Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Cutting bait (Steyn on Palin)
NRO ^ | 7/3/09 | Mark Steyn

Posted on 07/03/2009 10:57:15 PM PDT by pissant

With respect to many of the Palinologists below, I think they're getting way too hepatomantic over the entrails.

As a political move for anything other than the 2010 Senate race, today's announcement is a disaster. And I'm not sure it's a plus for the Senate - and, even if it were, the manner and timing suggest it was not a professionally planned event and therefore is unlikely to have any grand strategy behind it.

So Occam's Razor leaves us with: Who needs this?

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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: Alaska
KEYWORDS: careerendingmove; chickenlittles; democratswin; fedindictmentcoming; gopimplosion; marksteyn; palin; quitter; sarahbarraquitta; soroswins
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 341-355 next last
Guess this is one way of grabbing headlines back from Mark Sanford.
1 posted on 07/03/2009 10:57:16 PM PDT by pissant
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: pissant

Great article....


2 posted on 07/03/2009 11:00:19 PM PDT by freebilly
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: pissant

This is a good article.
And Steyn is right.
It’s time to cut bait on Sarah Palin as the future hope of the GOP, just as she’s cut bait on political life.
She’s not the Moses to lead us out of the desert.


3 posted on 07/03/2009 11:03:23 PM PDT by counterpunch (In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: counterpunch

I never put any energy into hoping or thinking she’d be my gal for 2012 anyway.


4 posted on 07/03/2009 11:06:47 PM PDT by pissant (THE Conservative party: www.falconparty.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: pissant

A voice of reason. Maybe she just screw younz! I love my family and I’m not willing to move from God’s country and sacrifice them to the gods of power and celebrity. Let the sheep fend for themselves.


5 posted on 07/03/2009 11:07:09 PM PDT by Eagles6 ( Typical White Guy: Christian, Constitutionalist, Heterosexual, Redneck. (Let them eat arugula!))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: pissant
I fully agree with Mark Steyn's take, in fact, it parallels my post which came out with the news:

It is the explanation that makes the most sense, her family has been so battered by this process, by the unmitigated venom of the Democrat attacks against her, that they are simply withdrawing into their Alaskan reality. They never lived by the Beltway reality. They are just going home.


6 posted on 07/03/2009 11:07:57 PM PDT by nathanbedford ("Attack, repeat, attack!" Bull Halsey)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: counterpunch
just as she’s cut bait on political life.

Guess you listened to MSNBC's Mitchell instead of paying attention to Palin's statement.

7 posted on 07/03/2009 11:08:38 PM PDT by SolidWood (Palin isn't retreating, but taking the fight in another direction.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: pissant

Not a lot is known yet about what Sarah Palin’s reasons for resigning are, and I am getting pretty tired of all the speculating, kvetching and etc., but I am of the mind that she feels she can work for conservatives in other ways than running for office. Maybe I’m wrong and she really is saying enough is enough. I guess time will tell, but I just don’t see her quitting politics entirely.

Besides, she’s still young and still has time to run for office in the future. ;-)

Good one by Steyn, as always.


8 posted on 07/03/2009 11:08:39 PM PDT by Theresawithanh (Impeach Obama)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: counterpunch; All
While all of us are able to express our opinion, you seem to be trolling each and every post about Sarah Palin.

TO ALL: DO NOT RESPOND TO counterpunch, THE TROLL!


9 posted on 07/03/2009 11:08:54 PM PDT by WVKayaker (Words are plentiful, but deeds are precious.- Lech Walesa)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

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

M.S., Is really telling (the anal) "the Washington D.C. King Makers" to go "straight to hell".

be afraid Democrat / RINOS / CINOS...be very afraid.

GO MARK S.!

10 posted on 07/03/2009 11:08:58 PM PDT by skinkinthegrass (Zer0Bambi to the poor voter: Welcome to 0bamacare (Peasant Care ®) You Sucker... Now Die! :^)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: counterpunch
You STILL haven't answer the question....
Who are you pushing?....MYTH Again.

11 posted on 07/03/2009 11:12:58 PM PDT by skinkinthegrass (Zer0Bambi to the poor voter: Welcome to 0bamacare (Peasant Care ®) You Sucker... Now Die! :^)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: WVKayaker

Not everyone has drank the Palin Kool-Aid.
Some of us recognized it for the political poison it is when she imploded last October.


12 posted on 07/03/2009 11:13:13 PM PDT by counterpunch (In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: pissant
....it was not a professionally planned event

The best thing Palin can do is stay away from the GOP's "professional planners".

13 posted on 07/03/2009 11:13:45 PM PDT by Lancey Howard
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SolidWood

Sorry bud, but political life is what it is. If you decide to enter then you need to stand by your commitments.

I can’t back someone who’s going to cut and run when the going gets tough. If she thinks being governor is tough, she would have one hell of a rude awakening living in the White House.

If she never plans on running for president, she may have made the right decision. If she does, I won’t be supporting her. Not after this...

I’ve spent too many years in my life wishing a candidate would live up to my expectations, only to have them fail that. I just don’t live in the dream world any longer.

I’m just not going to hope beyond hope that Sarah will work things out.


14 posted on 07/03/2009 11:14:13 PM PDT by DoughtyOne (_Resident of the United States and Kenya's favorite son, Baraaaack Hussein Obamaaaa...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: pissant
With respect to many of the Palinologists below, I think they're getting way too hepatomantic over the entrails.

So Steyn steps on his own words of caution by offering his own assumption. And not even an original one at that. For Steyn, this is subpar.

15 posted on 07/03/2009 11:14:24 PM PDT by smoothsailing
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: counterpunch
She’s not the Moses to lead us out of the desert.

Well, it's not McCain, and it's not the Huckster, and it's certainly not the slimy Romney.... Who do you suggest, genius?

16 posted on 07/03/2009 11:15:54 PM PDT by Lancey Howard
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

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

What about Reagan?

17 posted on 07/03/2009 11:16:27 PM PDT by FTJM
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: WVKayaker; counterpunch
..you seem to be trolling each and every post about Sarah Palin.

Oh! ....He's just another Myth(bot).


18 posted on 07/03/2009 11:16:43 PM PDT by skinkinthegrass (Zer0Bambi to the poor voter: Welcome to 0bamacare (Peasant Care ®) You Sucker... Now Die! :^)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Lancey Howard

I suggest you get ready for some plagues...


19 posted on 07/03/2009 11:16:59 PM PDT by Little Ray (Do we have a Plan B?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: counterpunch

Why do you think she’s getting tens of thousands of people to attend her small events, if she imploded last October?

She didn’t implode last October. Good grief, everyone’s entitled to a setback once in a while.

Until today, she was headed on to be a top contender in 2011/12.


20 posted on 07/03/2009 11:17:10 PM PDT by DoughtyOne (_Resident of the United States and Kenya's favorite son, Baraaaack Hussein Obamaaaa...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 341-355 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson