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August 30, 2008
Exclusive: Sarah Palin or Theodora Roosevelt
The eye-rolling disgust I felt over Barack Obama’s Nuremberg-esque lovefest in Colorado was salved only by my alma mater’s (the Univ. of South Carolina) victory over North Carolina State, airing on ESPN ten yards from my sofa where I spent most of Thursday evening.
College football is a great escape to be sure. The country may be going down the tubes – I remember considering as I switched the channel from the cult-like goings on at Denver’s Invesco Field to the action over at Williams-Brice stadium in Columbia, S.C. -- but for the next four quarters I wouldn’t have to think about it.
My Carolina Gamecocks won big, 34-0, so I went to bed happy.
Then there was the great bit of news I received early Friday morning from one of my sources – hours before the official announcement – “Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was going to be McCain’s VP pick.”
The “audacity of” me to “hope” for someone as talented, exciting, experienced (in the way it matters), decisive, commonsensical, and, yes, conservative as Palin. But I did, and the woman who may well-be the female reincarnation of Theodore Roosevelt is officially on Team McCain.
Of course, the Obama camp – regardless of their leader’s lack of executive experience (and a tractor-trailer load of anti-American, even terrorist and criminal associations) and their second-in-command’s refusal to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization – unleashed the attack dogs, though lame they were:
“It’s a girl,” read one headline from a PRObama publication. Another said, “Palin's age, inexperience rival Obama's.”
What? Obama is a junior senator from Illinois. Palin is the governor – the chief executive, mind you – of Alaska. Huge difference.
Here’s a bit more about Palin:
Before moving into the governor’s mansion (the first female governor and youngest-ever gov of the 49th state), Palin served as mayor of the town of Wasilla. She was a city councilmember, the chairwoman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, and has served on more state and local boards, councils, and commissions than most professional men or women twice her age, 44. I know. I know. What ambitious politician hasn’t?
But there’s more: Palin wants – and fights for – what Americans want. As mayor, she slashed property taxes. As governor, she’s gone tooth-to-eyeball with big oil, battling corruption, yet fighting to drill, and drill now.
But there’s more: Palin wants – and fights for – what Americans want. As mayor, she slashed property taxes. As governor, she’s gone tooth-to-eyeball with big oil, battling corruption, yet fighting to drill, and drill now.
A 21st-century female incarnation of the 20th-century’s Theodore Roosevelt (in the sense of battling corruption and being a champion of the great outdoors), Palin ice-fishes and has hunted big game (eats moose burgers and is a life-member of the National Rifle Association). She played high school basketball: was captain of her state-champion team, nicknamed “Sarah Barracuda” by her teammates, and was head of the local Fellowship of Christian Athletes. She played the flute, was a journalism major at the University of Idaho, briefly covered sports in Anchorage, was runner-up in the Miss Alaska pageant, has coached youth league sports, runs distance foot-races, flies a seaplane, and is a snowmobiler (husband Todd is a snowmobile racing champion).
Palin also is a pro-life mom with five children: one, an infantry soldier bound for Iraq in a few days; the other, an infant son with Down syndrome.
As impressive as her bio (which I barely touched on), and life and professional experience seem – particularly when held up to the brief senate experience and community organizing (whatever that really means) of Obama – it is Palin’s character, judgment, and the few-if-any former friends, preachers, priests, and communist mentors she’ll have to throw under the bus for political expediency that make her so attractive.
The Weekly Standard refers to Palin as “a politician of eye-popping integrity … the most popular governor in America, with an approval rating in the 90s, and probably the most popular public official in any state. Her rise is a great (and rare) story of how adherence to principle--especially to transparency and accountability in government--can produce political success.”
She’s tough. She fights, and it’s been said, “the landscape is littered with the bodies of those who crossed her.”
Of course, nobody’s perfect, and there’ll no doubt be more about McCain’s gutsy choice over the coming days and weeks.
But frankly – based on everything we know right now – what’s not to like about Palin? And if nothing else, it’s a great feeling when both of your teams – in my case the Gamecocks and any team that goes up against the national security nightmare of a Team Obama – score big wins within a few hours of each other.
— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. online at uswriter.com.
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