Clayton E. Cramer: Surprises Abound in Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue

Via Pajamas Media

I picked up Going Rogue at Target a couple of weeks ago. It has a number of surprises, some pleasant, some just startling. It tends to confirm my belief that Sarah Palin, while perhaps not qualified to be president or vice president last year, was certainly more qualified than McCain, Obama, or Biden.

[...]

My biggest surprise was that Going Rogue was apparently not “ghostwritten.” In a few places, I noticed sentences with “I” instead of “me” for the direct object — a mistake that a professional writer wouldn’t make. There is also a bit more use of “I” (at least, properly used as the subject) than a professional writer might use, even in an autobiography.

[...]

Going Rogue is well written, and it reads quickly and easily. Unlike some other “first books” that I have read (and many books by academics), I almost never found myself going back over a sentence to figure out her meaning. Palin’s B.A. from the University of Idaho is in journalism and she worked as a journalist for a while.

[...]

Another aspect of the book that surprised me is her portrayal of what went wrong with the McCain campaign. I assumed that part of why McCain operatives tried to throw her under the bus in the closing days of the campaign was ideological: that they represented the left end of the Republican Party (like McCain) and therefore found Gov. Palin offensive. My guess was that these left-wing Republicans had picked Palin in the hopes of getting conservatives to enthusiastically support the McCain ticket. When it became apparent that this was not enough to win the election, I assumed they vented their personal disapproval.

Palin’s version of events is a bit different. Her take is that the foul-mouthed and amoral campaign managers who blamed her for the campaign failure did so for a purely mercenary reason: concern that they might have trouble getting another job, if they were perceived as the failure.

[...]

I still think that Gov. Palin is less qualified to be president of the United States than I would like. I would have preferred she had at least two terms as governor. But what’s the alternative? Palin’s executive experience — and especially her experience cleaning up the notoriously corrupt Republican Party of Alaska — dwarfs anything that Senators Obama or Biden brought to the table — and even Senator McCain’s many years in Congress are no substitute for executive experience.

I would also prefer someone who is a bit more of an intellectual. But the incredibly ignorant goofs by President Obama (there is no “Austrian” language, Emperor Hirohito did not sign the surrender with General MacArthur, the United States did not invent the automobile) show that this isn’t a job requirement. (I fear at times it might even be a disqualifier.)

There does come a point where honesty and some connection to ordinary people who have to work for a living are worth more than fawning and gushing from the mainstream media. So far, Gov. Palin is looking like our best shot for 2012.

Read the rest here it's really good

Read more...

Sarah Palin, Man of the Year

Governor Sarah Palin is Don Surber's Man of the Year

She endured the most and came to symbolize the majority of American citizens who are stunned by the attempt to rapidly dismantle this great nation of ours and transform it into another Euro-weenie socialist country that apologizes for trying to save the rest of the world over the years.

[...]

Naming Sarah Palin as Man of the Year is the only logical conclusion to a year when Americans who petitioned their government for a redress of grievances were smeared as “un-American” by the people who are temporarily in charge.

[...]

She is genuine. Her beliefs in freedom, in independence and in community service reflect how she was raised. She does not hide who she is. There are no ulterior motives. There is no one underneath her bus.

The question anymore is not whether she is ready for the presidency — unlike our current president, she has had her mettle tested in fire several times now and passed with quite more than a gentleman’s B+ — but rather the question is whether she is too pretty to be president.

Sarah Palin, Man of the Year of the Don Surber blog for 2009.

Read the whole thing here

Read more...

It's A Tie! Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton America's Most Admired Woman (Updated with Video)

Via LATimes

At the end of the 21st century's first decade, Americans have decided on the women they admire the most -- and their picks might surprise some. (Although probably not if they're looking at these photos.)

One is a woman who once lived in the White House -- Hillary Rodham Clinton. And the other is a woman suspected of harboring ambitions of living there someday -- Sarah Palin.

A Democrat and a Republican. A former senator and a former governor. Two polarizing politicians, both moms, both bestselling authors, both who lost their bids for one of the nation's top elected offices last year.Are American voters dropping a hint here?

According to a new survey just released by USA Today and the Gallup Poll, the 62-year-old Clinton barely beat out the 45-year-old Palin as the most admired female -- 16% to 15% in a poll of 1,025 adult Americans.

However, because the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, it's statistically a P-C draw. The survey was open-ended, meaning men and women respondents had to provide the names by themselves.

Not that public admiration necessarily translates to votes. But the results have to set off any political spectator's eager imagination about a future presidential ballot match-up between the pair who, though politically polar opposites, are both outspoken, both often underestimated and both beloved by their respective bases.

Read the rest here

Read more...