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Palin in Colorado: The Good, The Bad, and The Obtuse
Today in Loveland, Colorado, before an enthusiastic crowd at a big arena, Sarah Palin spoke the truth about Barack Obama. She said that Obama told Joe the Plumber that he wanted to “spread the wealth,” and that Joe said that “that sounded like socialism to him.” With relish she then denounced socialism which would kill entrepreneurship and the production of wealth. I hadn’t heard the “S” word in national politics for a long time, and it was heady stuff. Standing in front of my TV set watching Palin on C-SPAN, I clapped my hands. But then Palin said that after the McCain-Palin ticket’s top two priorities of government reform and energy development, its next priority is to help children with special needs. “We have a vision of America where every child is cherished,” she said. “We need to do more for our families, I want our families with special needs children to know that they will have a friend in the White House.” Does Palin not hear how this contradicts her criticisms of socialism? It’s senseless to denounce government redistributionism, and then turn around and make the federal government responsible for doing more for families, as though all the layers of government were not already doing a staggering amount for families and for disabled persons of all types. It’s also an example of the politics of personalism. Palin has a baby with special needs, so naturally she thinks the federal government ought to do more for children with special needs. By Palin’s logic, whatever your special personal or family problem, you should want the federal government to get especially involved in it. And if you happen to be a nominee for vice president, you should make your personal issue a top national priority. For Palin to put an obscure issue like this at the center of national politics, solely because it fits her personal situation, and despite the fact that it contradicts her supposed stand for smaller government, indicates lack of principle, intellectual incoherence, and an opportunism that is just plain embarrassing . She also keeps saying that voters should support John McCain because he is a “maverick.” But what McCain’s “maverick” label means is that he routinely betrays the Republican party and allies himself with Democrats. To tout McCain as a maverick is to say to Republicans, on whom McCain’s hopes for election primarily depend, “Vote for McCain, he’s a liberal Democrat!” No one seems to have noticed this. In an Orwellian twist, McCain’s record as the number one Republican apostate in modern U.S. history has been turned into a reason for Republicans to support him. Also, just before Palin’s speech, while Hank Williams, Jr. was singing about “the John McCain tradition” (what’s that? the tradition of facilitating an illegal alien invasion and calling people xenophobes if they oppose it?), Palin was listening onstage with her husband and her daughter Bristol. So Palin’s still sticking in our faces her now very pregnant and still unmarried 17 year old daughter. Apparently it hasn’t occurred to anyone in the Palin family or the McCain campaign that this is not a time for Bristol to be at stage center. The message Palin sends by putting Bristol on display like this is that illegitimate pregnancy and childbirth is fine. But what is the greatest single factor that turns a self-governing people into a bunch of husbandless, fatherless families who are unable to provide for themselves and need the government to be their husband and father? Illegitimacy. Is Palin, foe of big government, within a 100 miles of glimpsing this truth, and of seeing how promoting her out-of-wedlock-pregnant daughter contradicts her supposed conservatism? Did these troubling thoughts remotely occur to any of the cheering thousands in Loveland, or to any of the cheering millions across Red State America?
Mark Jaws writes:
Instead of sticking to the tried and true bedrock principles that have served it so well—such as limited federal government, strong military, border protection, free trade, and individual responsibility and accountability—the GOP has deteriorated into a bordello selling its soul to the purveyors of identity politics. As Rush Limbaugh rightly says, “Conservative works whenever and wherever it is tried.” However, the current nincompoops in charge of the GOP are so concerned with being “open and tolerant” they think they can keep the white conservative Joe-the-Plumber base intact while forging a coalition of liberal female Democrats (who supported Hillary), Hispanic Americans (50 percent of whom drop out of high school and collect some form of welfare), and whatever du jour interest group there is knocking on the door for a handout. The result is this potpourri of politicians who espouse pretzel logic and utter Obama-like platitudes. Ray G. writes:
I chuckled when I just read your entry about watching Palin use the “S” word at a campaign rally. She’s gonna win you over!October 21 Elizabeth Wright writes:
What in the world induces her to bring her family on her speaking gigs? Why wouldn’t her husband suffice? Do Obama and McCain bring anyone other than their spouses? Are they, too, carting their children around with them? I don’t know for sure what they’re doing in this regard, but you would think that someone would have the common sense to inform the Palins to leave their kids at home. Do they feel it’s necessary to keep reminding people, via Bristol’s growing body, of what the “right choice” looks like?LA replies:
About 10 days ago Levi gave an interview to a reporter in his driveway in Wasilla providing a lot of information (or disinformation) we hadn’t heard before. I didn’t get around to posting it. Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 20, 2008 08:10 PM | Send Email entry |