Posted on 08/28/2011 8:17:34 AM PDT by techno
If she does run I will support her as she will be the only true reformer in politics running.
And nah, she ain't endorsing nobody!
It’s good to see some of you finally getting past the "quitting" meme, which has never been anything more than a slipshod attack on her character using cheesy semantic confusion over the word "quit." (quitting smoking, for example, is actually a good thing). So your move to the alternate ground of challenging her competency is actually an improvement, an admission there is no character flaw to exploit via the resignation. I welcome that change of strategy.
As to your question of trust, yes, we should trust her, and the resignation is part of the reason why. Here’s the analysis:
Your argument for not trusting her is that she let pass a law that was capable of being used against her. The first problem with that theory is that the ethics law was not the only device used against her, as there were some 150 Freedom of Information Acts requests coming at her at the same time as the ethics complaints. It was the FOIA’s that were racking up the costs for the state, while the ethics charges were racking up the costs for Palin personally. Thus a major part of the legal weaponry trained on her actually preexisted the Palin administration. You can’t blame her for that.
As for the law itself, for any flimsy ethics charge filed, she had to retain an attorney rather than defend herself, and she had to pay for that attorney out of her own pocket. In the scenario of an Illinois-like Blagojevich case, this would make sense, because the Palin ethics reform law, just coming off the Murkowski era scandals, envisioned a system that would prevent a corrupt state officer from using state funds to delay or deny justice. The concept is good, and it reflects both Palin’s signature frugality and her strong intent to uproot corruption.
But didn’t the law fail to prevent potential abuse by political enemies of state officers? Theoretically, the law prevented abuse, as the law had a prohibition against either side discussing material aspects of the complaint until after it had been adjudicated. In theory, this destroys the political incentive, as there’s no political use to it if you can’t make nasty headlines until after the case is proven frivolous. Therefore, the law was frugal, made state officers accountable to the people, and was explicitly designed to prevent abuse of the system.
So what was the “fatal defect” in the ethics law? Just for fun, humor me on this, try to guess what it was. If you can’t guess, do one more thing before reading further. Try googling for the answer. When you’re good and tired of coming up empty with all that, come back here and read the next line.
….Ready?
OK, here it is. The complainants cheated. They just broke the law by immediately leaking their charges to the press during adjudication, enabling them to use the press as a political weapon against Palin, even though the law was specifically designed to prevent that. Whereas she, being obedient to the law, could not defend herself against wildly misleading headlines. How does one defend against treating a law as if it doesn’t exist, if it is not enforced? Is that a defect in the law, or in the culture?
Again, I am an attorney, and I have seen selective enforcement at work. A law may have the finest enforcement mechanisms built into it, but even the best laid legal plans can be rendered meaningless if the officers, agencies, bureaucracies, political appointees, and fellow legal professionals, who have the duty of putting the words of the law into real effect, don’t take that duty seriously. You cannot solve such problems by writing a better law. You need better people.
One other problem the law had, and still has, is that there is still no way to prevent an individual from coming up with an unending series of frivolous complaints. You have to preserve the right of the people to present their grievances and seek redress. That goes to a root freedom preserved by our federal Constitution. But you can change the incentive scheme, and a revision of the law, put in place after Palin’s departure, accomplishes just that. The state officer can now expect the state to pay the legal bills if the complaint proves to be unfounded. This new condition, while still not perfect, is a step in the right direction.
And that’s the real problem with law in general. You never really arrive at perfection. There has never been a law written that could not be abused by a determined and well-funded adversary. So your question is wrong. It’s not, could she have had the lawyers write a law that had no unintended consequences. That is patently impossible. The only one who never has to deal with unintended consequences is God Himself. The question is, how did she respond when the predictable unintended consequences manifested themselves.
And that’s how we get back to the trust question. Generals, Presidents, and all leaders with extraordinary responsibility must often face novel circumstances, new challenges that seem to turn the old rules on their head. It is the measure of a leader to see whether they stay trapped within the box of conventional wisdom, or whether they can do what Alexander the Great did when presented with the puzzle of the Gordian knot.
Do you remember the legend? The people of Gordium had a complex knot about which there was a prophecy, that whoever loosed the knot would rule Asia. Alexander attempted to undo the knot by ordinary means and became frustrated. But his determination led him outside the box, and he asked an unthinkable question, why does it matter how the knot is unloosed, so long as it is unloosed? So in one powerful blow, with his sword he severed the knot in two, and earned himself a right to claim the prophecy.
Palin faced a problem that was unsolvable within the confines of conventional wisdom. There was no mechanism, either legal or political, to stop either the FOIAs or the frivolous ethics complaints, and no way for a sitting governor to change the law by which she was being attacked without being charged with serious conflict of interest and abuse of power. It was a deadly trap that would suck the life out of her governorship, ruin her political future, and put her in the untenable position of violating her oath of office, as she could no longer fulfill her duties to the best of her ability, as she had sworn.
But she is not like ordinary politicians. She is a Christian, and has for many years held before her mind’s eye the example of Jesus, who though he had all power, was able to let it go for the benefit of those he loved. It is unthinkable in the world of politics, and I believe without precedent in the history of American governors, that anyone with such a grant of power as she had would ever set it down voluntarily. From their blogs it is evident that her opponents never saw such a move coming. They expected to destroy her; they did not expect her to escape. But she did, by the grace of God. She stepped outside of the box, and in a single blow cut the Gordian Knot. She threw the ring of power to blazes, and trusted herself to God, so that she could keep her promise to the people of Alaska.
Oh yes, we can trust her.
In the question of trust, should we trust her, and the resignation is part of the question why. Here’s my analysis:
“The ethics law I championed became their weapon of choice.” (In my naivete, I actually helped ‘em make me quit.)
And the attorney sez Sarah is not like ordinary politicians? Reality camping costar Kate Gosselin probably agrees.
Self-imposed deadline at Halloween?
David Brody: “Is that short order by the end of September? October?
Sarah Palin: “I think that that is a fair timeline for people, because Fall time, they can start getting engaged with different campaigns, but still thinking about it, and really, really desiring to be a participant in the positive change that needs to happen in this country. http://blogs.cbn.com/thebrodyfile/archive/2011/08/12/sarah-palin-and-the-brody-file-one-on-one-at-iowa-state.aspx
Huh? Your flippant and slightly incoherent “response” suggests you either didn’t read, didn’t understand, or just flat out don’t care to respond to any of my counterarguments. If you don’t wish to have an adult conversation on this, that is your choice. I gladly accept your tacit admission that you really have no meaningful response. That’s OK. I understand. However, if at some point you find that you do wish to actually respond, I will be here for you. No hard feelings. Peace.
That's just silly. By the time Reagan ran for president, "Bonzo" was more than thirty years in his past, he spent almost 25 years honing his chops as a conservative thinker before he attempted a national ticket.
IMO Palin needs to similarly be distanced from the celebrity world before she'd be my first choice, although I certainly won't demand she spend twenty years at it.
I will vote for her if she's the nominee, though dubious that she'll win.
“just flat out don’t care to (read or) respond to any of my counterarguments”
Many of the Free Republic Palinistas have, over the past few months, proven themselves to me to be obstinate, self-righteous, quasi-fanatical, illogical boors.
Everything I needed to know about Islam I learned on September 11th, and everything I need to know about Sarah Palin I’ve already seen. And so has her reality-camping tentmate Kate Gosselin.
The last day to get in the Florida primary ballot is Oct. 31, and South Carolina's deadline is the next day.
T’anx for the tip. And your initials aren’t JH, is dey? Cause we got a Bubba Hotep at work.
Must be some other Bubba
Again, you’re just choosing to shut down the conversation without giving even a cursory listen to the evidence I labored to present. It was a sincere effort, I spent a lot of time on it, and it was just for you. I only ever got testy with one anti-Palin poster, and that’s because he was slandering me to other posters behind my back. I don’t do that, and I won’t do that to you. I’m doing a hearts and minds campaign. Insults don’t advance that. I just think you don’t want to address the substantive arguments I’ve presented because that doesn’t advance your narrative. I know why you wouldn’t want to. That’s OK. Maybe we can talk another time. But your argument about the reality tv show is just a non sequitur. It doesn’t make your case, so I can’t even figure out why you’re using it. Oh well. I did try. Peace.
Thanks for keeping your composure. Maybe now I will go back and skim thru your thesis. The “what if” game sometimes interests me, and my quick glance at your post leads me to believe that might be your angle. Thanking you again for treating me better than I did you.
FP
Tried to give you an open ear, homes, but the stars in your eyes seem to be blinding you:
“But she is not like ordinary politicians. She is a Christian, and has for many years held before her mind’s eye the example of Jesus,...”
Anyone who ever trusts any politician this much is cruising for a big bruising. Guaranteed.
Slight caveat: Any American who ever trusts any national politician this much is cruising for a big bruising. Guaranteed.
I’ve run for office myself. I know good Christian people who are getting involved. I don’t hold Sarah out as perfect. That would actually contradict Christian belief. Everyone is flawed. But I mention the letting go of power voluntarily because it really is the Occam’s Razor explanation. You read her books, study her life, you see this is where she comes from. I know people just like her, and they would really do this. It is regrettable that we have become so accustomed to being lied to that when the exception appears in plain sight, we fail to recognize it for what it is.
In any event, thanks for your time. Perhaps one of us will see things differently later on and we can chat again. Peace.
Ping me when Palin becomes a candidate.
read her books?
Nope.
Wild horses couldn’t drag me to any politician’s book, except maybe Grant’s Twain-edited deathbed autobio.
She’ll send Rick Perry back to the little leagues, right where he belongs.
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