One Tough Politician

A couple of months ago we had the same problem with Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK). Yes she could give a boffo speech, but what would she be like when the going got tough? Would the tough get going? Would she have a future as a national Republican politician, or would she turn out to be a flash in the pan?

Now we are beginning to get her measure. After an unprecedented firestorm of invective and criticism, including ruthless gotcha interviews from Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric, she has not lost her nerve.

When criticized about her $150,000 wardrobe she didn’t miss a beat but came right back and played the sexism card on the liberals that criticized her.

And now we have the unsourced article from CNN. “Palin’s ’Going Rogue,’ McCain Aide Says.” If your liberal friend has caught onto the article, he’s probably sneered knowingly about it.

On the contrary, the news couldn’t be better. Palin has determined that the McCain campaign is mishandling her, so she is ignoring them and taking her own counsel. That may not be too good for anonymous McCain aides, but it portends well for the future.

It means that Palin is not out for a Sunday drive. She is an ambitious politician thinking of the long term, running for president in 2012, for starters.

So now we are beginning to take her measure. She is gutsy. She can take a punch. She won’t lie down meekly and allow people to drive her into the political wilderness.

What we have here, it seems, is a politician of remarkable courage and talent. She seems to have Bill Clinton’s talent to turn lemon into lemonade, and never, never, never, let anyone think that you are whipped.

Republicans aren’t used to this kind of leader. Even Ronald Reagan often reckoned that discretion was the better part of valor.

Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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Faith & Purpose

“When we began first to preach these things, the people appeared as awakened from the sleep of ages—they seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings...”
Finke, Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990

Mutual Aid

In 1911... at least nine million of the 12 million covered by national insurance were already members of voluntary sick pay schemes. A similar proportion were also eligible for medical care.
Green, Reinventing Civil Society

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

Living Under Law

Law being too tenuous to rely upon in [Ulster and the Scottish borderlands], people developed patterns of settling differences by personal fighting and family feuds.
Thomas Sowell, Conquests and Cultures

German Philosophy

The primary thing to keep in mind about German and Russian thought since 1800 is that it takes for granted that the Cartesian, Lockean or Humean scientific and philosophical conception of man and nature... has been shown by indisputable evidence to be inadequate.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Meeting of East and West

Knowledge

Inquiry does not start unless there is a problem... It is the problem and its characteristics revealed by analysis which guides one first to the relevant facts and then, once the relevant facts are known, to the relevant hypotheses.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Logic of the Sciences and the Humanities

Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

Democratic Capitalism

I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all. In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Action

The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness... But to make a man act [he must have] the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Churches

[In the] higher Christian churches� they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Living Law

The recognition and integration of extralegal property rights [in the Homestead Act] was a key element in the United States becoming the most important market economy and producer of capital in the world.
Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital

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