I have mixed feelings about Sarah Palin--there are many issues I agree with her on, but I am troubled by some of her decisions. I like much of what Peggy Noonan wrote in a recent WSJ article. I know Noonan has been critical of Palin in the past and the article is certainly not favorable. I believe Sarah Palin has shown her liberal enemies at their moral worst as they have engaged in personal attacks (even on her children). I believe some of the attraction to her on the right is because of the anger they see her creating among the liberal establishment.
However, I just think Palin was over her head when she faced difficult national political issues. Coming from Alaska, I just don't think she realized what the media and contemporary political culture was like. I never sensed that she was well-read or engaged in a lot of policy debates before being named as the Republican Vice President candidate. Obama's experience was almost as weak, but he could express himself much better as a result of years in Illinois and Chicago politics (he seems to have done very little in his two years in the Senate, but at least he knew what the debates and issues were).
If I were Sarah Palin and wanted a political future, I would have gone back to Alaska and read, read, and read some more. . .and perhaps spend a weekend or two here and there in dialogue with leading conservatives and moderates (I am not sure liberals would talk to her). I would serve as Governor of Alaska, introducing innovations like Bobby Jindal in Louisiana and not be so preoccupied about the future. Maybe I would run for the US Senate if I had thoughts about 2016 (2012 is a bit too close to 2008).
The media and liberal establishment will never like Sarah Palin, but she needs to prove two things: 1) She can govern something for more than two years and 2) when she hits the talk shows she has intelligent, well-thought out responses.
Noonan concludes with: The era we face, that is soon upon us, will require a great deal from our leaders. They had better be sturdy. They will have to be gifted. There will be many who cannot, and should not, make the cut. Now is the time to look for those who can. And so the Republican Party should get serious, as serious as the age, because that is what a grown-up, responsible party—a party that deserves to lead—would do.
I agree that the future will require far better leaders than I am observing in Washington now.
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