The liberal media has no idea what to do with John McCain's running mate, Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin. If they attack her for being "inexperienced," they remind everyone that the dude at the top of the Democratic ticket was rubberstamping the corrupt Daley machine in Chicago 3 years ago. If they attack her for being "too conservative," they risk pointing out that the dude at the top of her ticket isn't the love of most conservatives' lives and is quite palatable to independent voters. If they attack her for being "weak on foreign policy," they again raise the specter of a Democratic presidential candidate completely unversed in foreign affairs; so much so that he admitted as much when he selected Joe Biden as his running mate. If they attack her persona, her clothes, her hair, her eyeglasses, they run the risk of piling on a woman and having Hillary (of all people!) rush to her defense.
The Democratic ticket and their wingmen in the media are at a loss for what to do with her.
Palin's first mission accomplished: she has utterly vexed the opposition.
That's no small thing.
Palin has another secret weapon that the other three people running for president and vice president do not have:
She is the only one who has actually run something.
John McCain led bravely and selflessly during his time in the Navy, which is not to be discounted. But since that time, he has spent his adult life in the U.S. Senate. Ditto Joe Biden. Barack Obama has been a state legislator and briefly, a U.S. Senator. Hillary Clinton--for all of her ballyhooed "experience"--is also a Senator. The only thing she ever ran was health care reform, which ended in disaster.
There is a reason we don't elect Senators to the presidency: they legislate. They hem and haw, cut deals, and make pompous speeches from the floors of their chambers.
They do not have to LEAD. If one of their bills fails, they can hide behind the 99 other Senators: "It was Hatch's fault I couldn't get this through." Or "Biden held it up in committee." They never have to take responsibility for anything. They never have to put their necks out. They can always blame others (which they often do). And they never have to risk anything. The only "risk" they ever take is having to cast a tough vote, and even then, they find cagey ways out of it. Obama voting "present," anyone?
Obviously, this year we will elect a Senator president. But there is only one ticket that has someone on it who has run something. A few things, actually.
The media make fun of the fact that Palin was the mayor of what they call "tiny" Wasilla, Alaska. They don't make fun of Obama's "community organizing," in which he dealt with a few hundred people. When he became a state senator, he moved on to represent a few thousand. Palin LED several thousand. Obama was making speeches for them.
The media also make fun that she's the Governor of a "sparsely populated" state. A state, by the way, that is larger than all but 18 countries, and is at the heart of our nation's energy security. She LEADS the state; she doesn't just toss some pork at it. She heads up the National Guard; she doesn't just make abstract speeches about our military and their missions.
As Governor, she has to set her state's agenda, and then fight to get it through, and then fight to implement it. Based on all of these battles, you could say she's got more wartime experience than Obama and Biden combined.
Most of our presidents come from the executive branch, either as governors or sitting vice presidents. They know what it is to be accountable, to govern, to lead.
And out of the top four running for our nation's highest offices, the woman they are belittling is perhaps better equipped to lead than at least two of the others.
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