"The Quotable Rogue"

When I set up this blog I did not plan to write anything until Sarah Palin announced she was running for president, aside from some occasional musings. Lately I have wanted to weigh in on the One Nation bus tour and the Email Hunt. Enough said by others on those. Let me be the first to review a new book, namely, Matt Lewis's The Quotable Rogue: The Ideals of Sarah Palin in Her Own Words. I just got my pre-ordered copy this morning and quickly read through it.

Much of what strikes me has already been echoed in the past week or so, even by LSM talking heads after their advance view of The Undefeated, namely, that twenty years ago Sarah Palin had the same position on the issues that she has today. In other words, she has been consistent, and she has always been a "commonsense" conservative. I had already noted that when I saw a clip of a long-ago interview of her and Janet Napolitano with Charlie Rose. Both women had just been elected governor. Sarah Palin did not then seem as confident as she has become; the attention was clearly a bit new for the Alaskan. Napolitano, by contrast, was already a very smooth politician, and in retrospect it is understandable that Obama would think she would make a good member of his administration. One of Charlie Rose's questions concerned health care reform. Napolitano was in favor of big change; Palin agreed that there needed to be reform but insisted we shouldn't invent the wheel.

As Lewis writes in the Introduction, Palin "has articulated thoughtful stands on a number of issues," and these are the substance of his book. Those of us who have followed her for the past few years are familiar with her Facebook and Twitter postings, but he delves back further, into her Alaska political days and the election of 2008, when she burst into the national awareness. At that time, he writes, "she seemed so ordinary. And yet she quickly became a household name, a recognizable face, and a lightning rod for strong reactions." The book's topics follow an alphabetical sequence, from "On Abortion," "On the Real America," "On Living in Alaska," to "On the Tea Party Movement," "On Tina Fey," "On Washington." There is an index, in which was missing, to my surprise, "death panels." For your information, the quote from Palin is on page 95. Herewith some of my favorites:

"The people of America realize that all political power is inherent in the people. And government is to be implemented on behalf of the people and the will that they desire that their government engage in" (9/17/2008)

"Q: Will you support an effort to expand hate-crime laws?
A: No, as I believe all heinous crime is based on hate"
(from 2006 gubernatorial candidate questionnaire)

"The people of Alaska understand that Alaska has so much to contribute in terms of energy sources to the rest of the U.S. ... I think Washington doesn't understand that we are at a real critical crossroads: we are either going to become more and more dependent on foreign sources of energy, or we're going to be able to secure our nation and drill domestically for safe, stable, clean supplies of energy that we have here. We have them in Alaska" (6/28/2008 interview)

"President Bush is right. Across the nation, communities are feeling the pinch of high energy costs. It is absurd that we are borrowing from one foreign country to buy oil from another. It is a threat to our national security and economic well-being. It is well past time for America to develop our own supplies" (Alaska governor's office press release, 4/29/2008)

"Q: Have you ever met a foreign head of state?
A: I have not, and I think if you go back in history and if you ask that question of many vice presidents, they may have the same answer that I just gave you"
(interview with Charlie Gibson, 9/11/2008)

"Q: Are we continuing on the proper course in Iraq?
A: In the past five years, there hasn't been a successful terrorist strike on U.S. soil, and that's no accident. ... I support our president. I support our military. But of course I want to see that exit strategy being developed and being revealed to the public."
(Alaska 2006 governor debate, 10/30/2006)

"I have been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq. [While supporting our president] I want to know that we have an exit plan in place; I want assurances that we are doing all we can to keep our troops safe" (Alaska Business Monthly, 12/4/2006)

No need to go on. Just a couple of points. I thought I detected somewhat of a hardening of her position after joining McCain's ticket on the Iraq war. She is quoted in UPI on Oct. 2, 2008, saying "We do have a plan for withdrawal. We don't need .. early withdrawal out of Iraq. We cannot afford to lose there ..."
I notice, of late, in the case of Libya and Afghanistan, that she is returning to her earlier position of insistence on an "exit plan." I think she may also have hardened a bit on immigration since the Arizona law and the Obama administration's actions against that state. On Oct. 26, 2008, for instance, in an interview with Univision, she expressed support for "a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants." At the same time, she also thought it impossible round up all the undocumented immigrants and deport them.

I also found it interesting that Jay Newton-Small of Time magazine had already been following Governor Palin in August 2008, before John McCain picked her to run with him. So, some journalists recognized her special quality early on.

All in all a good read and a good complement to the governor's own books.

And, by the way, who has become the more formidable personality since the Charlie Rose interview?