Until yesterday Sarah Palin had been unusually quiet.
The Romney campaign had marginalized her and Fox News had
dismissed her as a commentator.
At its Republican National Convention Team Romney put Gov.
Chris Christie on the podium in prime time. It did not even invite Sarah Palin to
speak.
Christie was no guts and no glory. He bombed. Then, he
returned to New Jersey to suck up to Barack Obama. Appetite
control is not his strong suit.
Statistical research shows that Mitt Romney lost the
election because Palin voters did not show up at the polls. Could it be that
they, like their paladin, felt rejected by the party.
Republicans examined the election data and managed to conclude
that they needed to sponsor immigration reform. You know, because, as serious
presidential contender Jeb Bush says, immigrants are more fertile.
Now, where did anyone get the idea that Republicans are the
stupid party?
In effect, the Republican Party has two people who are good
communicators. It has two national figures who can find just the right concept
to communicate a point of view on an issue.
The first, Gov. Chris Christie has been a washout as a
national leader.
Which leaves us with Sarah Palin.
As you know, Palin has a gift. She can go high-concept with
the best of them. You recall her remarks about "death panels" and her famous: How’s
that hopey-changey stuff working out for you?
Fair enough, President Obama has a gift too. But his does
not involve communicating anything of substance. Obama’s speeches hypnotize
people so that they ignore his basic emptiness.
After years of carnage, President Obama has allowed himself
to get dragged, kicking and screaming into the Syrian Civil War. Bill Clinton said
he should do it, so rather than look like he's caving in to public opinion he would rather look like he is bowing to the will of Bill Clinton. It's called leading from behind.
The debate on Obama’s new policy has been appropriately
serious.
Most Americans don’t understand why we are getting involved
in Syria because most Americans cannot tell the good guys from the bad guys. Or better,they don't think that there are any good guys. Iranian
proxies and Hezbollah are fighting against Sunni terrorists and al Qaeda
operatives. Don't you want them both to lose?
One would be forgiven for thinking that American
self-interest is well served by their mutually assured self-destruction.
The Obama administration has chosen to provide small arms to
the rebels. Thinking people find it risible that the “Fast-and-Furious” crowd
has not gotten over its yen to arm criminals.
An administration that did not understand the influence that
al Qaeda exercised in Benghazi does not seem to understand that arming the
rebels means arming al Qaeda.
Andrew Sullivan argued cogently against the new policy:
You can
forgive a president once – even though his misguided, counter-productive and
destabilizing war in Libya was almost as nuts as this latest foray. But by
deciding to arm the Sunni radicals fighting the Shiites in Syria and Lebanon,
the president has caved to the usual establishment subjects who still want to
run or control the entire world. I don’t buy the small arms qualifier. You know
that’s the foot in the door to dragging the United States into the middle of a
civil war we do not understand and cannot control. If it has any effect, it
will be to draw out the conflict still longer and kill more people. More
staggeringly, he is planning to put arms into the hands of forces that are
increasingly indistinguishable from hardcore Jihadists and al Qaeda – another
brutal betrayal of this country’s interests, and his core campaign promise not
to start dumb wars. Yep: he is intending to provide arms to elements close to
al Qaeda. This isn’t just unwise; it’s close to insane.
And then, yesterday, at the Freedom and Faith Coalition
Conference, Sarah Palin summed it all up in her typically effective
high-concept way:
Militarily,
where is our commander in chief? We're talking now more new interventions. I
say until we know what we're doing, until we have a commander and chief who
knows what he's doing, well, let these radical Islamic countries who aren't
even respecting basic human rights, where both sides are slaughtering each
other as they scream over an arbitrary red line, 'Allah Akbar,' I say until we
have someone who knows what they're doing, I say let Allah sort it out.
Right or wrong, no one has said it better.
Like it or not, we do not have a commander in chief who
knows what he’s doing. We do not have a foreign policy team that knows what it’s
doing either.
Under the Obama foreign policy the Middle East has imploded.
The region has become a rolling catastrophe… political chaos, war, terrorism,
famine. You name it, the nations of that region have it.
Peter Wehner offers a sobering assessment of the region:
The
Syrian civil war is badly destabilizing our most reliable Arab ally, Jordan.
Lebanon is increasingly fragile. In Egypt and across North Africa the Muslim
Brotherhood has gained power. Since Mr. Obama withdrew American forces in Iraq,
sectarian violence has markedly increased there, with the hard-won gains from
the Bush administration’s surge being washed away. The war in Afghanistan is
going poorly, while relations with the Karzai regime are quite bad, limiting
American leverage in that nation (our much-trumped retreat of forces from
Afghanistan have of course limited our leverage as well). Turkey is struggling
to contain a political crisis that has threatened the nation’s economy and
paralyzed the government. There are no prospects for genuine peace between the
Israelis and Palestinians. The Libyan people are weary of two years of militia
violence that has kept the country in chaos and stalled reform, with the
government weak and unstable. And al Qaeda is ascendant in North Africa.
But, Palin did not merely indict the administration for its
foreign policy follies. She also made a mockery of the Sunni and Shia Islamist
fighters who are killing each other and everyone else because of a dispute that
dates back centuries.
Serious thinkers like Bret Stephens have suggested that
sitting it out while the Sunni and Shia terrorists fight it out in Syria is bad
policy.
But, Palin did not preclude intervention. She did not
preclude diplomatic initiatives, either. She said that given the manifest
incompetence of the current administration then she would let Allah to sort it out.
Most Americans, I daresay, would agree with her assessment.
At the least, they understand her point. Thus, they can agree or disagree with
a clearly stated point of view.
And, whereas President Obama always tends to show the
greatest respect for Islam, pronouncing the name of the Prophet Mohammed in
reverential tones, Palin dares to make a mockery of the religion and of the
deeply held beliefs of the terrorists.
If the whole world sees the Syrian warriors as serious
people engaged in a serious fight, these warriors are going to revel in
the recognition. They will see themselves as noble warriors fighting for a cause
that has put them on the front pages of all the world’s newspapers.
If these same terrorists start thinking that the world sees
them as a pathetic bunch of retrograde fools, killing each other for nothing
while flinging mindless slogans in the air… then perhaps they will lose some of
their will to kill.
If they are not covering themselves in honor and glory,
perhaps they will be more motivated to find a diplomatic solution.
4 comments:
Palin can sometimes gabble a little live and unscripted, but in speeches and in writing she's the best communicator in American politics. It helps that she's right; stay out of new conflicts until there's a competent President. I would love to see Palin v Clinton in 2016.
http://www.peekinthewell.net/blog/if-palin-had-become-president/
Interesting take on the things that Palin would not have done as compared to Obama. Even a terse reading denotes that we would have been far better off as a country.
Sarah Palin is a huge psychological threat to people whose self-esteem is wrapped up in their educational credentials, approved patterns of speech, etc. The fact that she has been able to succeed as well as she has threatens their belief system at its core.
David, that was true of W.
As I understand it, the Sunni-Shi'ia dispute is over who should succeed Mohammed as current Boss Prophet--one of his descendants, or some other guy. (Question: Anyone know if there IS a male descendant alive?)
" If these same terrorists start thinking that the world sees them as a pathetic bunch of retrograde fools, killing each other for nothing while flinging mindless slogans in the air… then perhaps they will lose some of their will to kill.
If they are not covering themselves in honor and glory, perhaps they will be more motivated to find a diplomatic solution." Stuart, you hopeless romantic!
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