The Undefeated

I watched Sarah Palin's "The Undefeated" last night.  Basically a documentary of her career.  And it pretty much confirmed what my general impression of her has been. That she really was an ordinary, hard-working, middle-class citizen that got into local politics for the right reasons, and rocketed to stellar success by ... not being a politician.  I defy you to find any facts (facts, mind you) that say different.

This allowed her to simply resign from a 6 figure salary job she found herself in when appointed to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission -- over the deep corruption she saw there.

This is not something politicians do.

This made her wildly popular with Alaskans, and 3 years later she ran for governor and won, slashing state spending and simultaneously increasing state income, and holding a consistent 80%+ approval rating. She stared down big oil executives into sh*tting or getting off the pot on oil leases, broke its monopoly on oil leases and opened it to true competition, did not use the Governor's chef, preferred to sleep at home when possible, sold the Governor's jet, refused to take a commission-reccomended pay raise ... and using about 20% of what the previous governor used in expenses.

It was only after she was chosen to run as McCain's vice presidential candidate that her whole history was suddenly and retroactively revised to that of a corrupt idiot.

Frankly, I think she's exactly the kind of person we need in the White House. Buck stops here, no-nonsense, get it done steward of The Peoples' freedom.

I read Katie Couric's blurb on Palin deciding not to run in 2012. In it, she talked about "the question", “And when it comes to establishing your world view, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this — to stay informed and to understand the world?”

Well, you know what? I don't, myself, regularly read any particular newspapers or magazines. I read articles from dozens of them, but I don't pay a lot of attention to what publication the article appeared in - I'm more interested in the content of the articles. I don't have a publication I turn to for a "media guru" to validate my opinions.

And just like most regular Americans, I suspect neither did Palin. Now if I sat and thought about it, I could name some. (WSJ, NYT, UK Times, LA Times, Miami Hearald, Chicago Tribune, Washington Times, Washington Post, Orange County Register. I even occasionally read Slate and Mother Jones articles. But I'm not in the middle of an interview with Katie Couric. I got a chance to sit and think about it without my readers seeing an awkward pause. And nobody's playing "gotcha" with me on National TV) And again, their names aren't important to me.

As for her resignation as governor, it seems to me that Palin got more accomplished in 2 years than many governors accomplish in 4 or even 8, and I completely understand that the onslaught of politically motivated and universally dismissed as frivolous "ethics complaints" that were filed against her along with the sudden turn of Democrats who had been working well with her -- now suddenly against her, as well as establishment Republicans' desire to distance themselves from her sudden supposed idiocy -- some still smarting from her clamping down on corruption and cronyism ... was breaking her family financially (the Palins were not rich, and a half million dollars was a lot of money!). And it was also paralyzing any efforts to get her previously popular, but now suddenly taboo -- agenda passed.

She did the right thing.

Like she's always done when the chips were down.

This is a good woman. This is an exceptional woman. The Christophobes and political cronies just don't want you to realize it.