Ultimately,
What the bailout does
Is help those who are concerned
About the health care reform
That is needed
To help shore up our economy,
Helping the–
It’s got to be all about job creation, too.

Shoring up our economy
And putting it back on the right track.
So health care reform
And reducing taxes
And reining in spending
Has got to accompany tax reductions
And tax relief for Americans.
And trade.

We’ve got to see trade
As opportunity
Not as a competitive, scary thing.
But one in five jobs
Being created in the trade sector today,
We’ve got to look at that
As more opportunity.
All those things.

By Peggy Noonan

July 10th, 2009

Sarah Palin’s resignation gives Republicans a new opportunity to see her plain—to review the bidding, see her strengths, acknowledge her limits, and let go of her drama. It is an opportunity they should take. They mean to rebuild a great party. They need to do it on solid ground.

Her history does not need to be rehearsed at any length. Ten months ago she was embraced with friendliness by her party. The left and the media immediately overplayed their hand, with attacks on her children. The party rallied round, as a party should. She went on the trail a sensation but demonstrated in the ensuing months that she was not ready to go national and in fact never would be. She was hungry, loved politics, had charm and energy, loved walking onto the stage, waving and doing the stump speech. All good. But she was not thoughtful. She was a gifted retail politician who displayed the disadvantages of being born into a point of view (in her case a form of conservatism; elsewhere and in other circumstances, it could have been a form of liberalism) and swallowing it whole: She never learned how the other sides think, or why.

In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool. She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn’t say what she read because she didn’t read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity. She experienced criticism as both partisan and cruel because she could see no truth in any of it. She wasn’t thoughtful enough to know she wasn’t thoughtful enough. Her presentation up to the end has been scattered, illogical, manipulative and self-referential to the point of self-reverence. “I’m not wired that way,” “I’m not a quitter,” “I’m standing up for our values.” I’m, I’m, I’m.

In another age it might not have been terrible, but here and now it was actually rather horrifying.

Read entire article here.

I know how victimized you feel about the lies being spread online and in the media. I know you believe it’s your right to threaten and silence those who would question or disagree with you. So let me offer my help in giving you the grounds to sue me for defamation, win and drive a stake into the heart of the First Amendment.

Because everything I’m now going to write about you in this public forum is a total lie:

Ready?

God, I admire you.

You are a skilled public speaker, a thoughtful public strategist and a natural leader.

You should wear longer skirts because your legs are an embarrassment.

The thought of you holding political office fills me with pride and joy.

Your reason for resigning will soon be revealed as measured, selfless and strategically brilliant. In future histories written about you it will be referred to as “the genius move.”

You have been the recipient of more unfair attacks than any figure in world history.

And in the future, the words “quitter,” “diva,” “crybaby,” “psycho,” and “Little Miss Pouty Pants” will never be used against you.

I hate your hair, especially when it’s kind of down and loose and… y’know.

You are a lock for president in 2012. Obama should just give up now. Because that guy’s the kind of leader who, when he’s questioned or attacked, just fires back low level insults then stomps off to sulk. You will wipe that guy off the map. Poor Obama.

You are the Democratic Party’s worst nightmare.

You are respected.

Feared.

And will never be a political punchline.

I love you and truly hope that after you sue me, beat me and silence all dissent, you ascend to the heights of absolute monarchy and bring about the nation of intolerance, ignorance, fear and greed you see in the rabid faces of your followers.

You don’t remind me at all of the President in THE DEAD ZONE. Not even a little.

That’s it.

Consider yourself defamed, Madam, and let our journey together now begin.

I await your attorney’s first threatening phone call by holding my breath starting… hang on… now.

Yours Truly,

John McNamara

Kathleen Parker June 10, 2009

That unhappiness has been building gradually the past seven months but was on full display this week as the party faithful gathered for a fundraising dinner at which Ms. Palin originally was invited to speak. She was later uninvited and Newt Gingrich took her place.

Watching the dinner-speaker spectacle develop, then unravel, then redevelop (Will she or won’t she speak/attend?) felt like watching a middle-school romance in which a friend tells another friend that so-and-so has a crush on you-know-who, but don’t tell anybody. A little silly, in other words. And embarrassing.

The “tick-tock” of what happened is a Byzantine exercise in blame-shifting. Briefly, someone in Ms. Palin’s “organization” accepted the original invitation in March, whereupon the dinner hosts issued a press release announcing that Ms. Palin would be the keynote speaker.

Yay!

But then, no, Ms. Palin had not accepted. In fact, the press release was the first she’d heard of it. The official story suddenly became that SarahPAC had jumped the gun and Ms. Palin wasn’t sure she could make the event.

Enter Newt Gingrich. Then last week, so-and-so said she’d like to come, but you-know-who said, “We like someone else now.”

There’s more – and stories vary – but a common theme emerges: Seven months after the election, Ms. Palin still can’t shoot straight. Unless something changes drastically and soon, Missed Opportunity should be the title of her memoir.

By the time Ms. Palin returned to Alaska last fall, her popularity and fundraising ability were second only to Barack Obama’s. Instantly, she was drowning in speaking requests. Boxes and boxes of invitations stacked up – and went unprocessed.

Without any effort on her part, 75,000 to 80,000 fans around the country organized pro-Palin groups. Said a frustrated Palin promoter: “All she had to do for those 75,000 people was hold an electronic town hall, and she couldn’t get around to it.”

Of course, it’s not that Ms. Palin has nothing else to do. But her problem is the same as it was a year ago. She isn’t ready. For whatever reason – skittishness, distrust or, quite possibly, executive weakness – Ms. Palin has been unable to make the transition from Alaska politics to The Big Game Hunt of the national arena.