A Second Look at Sarah Palin

As readers of this blog may recall, though Harold and I agree on a lot, we have not seen eye to eye on the worthiness of Sarah Palin to occupy the White House (though we agree she is more worthy than the Wall Street Journal op-ed by Norman Podhoretz (you see, he plays to win), entitled "In Defense of Sarah Palin." It sent me down this road of reflection that WORLD has graciously published under the title, "A Palin Skeptic Takes a Second Look."

The Obamacare victory has changed the presidential race for 2012. The question for Republicans in choosing a candidate to go up against the sitting president is: Who has the skill, the vision, the mettle, and the integrity to drive this Behemoth back into the churning sea of political evils from whence it came?

Sarah Palin, for all her wide-eyed parochial wonderment when asked about anything outside of Alaska (okay, she's getting better; she's been reading up), may have the undiluted patriotism and single-minded determination needed to roll this thing back successfully. Podhoretz provoked me with this:

Take, for example, foreign policy. True, she seems to know very little about international affairs, but expertise in this area is no guarantee of wise leadership. After all, her rival for the vice presidency, who in some sense knows a great deal, was wrong on almost every major issue that arose in the 30 years he spent in the Senate.

What she does know—and in this respect, she does resemble Reagan—is that the United States has been a force for good in the world, which is more than Barack Obama, whose IQ is no doubt higher than hers, has yet to learn. Jimmy Carter also has a high IQ, which did not prevent him from becoming one of the worst presidents in American history, and so does Bill Clinton, which did not prevent him from befouling the presidential nest.

After other reflections that you really must read, I conclude: "if what the country needs to pull us out of our free fall into European social democracy is someone with a solid center in classical republican principles as well as the skill, vision, mettle, and integrity to pull it off politically, Sarah Palin may be the one to do it."

But all I'm doing is taking a fresh look. I'll try not to forget, however, that she has woefully little experience actually governing, and bailed out of the job she did have.