I am of a ripened enough vintage that I still enjoy a good Keystone Kops movie, so imagine my delight at the spectacle afforded this weekend by the political chattering class galumphing about like a clutch of toads in a hailstorm. The source of their manic discomfiture was of course Sarah Palin’s announcement that she was taking a different road – so different that the flock of starlings that passes for the media in this country went absolutely s***-house … as we say out here in Weedsville.
All weekend long (and still this AM) the airwaves fairly crackled with befuddled interrogatories – what was she thinking? What is her “strategy”? What kind of trouble is she in? Is she having another of her daughter’s children? Has Todd been caught hanging out with hairdressers? (And my personal fave – “Is she frightened of Lisa Murkowski?” – to which may I just respond “Bwahahaha”.)
Folks, they just don’t get it; once again, the pseudo-political hoi kaloi have offered incontrovertible evidence (as if any was needed) that they have become so philosophically endogamous as to be the ideological equivalent of an ingrown toenail. One expects them at any time to break into the theme from “Deliverance”. They absolutely cannot (or will not) recognize sincerity, candor, and integrity. Attributes like courage, competence and self-assuredness scare them silly, and Sarah Palin is a refreshing admixture of all of these and more.
It was a scene that could not have been scripted: outdoors, back-dropped by beautiful Lake Whatever, baby son Trig gurgling audibly off-camera, a pair of water-birds cavorting in the brilliant blue of the lake behind her, there was Sarah, gorgeous as always, enchanting listeners with plain, yet pointed words. Flanked by her family and a few friends, she explained quietly and simply what she was going to do and why she was going to do it. I will not synopsize her statement here but just know that it made sense … only those who were taught in their cradle that character assassination is sport would look for underlying motive. Here is a lady who says what she means … and means what she says.
So, for the benefit of all who seek the dastardly back-story (those whom A.J. Leibling delightfully if somewhat deprecatingly referred to as “the less reflective elements of our populace”), let me ease your trubbled minds: there is no grand strategy, no fiendishly clever black-ops, no convoluted Machiavellian plots, no wheels-within-wheels. None a that. Just a bracing whiff of straightforwardness – a freshet of honesty that we have been so long without that many among us have forgotten what it looks and feels like. If nothing else, we should all be thankful for being reminded by Alaska’s outgoing governor that goodness, if it no longer abounds, is at least still in existence.
I have no idea if Sarah is going to run for higher office or anything resembling that. I have said before that I considered her far too bright to do so, and I am (for now) sticking with that opinion. Some wag noted a long time ago that we tend to get the kind of government we deserve; if that is true, and I believe it is, then we won’t see Sarah Palin in Washington. We don’t merit her kind of character and competence, and she certainly deserves better than us.
Be well.
