Sarah Palin is the Bermuda Triangle of political commentary. No matter the number of writers who have bravely gone where others have gone before, column space and magazine covers continue to find themselves sucked into the increasingly black hole of “commentary” on the ongoing saga of the life and television-documented times of the former governor of Alaska.
Thought piece after thought piece have tried to explain and analyze every aspect of Palin’s thinking and rationale for action—most, without the benefit of direct access or answers from Palin herself—and the limits of the both laudatory and lewd coverage have been exhausted. The well of interesting and insightful analysis dried sometime after November’s “The Palin Network” from the NY Times Magazine—still the most insightful and fair looks into the psyche of Madame Palin.
There just isn’t that much left to say about Palin. Her own actions seem to have closed the door on any legitimate chance of running and/or beating President Obama in 2012. Palin’s poll numbers and “unfavorables” continue to drop. The “Blood Libel” fiasco still stands as the final stop on her descent from GOP frontrunner to hanger-on.
Despite what the prevailing narrative might be these days, there are those of us who remember when Palin’s political identity was found in solid governance rather than the latest “tweak” via Facebook and Twitter. Joshua Green of The Atlantic revisits the record and actions of Palin in the lead up and term serving as Governor of Alaska, and has written one of the most intelligent and sympathetic looks into “The Tragedy of Sarah Palin”.
Green explores why Alaskans are largely disenchanted with the figure that is Sarah Palin—and it doesn’t just have to do with her resigning her governorship. The journey of Sarah Palin from mayor of Wasilla to governor of Alaska is a fascinating exploration of an individual who seems to have had policy intelligence, a sense of morality (“But the five-letter word that people in Alaska associated with her name was clean”), and a willingness to work with all parties to accomplish true and meaningful change.
While Alaskans might not be incredibly fond of Palin, as a state, they are still benefiting from her decisions and savvy as governor, particularly in her dealings with the oil and gas companies.
Palin’s major achievement has probably meant the difference between a $12 billion surplus and a deficit.
And she was willing to do this even when pressure came from within her own party.
Palin came under serious political pressure. Although she doesn’t mention it in Going Rogue, the Associated Press discovered that Vice President Dick Cheney called her at least twice that month. According to her aides, Cheney urged her to make concessions, but she didn’t.
What sticks out when you read the rest of the piece is how Palin seems to have faced a defining moment in her political career, the moment when John McCain pulled her onto the ticket and she had to decide “what will Sarah Palin be known by?”
She had always had certain character flaws and demons that she battled throughout her life. Vindictiveness when slighted and an unwillingness to rise above responding to dirty personal attacks (no matter how small) characterized Palin’s career. But what made her a good governor was not her willingness to swing back when punched, but her willingness to work with her “enemies.”
The spirit of bipartisan cooperation to achieve reform worked in Alaska and Palin knew how to negotiate and affect real change with both parties. But playing nice is a hard road to package and sell to a national audience, people were festering with a bit of anger —and so this Mama Grizzly went on the attack, and never looked back.
The story of Sarah Palin is a cautionary tale. Little sins and moral shortcomings, if not corrected, rarely stay in the neatly cordoned off areas of our lives. Drawing ones identity not from a higher power, but from the impressions of friends and enemies may start with writing fake letters of self-praise to newspapers but ends being enslaved to the response and driven to the point of frustration by the latest scurrilous accusations on talk radio or on the blogosphere.
Sarah Palin had a choice of how she would lead. Three years after her unveiling, it’s clear she chose the wrong path.
True leaders are not just willing to buck the mainstream and follow their own paths; rather they must be characterized by a strength that still values humility. A self-obsessed person doesn’t need to take time to be quiet and learn from others and a self-obsessed person doesn’t need people around them to speak truth when they may act foolishly. And on a political level, there is little room for the views and opinions of others when you value your own opinion so highly.
These flaws are not unique to Sarah Palin—each of us struggle with these issues daily. We cultivate our image in our communities, we pretend to be better read than we really are, and we take offense at the smallest of perceived slights. But few of us have three million Facebook “friends” waiting for our latest pronouncement and the world’s media analyzing our life, tweet by tweet. When we sin, when we fall, we do it off-screen, but no less ingloriously.
The real tragedy of Sarah Palin is that she was no maverick—she was just a little too much like the rest of us.
May 12th, 2011 | 2:36 pm
Here is the scoop. Sarah Palin is rising in greatness. She is not a, “has been”, but a “will be”. Certainly the MSM, and even GOP elites have hoped a couple of times now that she was finished, but sorry for them they just have not found the silver bullet to bring her down. Her genuine great record means one thing for sure, She has not changed but is just getting better and wiser. What a person has done is a very good read of what they will do. “Can a Leopard change his spots” was the Biblical question. For our present occupant in the white house who just voted present and lead in nothing, it has proven true, and for Sarah Palin who accomplished so much with integrity and the will to do the right thing , it will prove true also. She has my vote in 2012.
May 12th, 2011 | 3:01 pm
Sarah Palin was so successful as a governor, she graduated early, she real is a “Dan Quayle” in heels. She clearly loves “dishing it out” but real can’t take it because she loves playing the victim card. Poor thing she fail as a VP candidate (her lie that her daughter was engaged was such a farce), her stand-up comic fiasco on the Jay Leno Show, please, her TV show canceled after declining rating, I guess running for Prez is the only thing she can look forward to, but since she is a coward she will only throw small minded rocks, poor thing. Since we already had an idiot “W” that caused our current economic debacle, America knows not to trust in fools who think they are brilliant. One of the reason for “W” failure was his drinking, Palin just has bad genes.
May 12th, 2011 | 3:39 pm
“The “Blood Libel” fiasco still stands as the final stop on her descent from GOP frontrunner to hanger-on.”
Shame on you. Shame, shame, shame. The notion that her use of “blood libel” was unusual or in any way out of bounds is completely absurd, and yet another example of how anything she does draws hysterical shrieks by unserious people. Her treatment by the MSM has been the most sickening thing I’ve ever seen. Remember how they tried to force her to resign in the first few days after her nomination, before any of them even knew anything about her? Remember when we were all supposed to pretend that Barack Obama didn’t call her a pig, even though he clearly did? Remember when Charlie Gibson brazenly lied about her claiming the Iraq War was “a task from God”?
Oh, well. She coulda been a contender. An obscure Republican who fought a powerful party machine and got favorable press from Nat Hentoff somehow was turned into “Caribou Barbie.” Forget religion or politics–the one thing that CANNOT be discussed rationally in America today is Sarah Palin. Hey, something we can agree on!
May 12th, 2011 | 4:39 pm
“The Tragedy of Sarah Palin”? How so? She has clay feet – hold the presses! The fact is, she’s a lovely person, a loving wife, mother and grandmother, from everything we can tell ( and with the microscopic examinings of the left, she’s probably been vetted better than any person in history). No, the tragedy is in the pure malevolence that emanates from the “Montanas” of the world. Such unhappy people.
May 12th, 2011 | 5:08 pm
Everyone who has ever written the political obituary of Sarah Palin has subsequently been forced to eat crow. Of course, crow is organic & free-range, so Nathan Martin might enjoy his dish, properly seasoned.
May 12th, 2011 | 5:43 pm
I love it. Willegge and Brian continue to bash the MSM when only a liberal publication like The Atlantic can get the perspective needed to provide the best analysis we have of Palin thus far.
May 12th, 2011 | 9:23 pm
Whatever virtues, talents or sophistication Sarah Palin may lack, the virtue she most certainly does have – the very virtue so many of her critics seem to lack – is integrity. Integrity more than makes up for her imperfections; the lack of it in her critics undermines the little credibility that is still to be found in them.
For example, what kind of person will best resolve our nation’s economic problems? I think we will get far better results from one whose sense of justice is rooted in traditional values and who has the integrity to objectively seek out basic justice for all, than we will ever get from politically correct, godless social engineers with impeccable “ruling-class” credentials, yet can’t seem to grasp what is wrong with killing the innocent child in the womb, or even grasp what is wrong with letting intended abortion victims who are born alive die of medical negligence alone in a hospital closet.
Who really thinks that those who are oblivious to society’s obligation to protect helpless, abandoned babies actually possess genuine compassion for the poor, or are genuinely concerned with justice for the rest of us? Only those as blind as such guides.
“Impeccable credentials” and Ivy League sophistication does not excuse such hard-hearted immorality in these godless social engineers. They often signify it, not excuse it. On the other hand, Sarah Palin’s humble, loving acceptance of Trig and Tripp are sure signs of the integrity, justice and compassion with which she would deal with the rest of us in economic and other matters.
May 12th, 2011 | 9:27 pm
the notion that her use of “blood libel” was unusual or in any way out of bounds is completely absurd
So the MSM really did accuse her of murdering kids to use their blood for baking purposes?
Palin acted like a jerk on the national stage, and she was treated like one. Kudos to Green and the Atlantic, her natural enemies, for reminding us of her better side.
May 12th, 2011 | 10:47 pm
Lewis said: “I love it. Willegge and Brian continue to bash the MSM when only a liberal publication like The Atlantic can get the perspective needed to provide the best analysis we have of Palin thus far.”
You mean like Andrew Sullivan still claiming that Trig Palin is Bristol’s child even though Down’s Syndrome is almost unheard of in moms Bristol’s age and somewhat common in births from Mothers over 40? That Atlantic? Hahahaha!
May 13th, 2011 | 8:02 am
Harry, integrity isn’t mouthing moral principles, it’s living up to one’s own high principles. On that score, perhaps she didn’t abort Trig because she’s anti-abortion. What other examples do you see of her doing the right thing when it was hard to do?
May 13th, 2011 | 9:15 am
“So the MSM really did accuse her of murdering kids to use their blood for baking purposes? ”
So there’s actually a copyright on the phrase “blood libel” so that you can only ever use it to refer to one kind of libel about people shedding blood? You can’t ever use the phrase “blood libel” to mean “expressing the libel (i.e. demonstrably false claim against a person) that another person or persons have engaged in the shedding of blood?” Even when it is used in a parallel sense to the historic instance of “blood libel” concerning baking babies, such that a body of persons is being accused in such a way for propaganda purposes? These words are now so narrow that they cannot be used to express a materially, morally, and socially similar idea?
May 13th, 2011 | 10:07 am
pentamom, as much as I dislike Palin, I think her misuse of “blood libel” was an understandable mistake, but a mistake from ignorance which once again demonstrates the relative ignorance (giving her the benefit of the doubt) which makes her unqualified for high office.
But to answer your post directly, there is no parallel, logically or morally, between murdering from hatred for hateful ritual purposes, which is what a blood libel charge refers to and has always referred to – words don’t have copyrights, but they do have meanings – and making inflammatory statements that indirectly and unintentionally lead to murder, which is what she was accused of.
Her opponents used the Giffords shooting to further marginalize her, yes, but not to make her out to be a vile lunatic murdering for religious reasons – nothing of the sort. But here’s the key point about that: they believe, and I believe, and conservatives (who oppose violent rap lyrics and video games) believe, that words can incite violence. So their “propaganda” (a word I’ll bet you’d never use for your own side’s messages) merely flows from their actual convictions.
Also note that even many of her original conservative champions have backed away from her after this incident, an indication they know she handled it poorly.
May 13th, 2011 | 11:55 am
I don’t think the Giffords incident meant anything important in the long run. Jesse Helms, for example, lost nothing by toying with rhetorical violence against President Clinton. If that was the only problem with Palin, it would be a minor glitch in the long run.
Palin’s problem is that she stands for nothing so she will fall over nothing. She is the candidate for you if you think on Monday Obama should be bombing Libya and on Tuesday Obama is wasting too much money bombing Libya and on Wednesday Obama is a coward for not sending troops into Libya.
As willegge pointed out, Palin is ‘rising in greatness’. How? Because she has discovered the ‘fame monster’…to use Lady Gaga’s words. She has discovered that while one can be famous for being actually great (that’s a lot of hard work), you can also be famous just for being famous (a lot easier and much more fun). Which is what Palin has done. To her fans everything and anything she does is just full of greatness. She was a great governor of Alaska….although she actually didn’t do anything in Alaska. She’s a great mom….although I can’t really tell what makes her a great mom and neither can anyone else. (seriously, what has she done as a mom that pentamom hasn’t done? That Hillary Clinton hasn’t done? ) She annoys liberals…..yea ok and Michael Moore annoys conservatives but that by itself isn’t quite Presidential material. She is, infallable because she doesn’t do anything that’s worth anything. She cannot fail, and for that reason she can never succeed. She has achieved fame for its own sake and is now the best candidate, for a reality TV show.
May 13th, 2011 | 12:02 pm
“The real tragedy of Sarah Palin is that she was no maverick—she was just a little too much like the rest of us.”
Sorry, but most of “the rest of us” are not sociopaths. Socipaths are a small minority. The real tragedy is what sociopaths do to the rest of us. Not our rejection of them.
May 13th, 2011 | 12:13 pm
“You mean like Andrew Sullivan still claiming that Trig Palin is Bristol’s child even though Down’s Syndrome is almost unheard of in moms Bristol’s age and somewhat common in births from Mothers over 40? That Atlantic? Hahahaha!”
If you can’t tell the difference between Andrew Sullivan and Joshua Green, then you’re part of the problem.
If you want smart, sympathetic analysis of a controversial political figure from the opposition, you have to go to a liberal publication. Conservative rags simply refuse to discuss liberals with any intelligence.
May 13th, 2011 | 12:49 pm
Lewis: Sorry, but The Atlantic absolutely has to be held to account for allowing the despicable slander against Sarah Palin to be printed under its masthead. There’s never been a birth-related slur so vile since the birth of James III in 1688. For you to think they can say “Sorry about the Trig Trutherism that we allowed to be printed on our webpage for so long–look how honest and full of integrity we are for printing an article suggesting that maybe Sarah Palin isn’t the psychotic right-wing harpy that we and our pals have been saying for three year!”
May 13th, 2011 | 1:00 pm
“But to answer your post directly, there is no parallel, logically or morally, between murdering from hatred for hateful ritual purposes, which is what a blood libel charge refers to and has always referred to – words don’t have copyrights, but they do have meanings – and making inflammatory statements that indirectly and unintentionally lead to murder, which is what she was accused of. ”
That’s not the parallel.
Historic meaning of blood libel: charging someone with murdering people for ritualistic purposes.
Palin’s meaning of blood libel: charging someone with conspiring in the death of people for some unspecified, but clearly nefarious, purpose.
In both cases, the term “blood libel” is used for the *charge of* shedding of blood, not the shedding itself.
There is daylight between those two ideas, but they are hardly so radically different that it is self-evidently fully appropriate to use the term in one case, and some kind of obvious moral abomination to use it the another.
May 13th, 2011 | 1:04 pm
And FWIW, I think Palin is pretty overrated by her ideological friends. I understand why it happens — so much of the attack against her is so overwrought that people want to rush to her defense. She’s not nearly as stupid or incompetent as her worst enemies would make her out to be — but it’s foolish to react to that by pretending she’s brilliant and not admitting that frequently, she doesn’t handle herself well, and that while her past political accomplishments are certainly respectable, they are not the stuff of historic greatness.
May 13th, 2011 | 1:21 pm
pentamom, no one accused Palin of conspiring to cause Giffords’ death, for pete’s sake. No one accused her of shedding blood. Period. They accused of irresponsible carelessness, and the two things aren’t faintly parallel.
The kindest way to understand what Palin said is that she was ignorant; the alternative is that she was spinning to make herself a martyr.
May 13th, 2011 | 1:29 pm
Sarah Palin’s use of blood libel is perfectly normal, or at least was until she said it and unserious persons went absolutely ballistic.
Support for her use from Alan Dershowitz:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/13/sarahpalin-arizona-shooting
And a rabbi in the WSJ:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703583404576079823067585318.html
Anyone who thinks that it can only reply to one particular historical event (even the events that caused its original coinage), better freak out equally as much every time someone uses “ghetto” to mean anything other than an area of a city where Jews are forcibly confined to live. Otherwise you’re a fraud.
May 13th, 2011 | 1:48 pm
Obama assured us he has been in all 57 states. He inadvertently mentioned his “Muslim faith” during an interview with George Stephanopoulos after assuring Americans he was a Christian. Palin’s critics forgive and forget when Obama doesn’t quite say what he really meant. After all, don’t we all do that occasionally? That would be fine and very reasonable of them except for the fact that they forever and always harshly judge Palin to be a stupid buffoon if she makes a mistake.
Yet they never feel they have made their point sufficiently. They feel the need to go on and on and on proclaiming to the public that she is a buffoon. Why can’t they stop? Why do they never feel they are finished convicting Palin of buffoonery? Because they know such a conviction is unjust, and this will become apparent if the fog created by their hate-filled propaganda is ever dispelled. But this approach is doomed to fail. Just as you couldn’t really threaten St. Francis with taking away all his possessions, you can’t really intimidate Sarah Palin with verbal assault anymore. Sure, there are those whose opinion of her will never change, but everyone else will eventually see that Palin’s actions, speaking much louder than words, refute all the false charges against her.
If those who incessantly abuse Palin were honest they would just admit she scares the daylights out of them because she is unashamedly Christian and Pro-Life.
May 13th, 2011 | 1:53 pm
“For you to think they can say “Sorry about the Trig Trutherism that we allowed to be printed on our webpage for so long–look how honest and full of integrity we are for printing an article suggesting that maybe Sarah Palin isn’t the psychotic right-wing harpy that we and our pals have been saying for three year!”
Don’t be dense. The point isn’t who or doesn’t publish idiots like Sullivan. Everybody does. The difference is that the liberal MSM still aspires to hew to real journalistic standards while right-wing rags don’t even try.
Show me the sympathetic and revealing portrait of Nancy Pelosi that appeared in rags like the National Review or the Wall Street Journal.
May 13th, 2011 | 1:58 pm
“You mean like Andrew Sullivan still claiming that Trig Palin is Bristol’s child even though Down’s Syndrome is almost unheard of in moms Bristol’s age and somewhat common in births from Mothers over 40? That Atlantic? Hahahaha!”
Actually Sullivan never claimed any such thing. $100 if you can prove me wrong.
May 13th, 2011 | 2:26 pm
Brian,
Rabbi Boteach is wrong. No one has accused Palin of being an accessory to murder. That would be a crime – as anyone called for her to be charged with a crime?
Dershowitz is wrong as well. Again, no one accused Palin of anything remotely like what the charge has historically been used to refer to. It’s true that meanings of terms sometimes change over time, but that’s often precisely because people make false analogies, as Palin has here, that trade on the force of the original meaning but once accepted water it down. And why do they do it? Again, I’m trying to give Palin the benefit of the doubt, but the plausible reasons reasons here range from ignorance (my bet) to disingenuously playing the victim. She does play the victim a lot, never acknowledging that the charges against her have any merit at all.
Oh, and who uses the term “ghetto” any more? As late as the 60′s, however, and really much later through red-lining, blacks were in fact confined to certain areas.
May 13th, 2011 | 2:28 pm
“Don’t be dense. The point isn’t who or doesn’t publish idiots like Sullivan. Everybody does.”
Nope, they really don’t. Name me anyone as evil/insane as Andrew Sullivan published by the WSJ, to use one of your own examples of “conservative rags”, (note my punctuation choice!) showing your somewhat odd standards of what constitutes a “rag”. And your example must be someone who repeatedly focuses on something as despicable as Trig Trutherism, the calumny for which he is directly responsible for spreading to a wide audience.
May 13th, 2011 | 2:59 pm
harry wrote:
Obama assured us he has been in all 57 states. He inadvertently mentioned his “Muslim faith” during an interview with George Stephanopoulos after assuring Americans he was a Christian. Palin’s critics forgive and forget when Obama doesn’t quite say what he really meant. After all, don’t we all do that occasionally? That would be fine and very reasonable of them except for the fact that they forever and always harshly judge Palin to be a stupid buffoon if she makes a mistake.
The difference is that Palin hasn’t acknowledged, and never acknowledges, that she’s made a mistake. Obama would of course acknowledge that he mispoke about the “57″ states, and no intelligent person would claim he did so from lack of knowledge. “My Muslim faith” was even a misstatement – he clearly meant his supposed Muslim faith.
May 13th, 2011 | 3:47 pm
I think the problem with the ‘blood libel’ incident had nothing really to do with the actual debate about rhetoric, it was about tone deafness. Once again Palin did what she always does, smack the “I’m a Victim Here!” button with both her fists as hard as she can. The only problem, there were real victims and they included not only the Congresswoman but the judge who was murdered and the 9 yr old girl as well the others.
Granted, Sylvia Path comparing her poor relationship she had with her father to the Jewish Holocaust was probably more tone deaf, but you can’t knock Palin for not trying.
May 13th, 2011 | 3:52 pm
You can’t do it, can you? You know that no conservative could publish a sympathetic portrait of Pelosi. That’s why they are rags.
“Name me anyone as evil/insane as Andrew Sullivan published by the WSJ”
How about McCaughey’s op-ed about death panels.
May 13th, 2011 | 4:06 pm
And exactly what makes Andrew Sullivan evil/insane again?
May 13th, 2011 | 10:49 pm
“pentamom, no one accused Palin of conspiring to cause Giffords’ death, for pete’s sake.”
She was repeatedly accused of calling for the deaths of Giffords and other congress members because she endorsed a website that showed icons of targets placed on congressional districts. There were in fact those who tried to make this into an explicit call for people to be shot. The fact that this is a ridiculous connection to make doesn’t alter the fact that some people made it. So yes, they did accuse her of conspiratorial activities intended to lead to people’s deaths. The charge was as ridiculous in its genesis as it was in its lack of truth, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t made.
May 13th, 2011 | 11:42 pm
My $100 challenge expires at midnight EST.
May 14th, 2011 | 9:50 am
Reports of her demise are greatly exaggerated.
The media would love for you to believe that her political career is over. If they keep telling her prospective voters this lie, maybe they’ll fall for it and stay home on election day.
Nope.
May 14th, 2011 | 9:54 am
pentamom,
there is probably some blogger somewhere who accused her of being the Wicked Witch of the West. So maybe some nut somewhere accused her of explicitly calling for people to be shot, although you’ve cited no examples. But any halfway mature person would have ignored them, just like they’d ignore a mentally ill person ranting and raving on the street, not drawn attention to them by tweeting about them.
The fact is that this is the statement of mine you responded to: “So the MSM really did accuse her of murdering kids to use their blood for baking purposes? ” The mainstream media is what we were talking about, so don’t try to shift the subject.
Here are the facts: Pain didn’t “endorse” a website showing names of members of Congress in cross hair sights – she put one up on her Facebook page: http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/images/palin-crosshairs.jpg
Gun sales have gone up dramatically in conservative areas of the country since Obama was elected. Quoting the Huffington Post now, “On March 23, Palin tweeted to her supporters a note about the aforementioned Facebook message, writing, “Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: ‘Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!’ Pls see my Facebook page.” And as Politico’s Jonathan Martin points out, in November Palin boasted about defeating 18 of the 20 members on her “bullseye” list.”
Many mainstream voices rightly called that irresponsible and wondered if it might have inspired the shooter, and that is almost certainly what she in turn responded to.
May 14th, 2011 | 5:36 pm
Good grief, most Palin fans are a more thin-skinned bunch than Randroids! And I say that as someone who doesn’t really have anything against Sarah Palin myself.
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