“she would however be better suited for the time being as a US Senator for about six years”
mmmm - former Governor of the largest state in the Union to junior senator from Alaska. Lisa Murkowski would really enjoy that I’m sure! Just doesn’t seem like a resume enhancer to me. Cabinet post - maybe but I don’t get the impression that’s where her interests lie. Fact is absolutely no-one “knows” what she has got planned so all we can do is guess and speculate in the blogosphere.
AIT it's always good to see you in forum. Your illuminatingly "scrutable" news and perspectives from the dauntingly inscrutable Far East are immensely helpful to us here... /g
I'm not picking on you here - your comment is simply a convenient hook on which to hang an important alternate perspective. There are two compelling arguments which demonstrate why being a US Senator would be one of the worst places for Sarah Palin to be:
1. First, because of the Senate rules, if the Dems retain control of the Senate Palin as a freshman senator would denied any significant committee posts and frozen out of the loop on any important policy issues. She would be told to keep quiet and remember her place.
Now if the Repubs should regain the Senate and we had a Repub Senate Majority Leader, the treatment Palin would receive would be... exactly... the... same.
The hard truth is that the Senate leadership of both parties consider her, and any other conservative, as their mortal enemy. They would use every Senate rule available to stifle, silence and neutralize her or anyone like her. If she dared to defy them and speak out on her own they would not hesitate to use the ironically-named Senate ethics rules to censure her.
Does that begin to sound familiar? As a sitting senator she would have the same liability and vulnerability to perverted and dishonest use of so-called "ethics rules" by her enemies as she did in Alaska. Being elected to the Senate would be a political kiss of death for Palin. They would either silence her or cripple her.
2. The second argument as to why a Senate term for Palin is wrong is much more simple and succinct: neither we nor she have the time to wait. With the current state of the country and the existing trends, whatever a Senator Palin might do or not do in six years will be irrelevant. By then the constitutional republic bequeathed to us by our forbears will have ceased to exist.
There are valid arguments to be made about the abilities and "fitness" (let's please drop the red herring terminology of "qualified" - it's a constitutionally defined legal requirement and most of us here are "qualified" to be President) of Sarah Palin or any other candidates for the office of President. She, and they, will rise or fall by dint of their performance in the coming months and we'll have to opportunity to choose (maybe...) who we believe to be most fit to be President.
However, events are moving at breathtaking speed both domestically and internationally. It is also beyond obvious that politics is no longer business as usual and the current players and the Obama regime don't give a fig about the traditional rules of the game, or even the law.
Regardless of whoever each of us might prefer as our leader, we need to stop deluding ourselves that we have six more years, or twelve more years, etc. to finally get our ducks in a row and put "our plan" into action. Donald Rumsfeld had it exactly right. We're at war right now, a political war, and we have to fight it right now with the army(people) we have. We don't have the luxury of waiting and hoping for the army(people) we hope we'll have one day.