ANOTHER VIEW OF SARAH – AT 10:46 A.M. ET:  The subject that gets the greatest response from Urgent Agenda readers is Sarah Palin.  All I do is mention her name and the e-mail bell starts to ring.

Our readers are divided.  We have passionate supporters, serious doubters, with most in the middle somewhere.  I've stated my own opinion – that Sarah is a gifted political operator, attractive to audiences, with good instincts, but that she must sharpen her mastery of issues.

We present a variety of viewpoints on Sarah here.  We're not party line (on anything).  Dorothy Rabinowitz of The Wall Street Journal has now weighed in on the Palin question.  Anything Dorothy writes is worth reading.  She's one of the finest reporters in the country, absolutely fearless, with no regard for political correctness, right or left.  She has doubts about Sarah: 

From the day she turned heads at the 2008 Republican Convention—becoming at once an object of fevered controversy—one truth about Sarah Palin stood clear: She was fortunate in her antagonists.

Those in the media, especially, would stoke a mighty sympathy backlash on her behalf. That resentment would feed nicely into the candidate's role as a voice for the aggrieved: those regular citizens under the heel of the "elites"—that immense, tentacled power whose depredations she has been describing to audiences since her star turn on the McCain ticket.

And...

Mrs. Palin has, it's clear, enjoyed plenty of adulation, and displays even greater confidence than during that unexpected, bedazzling convention speech. Like Barack Obama, she is at home with adoring crowds.

There are, true, a few tonal changes: the jokes are jokier, the touches of malice heavier, and she revels more obviously than before in the playfulness she brings to her performances. It's hard to imagine a more assured, better-timed delivery than the one evident in that down-home thrust at Obama supporters—"How's that hopey-changey thing working out for ya?"—in her Tea Party address.

But the trouble begins:

Mrs. Palin now has, she reports, a team of Washington policy advisers who provide her with daily briefings on domestic and foreign affairs. None of them have, it appears, provided her with intelligence on the impact of certain of her central themes.

On, for instance, the unsavory echoes of her regular references to "the real America" as opposed to those shadowy "elites," now charged with threats to the life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of all real Americans. Neither does she seem to have any idea of how that low soap-box oratory—embracing one kind of American as the real kind, those builders in the towns and cities across America—rings in the ear today. It is not new.

We know what Dorothy is talking about.  I think Sarah is a decent person.  But some of those references do, indeed, have an uncomfortable history.

And Dorothy is particularly concerned about Sarah's endorsement of the Senate candidacy of nutbag Rand Paul, son of super nutbag Ron Paul.  Ron Paul, the Texas "Republican" congressman, is not a conservative, but an extremist reactionary.  Ron Paul, among other things, has said that Osama bin Laden had good reason to attack the United States.  And Rand Paul?

Rand Paul, who offers no opinion on his father's touching faith in bin Laden's devotion to truth, says only that his father's statements have been misunderstood. On one or two things his own views are clear: He stands opposed to the Patriot Act and he wants to cut defense spending.

Dorothy is understandably dismayed that Sarah would endorse a man with those views.  And Sarah has an obligation to confront the issue.

Asked about her endorsement of this candidate, Mrs. Palin informed Mr. Wallace she was proud of her choice. She admired Rand Paul's domestic policies, not of course that she agreed with everything he stood for. It does not, apparently, occur to her that everything he stands for—and can vote on—is precisely what comes into play when, and if, he becomes a senator with her help.

Finally...

Mrs. Palin regularly invokes the name of the most revered of her heroes, Ronald Reagan—among the sunniest stars ever to mount the political stage, and a leader who spoke to all of America. He did not appeal to the aggrieved. Nor did he see in the oratory of grievance, or talk of real Americans and those who were not, a political platform.

Mrs. Palin would do well to look to his model, between study of those daily policy briefings. Her supporters will have to wait a while. At a time when Republican hopes are in the ascendancy, as now (and even when they are not), it's impossible to imagine the Sarah Palin known to the world today as their leader. It would be well for her to begin pondering the reasons.

COMMENT:  Obviously, you can agree or disagree with that, or a little of each.  But Dorothy, as usual, makes penetrating points.  Reagan was an optimist, and he was inclusive.  It was morning in America, not darkness at noon.

Very provocative column.  Please read the whole thing, and decide.

February 18, 2010