The Doc Is In

Having read a number of articles concerning Governor Sarah Palin’s stunning and surprising announcement to resign the governorship of Alaska, the one that rang most true to me was National Review’s Mark Steyn’s “Cutting Bait“.  He wrote, in part:

… “In states far from the national spotlight, politics still attracts normal people. You’re a mayor or a state senator or even the governor, but you lead a normal life. The local media are tough on you, but they know you, they live where you live, they’re tough on the real you, not on some caricature cooked up by a malign alliance of late-night comics who’d never heard of you a week earlier and media grandees supposedly on your own side who pronounce you a “cancer”.

Then suddenly you get the call from Washington. You know it’ll mean Secret Service, and speechwriters, and minders vetting your wardrobe. But nobody said it would mean a mainstream network comedy host doing statutory rape gags about your 14-year old daughter. You’ve got a special-needs kid and a son in Iraq and a daughter who’s given you your first grandchild in less than ideal circumstances. That would be enough for most of us. But the special-needs kid and the daughter and most everyone else you love are a national joke, and the PC enforcers are entirely cool with it.

Most of those who sneer at Sarah Palin have no desire to live her life. But why not try to – what’s the word? – “empathize”? If you like Wasilla and hunting and snowmachining and moose stew and politics, is the last worth giving up everything else in the hopes that one day David Letterman and Maureen Dowd might decide Trig and Bristol and the rest are sufficiently non-risible to enable you to prosper in their world? And, putting aside the odds, would you really like to be the person you’d have to turn into under that scenario?

National office will dwindle down to the unhealthily singleminded (Clinton, Obama), the timeserving emirs of Incumbistan (Biden, McCain) and dynastic heirs (Bush). Our loss.”

Whether you agree with Sarah Palin’s politics or not, she was thrust onto the national stage for the purpose of political expediency, if not GOP desperation. Palin was unquestionably not sufficiently experienced for the “major leagues”. Yet, she attracted a large following.  Why? Because many people are sick and tired of the dysfunctional political system and biased media.

Folks like David Letterman can insult and belittle those who aren’t part of the “mainstream” and get away with it.  The oft quoted, “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen” doesn’t cut it for me. Put yourself in Palin’s shoes – a gifted communicator, bright, a mother of five with a handicapped child and a teenage daughter who is now a single mom – and ask yourself why would I want to subject myself and family to a “kitchen” filled with peudo chefs who raid the pantry and bankrupt the checking account. In this “kitchen”, a gourmet dinner has never been prepared!

Sadly, on this fourth of July 2009, we are left with the reality that good people who might offer our democratic process political alternatives that are inconsistent with the media mainstream aren’t welcome. We have become a society dominated by “elites”. So, for my money, Mr. Steyn has it right – we lose!