Sarah Palin: Conservative Of The Year

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Sarah Palin: Conservative of the Year

by Ann Coulter

Sarah Palin wins HUMAN EVENTS’ prestigious “Conservative of the Year” Award for 2008 for her genius at annoying all the right people. The last woman to get liberals this hot under the collar would have been … let's see now … oh, yeah: Me!

The entire presidential election year was kind of a downer for conservatives. Once the “maverick” John McCain won the nomination, the rest of the year was like watching a slow motion car crash. Except at least a slow-motion car crash is occasionally entertaining. So it was going to be a long year.

Until Palin.

When McCain chose our beauteous Sarah as his running mate, the maverick was finally acting like a real maverick -- as opposed to the media’s definition of a “maverick” which is: “agreeing with the editorial positions of the New York Times.”

Pre-Palin it had been one race -- boring old “You kids get off my lawn!” John McCain versus the exciting, new politician Barack Obama, who threw caution to the wind and bravely ran as the Pro-Hope candidate. And then our heroic Sarah bounded out of the Alaska tundra and it became a completely different race. This left the press completely discombobulated and upset. They didn't know whether to attack Sarah for not having an abortion or go after her husband for not being a sissy.

I assume Palin was chosen because McCain had heard that she was a real conservative and he had always wanted to meet one -- no, actually because he needed a conservative on the ticket, but that he had no idea that picking her would send the left into a tailspin of wanton despair.

But if anyone on the McCain campaign chose Palin because she would drive liberals crazy, my hat is off to him!

True, Palin made some embarrassing gaffes.

She complained that we didn’t have enough “Arabic translators” in Afghanistan -- not realizing the natives don’t speak Arabic in Afghanistan, but rather a variety of regional dialects, the most common of which is Pashtun.

Speaking to military veterans one time, Palin said, “Our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today.”

She bragged about passing a law regulating the nuclear industry that it turned out never became a law at all.

Some days Palin said Venezuela's dictator Hugo Chavez should suffer "regional isolation" -- but then on others she’d say she supported the president’s meeting with Chavez.

She told one audience about recent tornados in Kansas that had killed 10,000 people. In fact, a dozen people were killed in the tornados.

She referred to the “57 states” that make up the U.S.

Speaking of her eldest daughter’s pregnancy, she said Bristol was being “punished” with a baby.

As you probably know -- or guessed by now -- none of these gaffes were uttered by Palin. They are all Obama gaffes. Luckily, he made them to a star-struck press that managed not to ask him a difficult question for two years.

It seemed like the media would introduce an all-new double standard each day throughout the two glorious months of Palin’s candidacy.

I don’t remember, for example, zealous inquiries into the supposedly peculiar religious practices of any candidates in past elections. No one in the press touched on Sen. Joe Lieberman’s religious beliefs when he was Kerry’s running mate. (Nor, while we’re on the subject, was the media particularly interested in the beliefs of the religion that inspired the 9/11 attacks on America.)

But the press snapped right back into their anti-religious hysteria for a candidate who was a Pentecostal! The same media that couldn’t be bothered to investigate Obama’s ties to former Weathermen or Syrian Nationalist Tony Rezko was soon hot on the trail of a rumor that Palin’s church had a speaker 30 years ago who spoke in tongues!

Let me think now: Were there ever any unusual or otherwise noteworthy speeches or sermons given in churches where Obama worshipped? Hmmm … it's on the tip of my tongue.

Liberals also suddenly decided that a woman with children could not handle the stress of higher office. Until Palin reared her beautiful head, this is precisely the sort of thinking liberals would have denounced as the Neanderthal, backwards, good old boy network attitude that had created a “glass ceiling.”

Let’s consider the facts: Palin’s oldest son was about to be under the tender care of Gen. David Petraeus after being shipped off to Iraq. Her next oldest child was about to be married and probably would prefer that her parents butt out. That left three children under the age of 15, which was almost the same as Obama had.

So Palin had one more child -- and a lot more executive experience -- than the guy at the top of the Democrats’ ticket. (I suspect what liberals were really mad about was that if Palin became Vice President, she probably would have hired a nanny who was a U.S. citizen.)

Having indignantly rejected experience as a presidential qualification in the case of Obama, liberals had to raise questions about Palin’s experience gingerly. But, in short order, they threw caution to the wind and began energetically criticizing Palin for her lack of experience. I call that two … two … two standards in one!

Like most Democrats, both Obama and Biden boasted of their humble beginnings, while having fully adopted the attitudes, pomposity and style of the elites.

Meanwhile, Palin is the sort of genuine American that brings out the worst, most egregious pomposity of liberals. For weeks, Carl Bernstein was showing up on TV to announce: “We still don’t have the date of first issuance of her passport.” Members of the establishment would be astonished to learn that more Americans have guns than passports.

Liberals were angry at Palin because they thought she should look and act like Kay Bailey Hutchinson: Upper crust, prissy and stiff.

Palin had a husband in the Steelworkers Union, a sister and brother-in-law who owned a gas station, and five attractive children -- one headed for Iraq, one a Down’s syndrome baby and one the cutest little girl anyone had ever seen.

In a nutshell, Palin was everything Democrats are always pretending to be, but never are.

She didn’t have to conjure up implausible images of herself duck hunting as Hillary Clinton did. Nor was Palin the typical Democratic elected female official who went straight from college into politics, like Nita Lowey.

Despite their phony championing of “women’s issues” (i.e. abortion) there was not one Democrat woman who could win a head-to-head contest with Palin. Especially not if we got to see their faces. Democrats may have a fleet of women politicians, but they don’t have a deep bench of attractive ones. You don’t even think of most Democratic woman as women: Rosa Delauro, Nita Lowey, Patty Murray, Janet Napolitano -- and the list goes on. Oh, sure, there are the odd female Democrat sex kittens -- your Janet Renos, your Donna Shalalas -- but they're the exception to the rule.

After Palin gave her barnburner of a speech at the Republican National Convention, a friend of mine in a liberal industry told me his friends were aggressively confronting him demanding to know if Palin was raised by a secret cult of Christians that taught children nothing but Creationism and public speaking.

Oh, how I wish he had said “yes.” Imagine the aneurisms! I think what liberals were to say was: Gosh, she’s an exceptionally attractive mother of five!

The Obama campaign was so alarmed by Palin’s speech, it loudly dismissed the speech saying she didn’t write it. At least that’s what a press release written by an Obama campaign staffer said.

Indeed, the first words out of every Palin critic's mouth were: "Good speech, but she didn't write it." So I guess all liberals were reading the same talking points written for them by the Obama campaign. At least Palin pays her speechwriters. Neil Kinnock is still waiting for his check.

Speaking of Joe Biden, he said that Palin’s speech had a lot of style but little substance. Inasmuch as Biden was Obama's running mate, I think that meant he liked it!

A newspaper in Boston responded to Palin’s speech by interviewing hairdressers who criticized Sarah's hairstyle. (Where were these people after Joe Biden's speech?)

Trendy dinner party opinion soon demanded that all liberals take up the cry that Palin must let the press have a whack at her. Almost immediately after she was introduced to the nation, the cry went up: “When are we going to be allowed to ask Palin questions?”

Palin’s refusal to meet with the press for one week after being chosen as McCain’s running mate was evidently more maddening than Obama's refusal to appear on Fox News for almost the entirety of his campaign.

Everyone acted as if Obama’s feat of running for President for two years constituted a complete and thorough vetting.

It might have been, except that the entire media had apparently agreed: “OK, none of us will ask Obama about Tony Rezko, William Ayers, and Jeremiah Wright.”

Hillary was hissed by the audience for mentioning Rezko at a Democratic debate and George Stephanopoulos nearly lost his career for asking Obama one William Ayers question at another.

Osama bin Laden was more upset about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright than liberals were -- especially after "Jeremiah Wright videos" passed "al Qaeda videos" for most total viewings on Youtube. (He was kicking himself for not coming up with that “God Damn America” line first!)

Who cares if Palin was qualified to be President? She was running with John McCain! There was no chance that ticket was going to place her anywhere near the presidency. In fact, I can’t think of a better place to put someone you wanted to keep away from the White House than on a ticket with McCain.

Palin was a kick in the pants, she energized conservatives, and she made liberal heads explode. Other than his brave military service, introducing Sarah Palin to Americans is the greatest thing John McCain ever did for his country.

But unless Palin is going to be the perpetual running mate of “moderate” Republicans who need conservative bona fides, she will need to become wiser and better read. Even Reagan didn’t run for President in his 40s. (True Obama is in his 40s, but we are not Democrats.)

Perhaps Palin’s year is 2012, but I would recommend that she take a little more time to become older and wiser. She ought to spend the next decade being a good governor, tending to her children so none of them turn out like Ron Reagan Jr., and reading everything Phyllis Schlafly, Thomas Sowell, Ronald Reagan and “Publius” have ever written. (She also might keep in mind that HUMAN EVENTS was Ronald Reagan’s favorite newspaper!)

In time, HUMAN EVENTS’ 2008 Conservative of the Year will be ready to be our President and someday can sweep into office and dismantle all the heinous government programs Obama and the Democrats are about to foist on the nation. Who knows? She might even be able to run as the candidate of "hope" and "change."
 
Misogyny trap?



It will work 'cause Ayers, me Matey, we're ALL Somalis NOW!



[voice=The King]
We're caught in a trap, we can't hold back,
Because we hate you too much baybee...
[/voice]



:D
 
EXCLUSIVE Interview With Sarah Palin

by Human Events

“Thank you, sir. It is an honor to be named your ‘‘Conservative of the Year.’”

That’s how Sarah Palin began her third interview this year with HUMAN EVENTS Political Editor John Gizzi. She spoke to Gizzi last April as the first of 16 Republicans he interviewed for HE’s “Veepstakes” election-year feature, and then she sat down with him during the National Governors Association meeting in Philadelphia in July. The Alaska governor last week again spoke to Gizzi, this time about her historic candidacy as the Republican vice presidential nominee as well as about current issues and her future.

Veteran Republican political consultant Holly Robichaud, who had arranged the first “Veepstakes” interview between Palin and Gizzi, set up their latest exchange December 12



Speaking from her office in Juneau, Gov Palin set the scene: “It’s five below, not too cold to snow, which is nice, absolutely beautiful and white and crisp,” and then Gizzi began the interview with her:

GIZZI: Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss singled you out for praise after you campaigned for him and he won re-election in the run-off in Georgia earlier this month. What did you do that was so helpful to Sen. Chambliss, who won by a relatively large margin?

PALIN: Georgia was a blast. People were fired up to re-elect him. It certainly wasn’t me. It was him. When he was on stage, people were cheering. I think the rest of the country, those who were concerned about checks and balances in Washington, D.C., were very excited about the opportunity for me to help out a little bit there. And we made sure we did have those checks and balances that came with his re-election. I was very thankful he was re-elected, and very thankful for my state of Alaska. Saxby is pro-development and wants to make sure that our nation becomes energy independent. Alaska can help. As opposed to the positions his opponent had been taking, he can help us progress toward that end. His opponent [Democrat Jim Martin], I believe, would have worked to lock up more of Alaska.

GIZZI: In campaigning for Sen. Chambliss, you brought back a lot of conservatives who had been critical of him for voting for the Wall Street bailout [of financial institutions]. Would you have favored the Wall Street bailout and voted as Sen. Chambliss did?

PALIN: I would have done what the GOP [senators] did yesterday and said ‘no’ to additional bailout efforts of one industry [the automobile industry, whose proposed federal bailout was stopped in the Senate December 11]. Picking winners and losers in Washington, D.C., is a dangerous thing to do when you’re talking about a system that supposed to be based on free enterprise. When you talk about rewarding for work ethic and good management decisions and then consequences are the results of the opposite of that, and those decisions lead to some mistakes that are made in some industries, taxpayer bailouts should not be looked to as the be-all, end-all solutions.

But back then, weeks ago, when that initial bailout [of financial institutions] was proposed, remember, it was considered at the time a rescue and not necessarily a bailout. Without having as much information as everyone has now, I did support that initial effort that was going to come from Congress. Of course, we saw [Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben] Bernanke and others appear to change the rules right away, it seemed like, after that initial rescue plan or bailout was given the green light, then everybody in the public, including me, started hearing that the rules were changing on where those dollars would go and what the criterion would be. Unfortunately, that leads to distrust of decisions our politicians make on our behalf and bureaucrats make on our behalf.

Now the situation has changed, and I think the GOP did the right thing yesterday in saying, “Look, we still want more information before one industry -- in this case, the auto industry -- gets more taxpayer assistance until everybody knows what those dollars would be used for and how it will lead to success in this industry.”

GIZZI: So you stand with Sen. [Bob] Corker [Tenn.] and other Republicans who stopped the auto industry bailout in the Senate?

PALIN: I do. Once bitten, twice shy. We learned a lesson, at least being amenable -- if not enthused -- to the idea all those weeks ago to the first rescue plan. But then the rules changed quickly, and more information was revealed that perhaps Congress and the bureaucrats in the Treasury Department not having a good grasp on what the problem was and how taxpayer funds would solve any of the problems. That’s caused a lot of concern and caution on my part and the part of the Republican Party.

GIZZI: Indiana Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels has spoken out against the bailout of states that [California] Gov. [Arnold] Schwarzenegger and other governors have called for. As a governor yourself and an active member of the National Governors Association, where do you stand on the bailout of states?

PALIN: Every state, like every community in the United States, comes to Congress with its list of infrastructure needs. Alaska is going to join every other state with a governor’s list. In fact, I’ve looked at every other governor’s list of infrastructure needs that’s presented to Congress. It’s up to Congress, because Congress holds the purse strings, to decide how some of those projects are going to be funded. Alaska’s projects are going to be in the nation’s best interests. They will be infrastructure that will build gas lines and build that infrastructure up that will lead to energy production to allow us to become energy independent. We aren’t asking for things like “Bridges to Nowhere.”

But, in speaking with Gov. Schwarzenegger about this, he has said it’s not his intention to ask for a bailout that is based on his state’s management decisions that have led to some problems in that state. In Alaska, we’re fortunate. We have a surplus. We have money put aside for the last few years, waiting for a ‘rainy day’ when the economy wasn’t as strong. We are in a good position, so we are not asking for, nor should we ask for, a bailout from the ‘feds.’ But we will, along with every other state, have our list of infrastructure projects and roads and very basic tools that will lead to energy production.

GIZZI: For my birthday this year, friends gave me the new biography of Andrew Jackson [American Lion, by Jon Meacham]. One of the passages that reminded me of you is when the author is explaining how vilified Jackson was and says, ‘He was the first President to come from the common people, not from an educated elite, and he never ceased to see himself as their champion.’ Is that something you can identify with and do you think the fact you had a similar background to Jackson’s was a reason for some of the criticism you received from some of the punditocracy and the media in general?

PALIN: Maybe initially it is a hindrance for someone starting out. But once the electorate knows what that candidate’s convictions are and positions are, I don’t think that matters. You just prefaced your question with the fact that I didn’t come from that ‘stock’. I got my education from the University of Idaho because that’s what I could afford. It was the least-expensive school that offered the programs I knew would benefit me in my future. My Dad was a school teacher and had four kids in college at about the same time. It didn’t occur to me to ask my parents to pay for my college education. We all worked through school and paid for schools that we could afford. I still got a great education. No, I don’t come from the self-proclaimed ‘movers and shakers’ group and that’s fine with me. It’s caused me, or rather, allowed me, to work harder and pulled myself up by my bootstraps without anyone else helping me. I think it allows me to be in touch with the vast majority of Americans who are in the same position that I am. That is desiring government to be on our side and not against us. And that means, in a lot of ways, for government to get out of the way to allow our families and our businesses to keep more of what they produce, to meet our own priorities.


My own upbringing and what I am today -- with my husband, in a blue-collar job that he has -- allow me a great connection with the vast majority of Americans who live and work and are trying to raise our families.

GIZZI: What was the biggest mistake made in the ’08 campaign?

PALIN: The biggest mistake made was that I could have called more shots on this: the opportunities that were not seized to speak to more Americans via media. I was not allowed to do very many interviews, and the interviews that I did were not necessarily those I would have chosen. But I was so thankful to have the opportunity to run with John McCain that I was not going to argue with the strategy decisions that some of his people were making regarding the media contacts.

But if I would have been in charge, I would have wanted to speak to more reporters because that’s how you get your message out to the electorate.

GIZZI: And what was the most important lesson you learned from the campaign?

PALIN: The campaign was 99.9% amazing and invigorating and inspiring. But looking back, there were so many things that were outside of my control. I was in a campaign in which I did not know the people individually running the campaign. So I had to put my life, my career, my family, and my reputation in their hands. That’s kind of a scary thing to do when you don’t know the people you are working with.

Now I have all the faith in the world in Sen. McCain and his family. But some of the folks around him I did not know, and so it was a kind of a risky thing for me to put my faith in the decisions they were making on my behalf.

As an administrator, as a chief executive of a state, I am not used to that. I am used to proving my abilities by calling the shots. Then I know the buck stops with me. I made the decisions, and I’m responsible. When others are making decisions for me, as they were in the campaign, and I am the one to live with the fallout from the decisions that were made on my behalf, that is something I am not very comfortable with.

GIZZI: Do you want to give me any names of people?

PALIN: No. But they’re folks who have done this before. Of course, I haven’t done this on a national level before.

But my reliance on seeking God’s direction in all that I do -- that is good enough for me. And others who have a different worldview and different strategy on messaging and such, I would like to have the opportunity to prove to them that my gut instincts were going to be quite adequate.

GIZZI: Are you getting a lot of requests to speak around the country for candidates, as you did for Sen. Chambliss?

PALIN: I’m getting a lot of requests to speak. But right now my focus is on Alaska and a lot of the energy projects we are working on.

GIZZI: Who is your role model?

PALIN: Susan B. Anthony. I have great respect there for the history. She was a pro-life feminist and those things that she stood for, and she was so far ahead of her time. It amazes me.

GIZZI: You made it clear in our interviews earlier this year that you were not close to fellow Republicans Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young from your state, both of whom you said had a different vision of Alaska’s dealings with the federal government than you did. Were you pleased with the election of Democrat Mark Begich who defeated Stevens and with the re-election of Rep. Young?

PALIN: I met yesterday with Sen.-elect Begich to see that we are on the same page as we move forward as he starts his new job representing Alaska.

I thought that Sen. Stevens was going to be re-elected, and it was so close, and that if he were to step aside because he was convicted [on corruption charges], then I would get to appoint a Republican. So I was kind of surprised at the outcome there.

It is what it is, and I wish Sen. Begich well. We’ll work well together. He’s going to be in the majority party and that’s all the more reason for Mark Begich and me to work closely together. We will.

GIZZI: Will you run for higher office, such as the U.S. Senate from Alaska in 2010 [when more moderate Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s seat is up]?

PALIN: That’s not in my sites. There’s so much to do as governor.
 
Yep, she is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
 
QUIET! Cappy is speaking in tongues. Has the Lord sent anyone a translation yet? Anyone??

Misogyny trap?



It will work 'cause Ayers, me Matey, we're ALL Somalis NOW!



[voice=The King]
We're caught in a trap, we can't hold back,
Because we hate you too much baybee...
[/voice]



:D
 
Yep, Obama is fantastic too. Maybe they should be on the same ticket in 2012. That way, everybody is happy.

Yemeni Cricket!




Howard Stern already proved a lot of them thought that WAS the ticket they were voting for...
 
Cap’n AMatrixca;29626786 said:
Yemeni Cricket!




Howard Stern already proved a lot of them thought that WAS the ticket they were voting for...

No, Howard Stern will most likely ask Palin to use the Sybian while Obama shoves a carrot in his ass while reciting how great Bubba The Love Sponge is.
 
Sarah Palin reveals her biggest lesson from defeat

Andrew Malcolm, LA Times

Looking back on the Republicans' unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign with Arizona Sen. John McCain at the top of the ticket, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin now says her role as the VP nominee was "99.9% amazing and invigorating and inspiring."

And while the Aug. 29 announcement of her pick was a politically stunning surprise that sucked all the publicity air out of Barack Obama's Greek-columned, triumphant Denver stadium rally 10 hours before, Palin learned some valuable lessons during the ensuing exhausting weeks. One of them is to go with her gut more and have her own staff.

Palin's McCain campaign staff, none of them known to her, was assembled and grafted onto her family entourage. They came from McCain's crowd, Giuliani's, Bush's 99-00 campaign, even Dick Cheney's office. They were experienced politically, nationally and Washingtonly.

But Palin was not. Indeed, that was her strongest suit in a year where Change You Can Believe In won out. Being the newcomer and junior member, against all her instincts, Palin obediently followed the advice of strangers. And now, smartly, she's got second thoughts. Or has drawn some lessons from the searing experiences.

In a new interview in Human Events, Palin was asked the most important lesson she learned this fall:

"As a chief executive of a state, I am not used to that. I am used to proving my abilities by calling the shots. Then I know the buck stops with me. I made the decisions, and I’m responsible. When others are making decisions for me, as they were in the campaign, and I am the one to live with the fallout from the decisions that were made on my behalf, that is something I am not very comfortable with."

Obviously, her new staff was worried sick Palin would make an irrecoverable blunder in her early days, so they kept her from the desperately curious press, which not only silenced her but created the "why is she hiding campaign?" and left the press to be fed tons of anti-Palin information by opponents. Then, when the McCain crew did roll her out, they revealed their suicide wish by starting with Charles Gibson and Katie Couric. Ann Coulter has her own take here on the Palin phenomenon.

After the financial meltdown this fall, the presidential race was likely beyond Republican grasp anyway. But think how much different the national impression and campaign could have been had Palin, for instance, already done numerous local interviews at every grassroots stop for two weeks, creating her own positive impression with millions of grassroots local TV viewers.

Then, she could have been served up to the anchor sharks whose goal was to make news by somehow embarrassing her. (Remember Gibson peering down through his granny glasses to inquire about the Bush Doctrine and getting it wrong himself?) But millions would already have formed their own opinion.

Palin, who's up for re-election in 2010, is wisely focusing on Alaska now. She's already met with Senator-elect Mark Begich to ensure they're on the same pro-Alaska page and publicly pointed out the advantage to the state of having one senator belong to that body's majority Democrat Party.

Palin is dismissing any talk about future office, on national or local stages. Alaska's Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski is up in 2010. She's the daughter of Frank, the old establishment GOP governor that Palin overthrew in her 2005-06 insurgent primary race before beating a well-known Democrat in the general.

That could be an interesting GOP primary battle if the governor from outside Washington decided she needed to get some experience in that place from which so much political publicity flows.
 
No, Howard Stern will most likely ask Palin to use the Sybian while Obama shoves a carrot in his ass while reciting how great Bubba The Love Sponge is.

No Howard actually asked them if they like Obama's platform while reading them McCain's, they did (at least in Harlem) and when asked if they approved of Sarah Palin on the ticket, they were very supportive of her, as long as she was second-fiddle, like Michelle, Hillary, Geraldine, Maurine, Noonan...

[voice=The King]
Misogyny Trap; we can't hold back,
Because we hate you too much baybee...
[/voice]
 
No Howard actually asked them if they like Obama's platform while reading them McCain's, they did (at least in Harlem) and when asked if they approved of Sarah Palin on the ticket, they were very supportive of her, as long as she was second-fiddle, like Michelle, Hillary, Geraldine, Maurine, Noonan...

[voice=The King]
Misogyny Trap; we can't hold back,
Because we hate you too much baybee...
[/voice]

My version is better. Who cares about policy when you can see carrot anal action and Palin trying the tickler attachment?
 
Great commentary comparing her with Maggie Thatcher, by someone who knows the former prime minister. Lit has been subject to a lot of Palin-bashing over the past few days. People still don't get it, it seems. It's not about that Ivy League degree. It's not about polished, cosmopolitan inflection. It's about people, and it's about instincts. Sarah Palin understands people, and she has good political instincts.


Conservative Snobs Are Wrong About Palin
I know Maggie Thatcher. The two women have a lot in common.


By JOHN O'SULLIVAN

Being listed in fourth place for Time magazine's "Person of the Year," as Sarah Palin was for 2008, sounds a little like being awarded the Order of Purity (Fourth Class). But it testifies to something important.

Though regularly pronounced sick, dying, dead, cremated and scattered at sea, Mrs. Palin is still amazingly around. She has survived more media assassination attempts than Fidel Castro has survived real ones (Cuban official figure: 638). In her case, one particular method of assassination is especially popular -- namely, the desperate assertion that, in addition to her other handicaps, she is "no Margaret Thatcher."

Very few express this view in a calm or considered manner. Some employ profanity. Most claim to be conservative admirers of Mrs. Thatcher. Others admit they had always disliked the former British prime minister until someone compared her to "Sarracuda" -- at which point they suddenly realized Mrs. Thatcher must have been absolutely brilliant (at least by comparison).

Inevitably, Lloyd Bentsen's famous put-down of Dan Quayle in the 1988 vice-presidential debate is resurrected, such as by Paul Waugh (in the London Evening Standard) and Marie Cocco (in the Washington Post): "Newsflash! Governor, You're No Maggie Thatcher," sneered Mr. Waugh. Added Ms. Coco, "now we know Sarah Palin is no Margaret Thatcher -- and no Dan Quayle either!"

Jolly, rib-tickling stuff. But, as it happens, I know Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher is a friend of mine. And as a matter of fact, Margaret Thatcher and Sarah Palin have a great deal in common.

They are far from identical; they rose in different political systems requiring different skills. As a parliamentarian, Mrs. Thatcher needed forensic and debating skills which her training in Oxford politics and as a tax lawyer gave her. Mrs. Palin is a good speaker, but she needs to hone her debating tactics if she is to match those of the Iron Lady.

On the other hand, Mrs. Palin rose in state politics to jobs requiring executive ability. Her successful conduct of the negotiations with Canada, Canadian provinces and American states over the Alaska pipeline was a larger executive task than anything handled by Mrs. Thatcher until she entered the Cabinet and, arguably, until she became prime minister.

Mrs. Thatcher's most senior position until then had been education secretary in the government of Edward Heath where, as she conceded in her memoirs, she lacked real executive power. Her political influence within that government was so small that it took 17 months for her to get an interview with him. Even then, a considerate civil servant assured Heath that others would be present to make the meeting less "boring." Her main political legacy from that job was the vitriolic slogan, "Margaret Thatcher, Milk-Snatcher," thrown at her by the left because of a budgetary decision she had opposed to charge some children for school meals and milk. It was the single most famous thing about her when she defeated Heath for the Tory leadership in 1975.

At this point she became almost as "controversial" as Sarah Palin. Heath, for example, made it plain privately that he would not serve under her. And Sir Ian Gilmour, an intellectual leader of the Tory "wets," privately dismissed her as a "Daily Telegraph woman." There is no precise equivalent in American English, but "narrow, repressed suburbanite" catches the sense.

Mrs. Thatcher attracted such abuse for two reasons. First, she was seen by the chattering classes as representing a blend of provincial conservative values and market economics -- Middle England as it has come to be called -- against their own metropolitan liberalism. They thought this blend was an economic dead-end in a modern complex society and a political retreat into futile nostalgia. Of course, they failed to notice that their modern complex society was splintering under their statist burdens even as they denounced her extremism.

Second, Margaret Thatcher was not yet Margaret Thatcher. She had not won the 1979 election, recovered the Falklands, reformed trade union law, defeated the miners, and helped destroy Soviet communism peacefully.

Things like that change your mind about a girl. But they also take time, during which she had to turn her instinctive beliefs into intellectually coherent policies against opposition inside and outside her own party. Like Mrs. Palin this year, Mrs. Thatcher knew there were serious gaps in her knowledge, especially of foreign affairs. She recruited experts who shared her general outlook (such as Robert Conquest and Hugh Thomas) to tutor her on these things. Even so she often seemed very alone in the Tory high command.

As a parliamentary sketch writer for the Daily Telegraph (and a not very repressed suburbanite), I watched Mrs. Thatcher's progress as opposition leader. She had been a good performer in less exalted positions. But initially she faltered. Against the smooth, condescending Prime Minister James Callaghan in particular she had a hard time. In contrast to his chuckling baritone she sounded shrill when she attacked. But she lowered her tone (vocally not morally), took lessons in presentation from (among others) Laurence Olivier, and prepared diligently for every debate and Question Time.

I can still recall her breakthrough performance in a July 1977 debate on the Labour government's collapsing economy. She dominated the House of Commons so wittily that the next day the Daily Mail's acerbic correspondent, Andrew Alexander, began his report: "If Mrs. Thatcher were a racehorse, she would have been tested for drugs yesterday." She was now on the way to becoming the world-historical figure who today is the gold standard of conservative statesmanship.

Mrs. Palin has a long way to go to match this. Circumstances may never give her the chance to do so. Even if she gets that chance, she may lack Mrs. Thatcher's depths of courage, firmness and stamina -- we only ever know such things in retrospect.

But she has plenty of time, probably eight years, to analyze America's problems, recruit her own expert advice, and develop conservative solutions to them. She has obvious intelligence, drive, serious moral character, and a Reaganesque likability. Her likely Republican rivals such as Bobby Jindal and Mitt Romney, not to mention Barack Obama, have most of these same qualities too. But she shares with Mrs. Thatcher a very rare charisma. As Ronnie Millar, the latter's speechwriter and a successful playwright, used to say in theatrical tones: She may be depressed, ill-dressed and having a bad hair day, but when the curtain rises, out onto the stage she steps looking like a billion dollars. That's the mark of a star, dear boy. They rise to the big occasions.

Mrs. Palin had four big occasions in the late, doomed Republican campaign: her introduction by John McCain in Ohio, her speech at the GOP convention, her vice-presidential debate with Sen. Joe Biden, and her appearance on Saturday Night Live. With minimal preparation, she rose to all four of them. That's the mark of star.

If conservative intellectuals, Republican operatives and McCain "handlers" can't see it, then so much the worse for them.

Mr. O'Sullivan is executive editor of Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty in Prague, and a former special adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. His book, "The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister" (Regnery), has just been published in paperback.
 
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Yep, she is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

It's been a banner year for conservatives. Palin had to work hard to stand out from the crowd.

It makes me wonder why I don't get a check from the state of Louisiana, for my share of the oil thats pumped out of Louisiana wells.
 
I for one REALLY hope she runs in 2012.


pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease
 
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