Palin represents the average U.S. citizen, who inhabits the American version of Bizarro World, the alternate Earth of Superman comics that was pledged to hate beauty and love ugliness; Bizarro inhabitants could achieve nothing without help from their betters.

drillanwr blogs at Infidel's Paradise, where the motto is "Submission is not an option." That's where we found "Alaska’s Ethics Trolls and The Slime Trail They Leave Behind":

So, what you have waaaay up there in Alaska is a group of people (and if you are of conspiratorial mind … backed by those with power and money who have a vested interest in ‘taking out’ a strong, conservative, republican political woman holding the highest office in the nation’s largest state because they fear her potential) thinking they are either shooting fish in a barrel … or know full-well they are disgustingly using the courts and the legal system for their own purpose … and should be investigated, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

[...]

I have decided her move was, yes, in her own best personal and political interest (i.e., removing the target) but also to preserve the governor’s office of the state that holds our largest and most promising source of oil/gas to the political party that is willing to drill for those resources, in addition to continued fishing rights for the fishing industry up there, and not allow it to be gained by the political party that is courted by fascist environmental groups that want NO drilling of fossil fuels on our own soil, or fishing in our own waters. Evidently Palin’s Lt.Gov. is on the same page as Palin on both these fronts and she feels she cannot only trust him, but wants him to establish himself as a comfortably experienced incumbent in the next election after finishing out her term -- hopefully without negative controversy. In doing so Palin has not only made a strong attempt to keep the Governor’s seat for the republicans who respect and understand Alaska’s natural resources, but has possibly saved thousands of jobs and the economy of Alaska and Alaskans.

And THAT really pisses-off those complaint trolls.

It’s the Saul Alinsky game being played here, and Sarah Palin seems to be standing taller and stronger against this beast...

Rev. Michael Bresciani has been a pastor, host of his own radio show and an author of two books and many articles appearing in periodicals from Guideposts to Catholic Digest. "Sarah Palin: The Media’s Unacknowledged Shame" is from Christian Voice magazine:

The stories about Sarah Palin are fair game but the twists and spins added to them are not and will never be. Move over homophobia - now there’s Paliphobia. Is the media so afraid of the potential of the Palin run in 2012 that they thought only a four year beating until the starting gun was fired could assure them they won’t get kicked out of the bed with the Obama administration?

After enduring the onslaught of newsmongers with insatiable hopes of dirt and sleaze directed both at her and her family, Palin’s resignation may be the only act that still has an ounce of dignity in it in the last two years. Republicans may not be too happy with her decision but her family came long before her career as a politician.

The jokes of David Letterman and the article in Vanity Fair perhaps were the straw that broke the camels back but it is the total lack of fairness the media showed that is a scathing indictment against them. If the country had a media czar it would seem appropriate that at this point he or she would be offering a public apology to Palin and that very humbly. Perhaps the czar could hang his head in shame as the proxy for the entire band of media thugs who reveled in the indignities.

We have a media that thinks the story of the congressional race where the candidate has been known to dawn diapers in comedy skits is real news and the photo snaps of the President on the beach is titillation for the rest of us. Who are these heavily biased lug nuts and what have they done to the once respected field known as journalism?

Heather Robinson is an independent journalist, and Jennifer Ginsberg is a writer and former actress/waitress and clinical social worker. They are both moms, and the two collaborated on "Sarah's Smackdown" for MomLogic.com:

As women and mothers, we should be particularly ashamed of ourselves. Women who have participated in this smear-fest have reinforced every nasty stereotype of female bitchiness and cattiness at its worst. Whatever your passionate opinions, whatever your disagreements with her views, this woman and her family were savaged in a manner that went beyond any reasonable standard. She is a public figure, but her husband and children are not.

We got ridiculing of Mrs. Palin's appearance, of her decades-old participation in a beauty pageant, and even of her children, which was especially cruel. Self-proclaimed "feminists" made a blood sport of hating and dehumanizing her. Any moms who jumped on the "bashing Sarah bandwagon" need to take pause and ask themselves how they would feel if they were in her shoes. Can you imagine being publicly ostracized for the way you look, for your opinions, or for your parenting choices? Can anyone say junior high school?

[...]

Am I alone in feeling that ridicule of a disabled infant, and rape threats, represent a new low? How intensely cruel and hypocritical this behavior was, coming from "feminists" and "progressives" who probably don't realize how many conservatives they are helping to create, as anyone with a moral compass is likely to figure that, if that's how liberals argue, maybe I'll consider conservative ideas, thanks. No matter how strongly you disagree with Mrs. Palin, this type of behavior is simply inexcusable.

I shudder to think that the women who participated in these attacks are actually raising children.

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
Commentaries on the Liberation of Sarah - Pt. 6
Commentaries on the Liberation of Sarah - Pt. 7

- JP

Commentaries on the Liberation of Sarah - Pt. 7

This is the seventh 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.

Adrienne is a young woman who is a committed Sarah Palin supporter and and a born again Christian. She also just happens to be black. Adrienne recently posted about the frustration she feels when she encounters people who falsely assume that Gov. Palin "doesn't like black people" on her blog Motivation Truth in "Sarah Palin and I Working Together":

Look, I've spent a considerable amount of time in Sarah's hometown, spent time with her family and friends. I've walked the streets of the place that has influenced her, where she grew up and currently resides. I worshipped at the church where she gave her life to God and worshipped for years. I digested the culture of Wasilla. I've met the governor myself before. I've talked to her. She's shaken my hand. She's hugged me. I've talked to her husband and two of her kids. I know what I'm talking about here. Now, I didn't have to do any of these things to know that Sarah Palin is sincere, kind, and respectful--to all. I already knew in my spirit that she was the real deal--a woman of character, a woman of God. I had no doubts along these lines, but when you actually look someone in the eyes, you get a better sense of who they are. When you spend time where they spend time and see the people there--how they treat you, how they smile, how they reach out--it brings it home even more. I know Sarah is who she says she is. I know she sees people as people. I know she doesn't have people divided into groups and segments of society. I support her because what she stands for is right for all America..."

Minnesotan David Karki studied political science at St. Olaf's college, has campaign experience and now writes about politics for the North Star Writers Group. In an earlier column, he turned a famous Lincoln quote about Grant into what has become an anthem for many Sarah Palin supporters: "We can't spare this woman. she fights." Karki comments on Palin's critics in "Who’s Scared of Sarah Palin . . . And Why":

Think about it – if she were half the joke of a candidate that both Democrats and liberal establishment Republicans apocalyptically claim she'd be, both should eagerly welcome Palin running against President Obama in 2012.

Democrats would theoretically have an easy win given a weak challenger and the fact that first-term incumbents generally win re-election barring a disaster. Vichy Republican bigwigs wouldn't have to sacrifice a preferred liberal candidate – such as Mitt Romney – against an unbeatable incumbent, and could save their Just-Like-the-Democrat-Only-A-Tiny-Bit-Less guy for 2016. With the loss, both would be rid of her once and for all.

But this isn't what's happening. Instead, both entities are freaking out over Palin, in a classic case of “methinks thou doth protest too much.” (To use the oft-misquoted Shakespeare line from Hamlet.) And, just as in Hamlet, the very fervency of the dismay inherently undermines its own credibility while revealing more about the critic than the performer.

In Palin's case, it's that entrenched interests on both sides of the aisle are scared to death of her. And even though the attacks on her might actually generate sympathy and draw attention to her, they can't take the risk of just letting her run, watching her lose and being rid of her – because she might well win.

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist, historian and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is an author and was a full-time farmer before he became an academic, as we learn in "Why the Elitist Hatred Toward Palin?" published at RealClearPolitics.com:

I saw more stupid people in graduate school and three decades in academia than I ever did who ran 100 acres without going broke-and more of the latter whom I'd trust not to bankrupt the country and let down our defenses than of the former.

While we rightly argue that the Sarahs of the world, if they are to be taken seriously as leaders, must read and study more, why do we not also suggest that the Baracks of the world could do a little more chain-sawing, run a coffee shop for a summer, or drive a Winnebago cross-country? (Who knows, he might meet a fellow woodcutter who knew there were 50 states or that it was dumb to make fun of the Special Olympics.)

After all, a lot of geniuses are now calling for a "second stimulus" to borrow another trillion or so still, but I don't think they come from Wasilla.

So I am afraid right now, but not of Sarah Palin.

Former newspaperman Stuart H. Schwartz, Ph.D., is on the faculty at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. We've referred to his American Thinker post "Peggy Noonan: Sarah Palin Jealous" before, extracting a Quote of the Day from it and also in an update to "The Pwning of Peggy Noonan." Here are some more excerpts:

You're Peggy Noonan and you're jealous. So you loosed a multi-column primal scream: Palin is an idiot who is "out of her depth in a shallow pool", a woman who has no sense of personal limits because she is not even smart enough to realize she is "a ponder-free zone." Whoa-good one! The rhetorical equivalent of the chickenwing camel clutch, where you come up behind and twist her arm behind her back, and then force her face to the mat. Or, in her case, to the snow. That's what they have in Alaska, don't they? You don't know, of course-Martha's Vineyard is about as far north as you venture, and then only to observe humanity-you know, the common folks-from "a little pier" before strolling over for dinner with two of the more brilliant stars in your friends firmament, television personalities Diane Sawyer and Katie Couric.

You're Peggy Noonan and you're jealous. You pal around with Sawyer and Couric, Jane Fonda, Marlo Thomas, Lily Tomlin -- the world is your aging oyster -- and The New York Times (which is sort of iffy on your writing) admires you for the company you keep. The Manhattan and beltway salon denizens love you. Brian Williams even said he'd nominate you for a Pulitzer, calling your writing "sparkling." Yes, THE Brian Williams, He Who Anchors NBC News, who had an audience with President Obama, to whom he bowed when leaving.

Bill Adams is a retired computer industry executive and an historian. From "Bon Voyage: Sarah's Departure Viewed From Alaska" -- also published on American Thinker -- we gain the perspective of the governor's neighbors on how low her enemies stooped to attack her and her family:

It was the assault on the children that was breaking my heart. As a father, I wondered how Sarah would explain to her fourteen year old daughter why she was the brunt of a joke on national television about her most intimate person. I pondered how she would council another daughter whose dual mistakes of getting pregnant out of wedlock and being a Christian were transmogrified into nationally-ridiculed hypocrisy.

Those involving Trig, Sarah's Down syndrome baby, were astonishing. How does one explain the hateful and evil mentality underlying these attacks on him -- and on her for daring to bear him? How does Sarah explain to her children the nature of people who rail through the media that the child they clearly love should never have been allowed to be born? Sarah's decision not to abort that baby, my friends, is what I believe to be the basis of most of the Democrat hatred of her.

Watch The View on TV or read anything from the Washington Post to the Huffington Post. You will see the media bubbling over with hatred of the woman who would dare not to kill her afflicted baby and then dare further to flaunt him in public as a blessing. Recently the Huff-Po proposed that Sarah run in 2012 on a "More Retardation platform." Good Lord.

Sure they label her as ‘trailer trash' and make fun of her manner of speech, but that's an old tactic for the Liberal Elite. It worked well on all of Clinton's bimbos and it worked on Bush because he had a country accent. But it is that she's an evangelical Christian and didn't abort Trig that makes these Elites crazy.

The absence of shame in the promulgation of such base evil is stunning.

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
Commentaries on the Liberation of Sarah - Pt. 6

- JP

Quote of the Day (July 18, 2009)

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Stuart Schwartz:

"You're Peggy Noonan and you're jealous. And, worst of all, Sarah Palin is not."

- JP

Commentaries on the Liberation of Sarah - Pt. 4

This is the fourth 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.

It is fitting that one of the best pieces written on Sarah Palin's big move should appear in The Weekly Standard. After all, it was TWS which served to introduce the popular Alaska governor to many conservatives, thanks to a profile of her by Fred Barnes two years ago. In, "Out of Alaska" Matthew Continetti explores why Gov. Palin will resign and what the implications are for her future:

Palin says she had been thinking about her decision for a while, and had talked to various people about it. In January, during her state of the state address to the Alaska legislature, she asked lawmakers to put the previous year's election behind them. "I asked them not to allow those distractions that were on the periphery to hamper the state's progress," Palin told me. But her plea went unheeded. "It became obvious in the last months especially that too many people weren't going to ignore those things on the periphery," she said. As the months passed, Palin arrived at the conclusion that she didn't want a second term as Alaska's governor. She had achieved what she had set out to do, so why bother with one more lame-duck legislative session in 2010?

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Palin has a devoted following. No Republican politician energizes GOP crowds as much as she does. When I saw her speak at the Vanderburgh County Right to Life dinner in Evansville, Indiana, in April, Palin was practically mobbed by well-wishers and autograph seekers. The conservative movement is rudderless, and social conservatives in particular would like a powerful spokesman for their cause. The social issues may not have played much of a role during Palin's governorship, but once she is free from office she can emphasize them as much as she likes.

At Real Clear Politics, David Harsanyi uses the examples of the current president and vice president to make his point in "What If Palin Were President?":

Really, where would we be if a bumpkin like Palin were president? With her brainpower, we probably would be stuck with a Cabinet full of tax cheats, retreads and moralizing social engineers.

If Palin were president, chances are we'd have a gaffe-generating motormouth for a vice president. That's the kind of decision-making one expects from Miss Congeniality.

The job of building generational debt is not for the unsophisticated. Enriching political donors with taxpayer dollars takes intellectual prowess, not the skills of a moose-hunting point guard.

The talent to print money we don't have to pay for programs we can't afford is the work of a finely tuned imagination, soaring gravitas and endless policy know-how.

Palin is so clueless she probably would have rushed through some colossal stimulus plan that ended up stimulating nothing.

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Does anyone believe that Palin possesses the competence to nationalize entire industries without the consent of the people? A housewife from Wasilla isn't equipped with political brawn to shake down banks and bondholders.

Palin never would be able to convince Americans that a trillion-dollar government-run health care plan would save taxpayers money or have the rhetorical ability to convince even a single person that a European-style cap-and-trade scheme has any benefit at all.

Palin is such a goofball that she probably believes oil will continue to be a vital American energy source.

On his blog Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion, clinical law professor William Jacobson takes a similar approach, sans the sarcasm:

Despite the criticism of Palin and assertions that she is unfit for the presidency, it is hard to imagine that Palin could do any worse as President than Barack Obama is doing right now. For all Obama's smarts and syntax, he is driving this country off a cliff, with the pedal down to the floor while he reads the drivers' manual on how the brakes work.

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An administration spinning out of control because of the same disease which characterizes all central planners; the false sense that central government is best suited to make decisions for individuals. And add to it the hubris of the political classes, the people who cannot fathom that anyone without the proper degrees or who isn't articulate lacks intelligence or common sense. By the time Obama figures out how to use the brakes, it will not matter.

Say what you want about Sarah Palin, she does not suffer from the Master of the Universe complex which drives this administration to push hard on the gas pedal as we approach the cliff. At least Palin understands how to put the brakes on government power. So who is the fool?

Much has been written on why the Left hates Sarah Palin. Various pundits have made the argument that out of pure jealousy, some hate her because she is beautiful. Others say it is her strong defense of the unborn and the fact that she gave birth to a child she knew would be a Down baby. Still others say it is because Sarah got where she is without having to ride on her husband's coat tails. Or it's is because she is a hunter and a strong defender of gun rights. Or simply because she is a happy warrior. These and other reasons are probably all valid. But we believe that one major reason the Left so hates Sarah Palin is because of her abiding faith in God. And her God is not their cafeteria Christian god who allows them to tailor their faith to their lifestyles. At American Thinker, Stuart Schwartz explores Sarah Palin's faith and how it drives the Left right up a wall in "God and Sarah Palin":

She looks at Washington and knows, instinctively and with gut-wrenching clarity, that what is happening is not just wrong...it is immoral. Following her resignation as governor, she told Time magazine -- to the amusement of its editors -- that the growing of government "outrageously" by President Obama is "immoral." She deliberately chose a God word that suggests evil, a word that belongs -- in the words of journalist Christopher Hitchens, the atheist darling of both elite right and left -- to "the superstitious, fearful childhood of the race" because she has a visceral reaction to the mountains of debt being piled on future generations.

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She prays -- an act that prompted the digital venture of the Washington Post to label her "A Little Shop of Horrors," Palin, described by Christianity Today magazine as "unabashed about her faith," prayed continuously during the presidential campaign as she has for all of her life. In this she mirrors the sixty percent of the country that prays at least once a day. Her prayer is a heartfelt effort to prepare for trials and challenges, the stuff of life. In doing so, she connects with the source of wisdom, unashamedly asking her Creator for patience, clarity, and the ability to love in and through all circumstances. And with her prayer she, in the words of Christian writer Philip Yancey, "stands at a place where God and human beings meet," a humbling experience that allows her to remain -- through it all -- just plain Sarah.

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

- JP