After the 2008 campaign revealed her weaknesses on substance, Palin was advised by those who admire her natural gifts to bone up on policy and devote herself to governing Alaska successfully. Instead, she quit her job as governor after two and a half years, published a book (another is due next week), and seemed to chase money and empty celebrity. Now, rather than being able to highlight the accomplishments of Sarah Palin's Alaska, we get "Sarah Palin's Alaska," another cheesy entrant in the reality show genre. She'd so much rather be out dog sledding than in some "dull political office," she tells the audience. File that.
She is wildly popular with a swath of the Republican electorate, it's true. And, as a conservative woman politician told me, the consultants (who get paid the big bucks win or lose) will doubtless descend upon her with game plans showing how she can win in Iowa and then cruise to the nomination. Maybe. But the general election would be a problem, since 53 percent of independent voters view Palin unfavorably, according to a recent Gallup poll, along with 81 percent of Democrats.
There is no denying that Sarah Palin has been harshly, sometimes even brutally treated by the press and the news/entertainment gaggle. But any prominent Republican must expect some of that and be able to transcend it. She compares herself to Reagan. But Reagan didn't mud wrestle with the press. Palin seems consumed and obsessed by it, as her rapid Twitter finger attests, and thus encourages the sniping. She should be presiding over meetings on oil and gas leases in the North Slope, or devising alternatives to Obamacare. Every public spat with Dave Letterman or Politico, or the "lamestream media," or God help us, Levi Johnston, diminishes her.
Speaking of television, sorry, this must be mentioned. Have you watched "Dancing With the Stars"? Cheesy would be several steps up for this one. Perhaps the former governor should not be blamed for the decisions of her adult daughter. Yet there in the audience we see Sarah and Todd Palin, mugging for the camera and cheering on their unwed-mother daughter as she bumps and grinds to the tune of "Mamma Told Me (Not to Come)." Her parents had advised her, the 20-year-old Bristol told an interviewer, that she had to stay "in character" if she expected to win. Being "in character" apparently meant descending to the vulgarity that "DWTS" peddles on a weekly basis. The momma grizzly was apparently unfazed by -- or, equally disturbing, unaware of -- the indignity. And this is supposed to be a conservative culture warrior?
And while Charen is absolutely right, I have to say that the pundits and press on the right created Sarah Palin in the first place. May I remind Mona Charen of her words some 26 months ago:
Sarah Palin is not perfect -- she's just the most exciting, authentic, fresh, and talented politician to debut in a generation.
Really. And because Charen and other conservative columnists and pundits gave Sarah Palin a free ride in 2008, and brutally attacked anyone who dared to voice the same legitimate criticisms Charen brings up now as misogynist elitists who couldn't possibly have a real reason to doubt Palin's credibility for higher office, because the right couldn't bring themselves to be intellectually honest about Palin's failures, you now have an imminent civil war brewing between those who see Palin as the messianic figure Republicans accused Obama of being in 2008, and those who know Palin would lose by double digits to Obama in 2012.
And to you, I say "you reap what you sew." Enjoy your little scuffle here, because if you thought the tensions between the Obama and Hillary Clinton factions of the Dems were bad, you have no idea what's coming.
I plan to enjoy every minute of it. You helped make her. Now she's going to help unmake the GOP.
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