by David Bozeman
After Michael Jackson, a major topic of national discussion was Sarah Palin’s resignation. Supporters and detractors, all assuming she harbors presidential aspirations, have offered their verdicts, with Dick Morris and Karl Rove leading the pack of pundits proclaiming that she has “blown it.”
But therein lies the problem with political speculation — the ‘experts’ view every human action through the prism of politics. Sarah Palin may well not want to run for higher office. She may well believe that her celebrity status hinders and not helps in her governorship of Alaska and deciding to step aside makes her not a quitter but a faithful public servant who puts her fellow citizens ahead of her own political expediency.
Something about Sarah Palin — maybe her unpredictability — ignites speculation in all who watch her. We’ve all heard the pundits advise that she should strengthen her resume, especially by adding foreign policy experience, before launching a presidential run. Oh, you mean like Barack Obama did? In Human Events, even Ann Coulter, praising the governor as Conservative of the Year, wrote that Palin should sit out 2012, giving the same reasons as the rest of the chattering classes. As they say, with friends like these. . . Whatever the case, Sarah Palin, with her trademark guts and fortitude will chart her own course.
If she had listened to the ‘experts’ she never would have become governor in the first place.
To ponder any further, however, misses the point: no one knows what she is going to do. She may not even know. Furthermore, it doesn’t’ matter! Her spot in the pantheon of conservative greats is secure. The first woman president or vice-president will have to thank Geraldine Ferraro, Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin for making her path somewhat less treacherous (though no one can rule out Clinton or Palin later).
Conservatives and liberals alike have penned millions of words analyzing public reaction to Governor Palin. A single sentence from her July 3 announcement, however, not only crystallizes the true Sarah Palin, but also reveals a strain of snobbery not exclusive to the left. Palin said that she wanted to speak out for issues and individuals and, “you don’t need a title to do that.” The punditry, of course, considered that heresy.
The New York-Washington-Ivy League corridor is peopled with a fair amount of those who want to do important things. But, it is dominated by those who simply want to be important people. Liberals, in particular, who have little faith in everyday Americans, glom onto charismatic politicians and career bureaucrats. And they quite simply abhor those who somehow “rather live by the side of the road/and try to point souls to the blest abode.”
Sarah Palin is a native of a world where title and status carry less currency than character and commitment. The notion that she, with a mere four-year degree from Podunk State, was nominated for the second highest office in the land still enrages members of the Georgetown cocktail circuit who think their academic breeding trumps individual initiative. She is a living, breathing embodiment of the American ideal that citizens can not only run their own lives, they can also serve in the nation’s highest offices, and then go back to being citizens.
In short, they “can walk with kings, nor lose the common touch” – without having “blown it.”
David Bozeman is a contributing writer for Americans for Limited Government
