Sarah Palin has an uncanny ability to read the public pulse and tend to it with a common touch.
It has been nearly a year-and-a-half since Sarah Palin became a household name in America and the world over. Despite the fact she was on the bottom half of a losing ticket and hasn't held public office in more than half a year, three cable networks provided live coverage of her address to the Tea Party Convention last Saturday night in Nashville. Is there any other private American citizen who could command that sort of undivided attention?
The answer is nobody else could and liberals know it all to well. How else can one explain their sudden obsession with Palin's left hand? The best liberals could do was to say that she cheated by writing a few words on her hand. So let's see if I get this straight. Sarah Palin has all of six words on her palm and liberals conclude "she needs a cheat-sheet."1 Yet liberals don't seem to mind that President Obama needs a teleprompter to read a nearly 2,000-word speech during the National Prayer Breakfast last week and still mispronounced the word "corpsman" not once but twice.2 Talk about hand wringing.
But Palin is well aware life is unfair and that this is par for the course. She responded as perhaps only she could. During a rally for Texas Governor Rick Perry the following day she wrote on her palm for all to see, "Hi Mom!" Now that's telling liberals to talk to the hand.
Yet for all their disdain for the former Alaska governor, liberals still can't quite put their finger on her. Much in the same way they couldn't understand Ronald Reagan. I don't know if the Tea Party Convention organizers did this by design but Palin's speech fell on what would have been President Reagan's 99th birthday. Indeed, she paid homage to the Gipper when she began her speech. Palin, like Reagan, has an uncanny ability to read the public pulse and tend to it with a common touch.
During Reagan's lifetime he was at various times called an "amiable dunce," derided for describing ketchup as a vegetable (even though he never actually did) and chided for reading from cue cards. Yet it is worth remembering what former CNN anchor Bernard Shaw said in conversation with Wolf Blitzer and others following Reagan's funeral:
SHAW: Can I say something that touches on a very sensitive issue?
BLITZER: Of course.
SHAW: The news media and how we failed to thoroughly cover and communicate the very essences we're talking about possessed by Ronald Reagan.
What I've been reading and what I've been hearing I did not get during his two terms in office, or did I miss something?
BLITZER: I think you're on to something, Bernie.
SHAW: I think we failed our viewers, listeners, and readers to an appreciable extent. I can't quantify it, but I'll put it there. Because I certainly missed a lot.3
Now there are those amongst conservatives who scoff at the notion that Palin is a Reagan in the making.4 Yet when reading Shaw's poignant observations one cannot help but think that the liberal media are failing its viewers, listeners and readers to a considerable extent with Palin as they did with Reagan more than a generation ago. Should Palin run for and be elected to the White House there is every reason to believe the liberal media will do much the same with her and miss a lot. These sentiments would be especially pronounced should she dethrone Obama. One would hate to think it would take Palin's passing for the liberal media to utter a kind word about her but that is probably what it would take.
Yet then again I am sure Palin would just as soon not live long enough to see the day when MSNBC sings her praises. During her address before the 2008 Republican National Convention she said, "Now here's a little news flash for those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion. I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this great country."5
Of course, there are those who will always believe that Palin will need someone to hold her hand. But she does not stand alone. To paraphrase that great gospel song penned by the late Gene MacLellan, she has "put her hand in the hand of the man who stilled the water/put her hand in the hand of the man who calmed the sea." Just so we are clear – the man with that hand is not the "charismatic guy with a teleprompter." Yet so long as Sarah Palin keeps a firm grip on that hand she will be able to reach out and be received. Meanwhile, liberals will be left to grasp at straws.
Endnotes
1. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stefan-sirucek/did-palin-use-crib-notes_b_452458.html
2. http://washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/08/the-corpseman-cometh/
3. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0406/11/se.01.html
4. http://www.gop12.com/2009/07/fred-barnes-palins-no-reagan.html
5. http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/09/sarah_palin_gop_convention_spe.html
That was just excellent. I’ve thought it myself a hundred times without being able to put words on it. The libs just don’t get people who put their hands in the hand of The Man.
The issue with Palin using hand-written notes is not the fact that she used notes at all. Public speaking is fairly difficult with or without notes, so I can’t take issue with her for having some kind of prompt easily accessible.
The problem is two-fold. First, her notes were six words about the core of conservative policy, “tax cuts, energy, lift American spirits”. I’ve never had to be reminded what my core beliefs are, even if I was speaking publically. But it doesn’t matter too much, because she didn’t even use her notes during the speech. She used them during the Q&A afterwards to reply to questions she already knew she would be asked about things that are incredibly basic to her position. The only way her notes could have been more embarrassing to her and the entire Tea Party movement is if she had had to remind herself to breathe in and out and smile at the camera.
Also, Bush used a teleprompter. Every President and elected official has used a teleprompter since they were invented. Hell, Bill O’Reilly uses a teleprompter. This is such a non-issue it embarrasses me that people even talk about it.