Warrior Legacy FoundationBones: None of Your Damned Business
When I was but a youth, a man in my fifties, I wrote my first book. I was so very proud of it because, well, it was my first book. In my first promotion of said book I stood in front of a crowd of mostly conservative people and one of them asked,
“What will you do with the monies you receive from the book?”
Well by now you readers know what I wanted to say…
“None of your damned business. Do I ask you what you will do with your pay check?”
I mean do they think that eons of time writing, researching, and thinking is not work, but more importantly why is this question never (at least to my knowledge), asked of a liberal? So I became a little (okay a lot) defensive when I heard Chris Wallace ask Gov. Sarah Palin on his program Fox News Sunday (2/7/10),
‘It has been reported that you received $100,000 for your speech in Nashville (Tea Party Convention) is it true and what will you do with that money?’
She answered it with her usual candor, and said something to the effect that this is the new standard used only for her… she said she will use it to further the movement, but her words resonated with me. The new paragon seems only to be used only for her. As I have observed her meteoric rise to the top of the Republican poles, I have noted that never in the history of politics, at least in my 6 or so decades, have I ever seen a politician more scrutinized and vilified. She answered all of Wallace’s questions with frankness and in her unique homespun style… and that is why the entrenched politicians both left and right fear her. At one point when Wallace asked her about the president and ‘how he was doing’, she said his main problem was that he was like a professor telling us to “sit down, shut up, and accept” what he was telling us because we the people are just not ‘smart enough’. It is as if he is saying we are merely children and that father government is needed to guide the family, constitution and personal freedoms be damned. She comes across to me as a different, new kind of politician. She is able to identify to our distress, and come up with common sense solutions. She mentioned energy independence, balancing the budget, and smaller government as domestic solutions in her speech on Saturday night (C-span) . That resonates with the grass roots movement of the Tea Party and in no small part is why they chose her as their key note speaker.
When I listened to her all I could think of was; talk about the American dream, here is a woman who about a decade or so ago was a mother,house wife, and PTA member. She then noted the dishonesty in her party and after becoming mayor of her town ran a primary against a corrupt sitting governor… and won. Moreover, she is a conservative who dared to keep ‘the product of conception’, although it possessed more than 23 paired chromosomes. She next had to face, in the middle of her bid for Vice President, the second unplanned pregnancy in her family as her 17 year old daughter revealed her condition. Those poor kids, her 17 year old daughter Bristol and son infant son Trig, became the brunt of every politically incorrect media pundit that the left could muster. To make matters worse, the father of Bristol’s baby went postal. Levi Johnson posed nude, made the talk show rounds, and did everything but called Palin and her daughter two bit whores. But they left that to late night talk show host aging and desperate former comedian David Letterman. Frantic for ratings, he described the governor as having the demeanor of a ‘slutty flight attendant’ (Fox News June 11, 2009). As if that was not bad enough he then stepped way over the line when he attacked her 14 year old daughter seen with Palin at a Yankees game (same source):
“the late-night talk-show host invited the governor to appear on “The Late Show” after stopping short of apologizing for “jokes” he had made about her and her family the night before, including one that referred to her daughter being “knocked up” by New York Yankees baseball star Alex Rodriguez.”
Can you imagine the outcry if any would dare say that about the two beautiful minors now occupying the White House? How would the media react to an attack on the first lady, her appearance, or her ‘demeanor’? Moreover, where is the outcry from the women’s groups? Have they degenerated from standing for the independence of a woman to the narrow litmus of abortion on demand? Here is a self made woman, if ever there was one, and instead of celebrating her as a woman who can overcome the enormous odds, they denigrate her to the point of slander. So why not ask, ‘what she will do with her money’, when the likes of Al Gore tours the world receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars per speech spreading lies about global warming in his less than green private jet pocketing those millions for his own gain.
But Palin transcends the media assault; she is an example of the ‘everyman (woman)’ personified in the Tea Party movement. She basically is a plain speaking ‘girl next door’ who makes sense. She resonates with ‘we the people’ and calls for fiscal restraint, smaller government, and common sense policies against America’s enemies, including treating them as enemy combatants, trying them via military tribunals, and keeping GITMO opened. Palin strikes fear in the heart of every established politician in America. This is why she is the target of the media. This is why they deem her so dangerous that they do not hesitate to frequently step over the boundary of Political Correctness. She is feared because the voters see Sarah Palin as a return to the Constitution, a return to individual freedoms and states rights. Sarah Palin is a change we can embrace.
