Mark Steyn on Palin’s Resignation: ‘Who Needs This?’
Yeah, I’d say this is the most likely scenario:
So Occam’s Razor leaves us with: Who needs this?
In states far from the national spotlight, politics still attracts normal people. You’re a mayor or a state senator or even the governor, but you lead a normal life. The local media are tough on you, but they know you, they live where you live, they’re tough on the real you, not on some caricature cooked up by a malign alliance of late-night comics who’d never heard of you a week earlier and media grandees supposedly on your own side who pronounce you a “cancer”.
Then suddenly you get the call from Washington. You know it’ll mean Secret Service, and speechwriters, and minders vetting your wardrobe. But nobody said it would mean a mainstream network comedy host doing statutory rape gags about your 14-year old daughter. You’ve got a special-needs kid and a son in Iraq and a daughter who’s given you your first grandchild in less than ideal circumstances. That would be enough for most of us. But the special-needs kid and the daughter and most everyone else you love are a national joke, and the PC enforcers are entirely cool with it.
Most of those who sneer at Sarah Palin have no desire to live her life. But why not try to – what’s the word? – “empathize”? If you like Wasilla and hunting and snowmachining and moose stew and politics, is the last worth giving up everything else in the hopes that one day David Letterman and Maureen Dowd might decide Trig and Bristol and the rest are sufficiently non-risible to enable you to prosper in their world? And, putting aside the odds, would you really like to be the person you’d have to turn into under that scenario?
National office will dwindle down to the unhealthily singleminded (Clinton, Obama), the timeserving emirs of Incumbistan (Biden, McCain) and dynastic heirs (Bush). Our loss.
Indeed.
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UPDATE: If Sarah Poise really is leaving public life, she won’t miss crap like this.
You might want to wait until the dust settles before you scream her praise from the mountain tops. Mark my words, she’s into some BIG trouble. It’s definately NOT Palin or any of the other ridiculous GOP heads that I fear, it’s their ignorant followers that our country has to worry about.
Comment by Medicineworld — July 4, 2009 @ 4:30 am
#1, yeah, there was SOOO much “screaming her praise from the mountaintops” in the post. (/sarc).
I’m sure whatever unspeakable evil Palin has done is right up there with taking millions in illegal, untraceable campaign contributions. I’m sure it’s at least as bad as firing inspector generals because they’re doing their jobs. And it surely must be worse than spending our kids’, grandkids’ and great-grandkids’ inheritances in the space of 5-1/2 months — as a warm-up act.
Gimme a bleeping break.
Comment by TBlumer — July 4, 2009 @ 9:01 am
How gullible are people like Steyn? I watched our media fawn over Sanford after his initial press conference. Don’t the media understand that Palin is not resigning for noble reasons. There is always an underlying corruption issue forcing them out. Steyn is just a wisher. He wishes the world was rich, white and above the law. The world does not work that way.
Comment by Jymn — July 4, 2009 @ 9:47 am
#3, I see it’s a big day for the anti-Palin trolls.
Steyn has more common sense and better political instincts in his little finger than most other commentators have in their entire brains.
See my comment 2, and give me a break.
Oh, and I removed the link to your blog because of this hateful false statement at your place — “Steyn’s sudden bit of empathy (is) from the same a**hole who wants all brown-skinned people, especially foreigners, to cease to exist.”
You’re a smearing liar. Bleep you.
Comment by TBlumer — July 4, 2009 @ 11:07 am
Just speculating here: Gov. Palin may have a mountain of legal bills and a Governor’s salary may no longer be enough to keep her and her family afloat. She’s doing what she has to do, and I’m sure her husband is as well. Democrats will be Democrats. As long as they champion murderers like Ted Kennedy, they have no standing to talk about Sarah Palin and I ignore them anyway.
Comment by deskbox — July 4, 2009 @ 4:42 pm