Abrabanel: Musings on the Jewish condition

Is Sarah Palin the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012? Yes, suggests US News & World Report’s Paul Bedard, at least if she loses this round. Bedard writes:

Don’t laugh. Here’s how they say she can get there from here, should the polls stick and McCain lose in November. First, Palin spends more time in Washington, getting to know the lay of the land. Maybe she moves to take a leadership role in the Republican Governors Association or the National Governors Association, a perch that helped to launch Bill Clinton. Next, she travels internationally to world energy and military hot spots. In essence, she builds a more complete résumé that will make her an easier sell on the national stage. And, of course, she wins re-election in 2010. And along the way, she proves herself better than this year’s throwaways, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney.

He claims the idea comes from inside the Republican Party:

Says a key Republican promoting the scenario: “As of today, Palin is the top contender. She clearly has the potential to be a winning top-of-the-ticket candidate: solid character, solid values, fire in the belly, etc. But four years is a long time. Neither Romney, Huckabee, or others have the complete package. If Palin spends a bit more time traveling overseas and domestically, broadening her horizons, and wins re-election in Alaska in 2010, she will be the nominee in 2012.”

Is he being spun?

Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton both announced today that, in fact, they oppose Iran’s evil intentions vis-a-vis Israel. The silly stunt Hillary pulled of cancelling her appearance at today’s anti-Ahmadinejad rally in New York because Sarah Palin had been invited too – and the Jewish planners’ subsequent disinvite to all politicians, including Palin – was disheartening to those of us who genuinely believe the regime in Teheran is dangerous.

What is to prevent the Iranians from concluding that American politicians’ bold rhetoric is subservient to – so perhaps only meant for? – local consumption. Is Iran an American politician’s tool to court Jewish voters, or a matter of genuine concern and strategy?

There’s something fascinating in watching the effect Sarah Palin has had on the American media. It isn’t so much the rabid criticism – reaching to her daughter’s pregnancy, her “porn actress” looks, the bizarre accusation of neglectful child-rearing because a mother has sought high office – as the sheer blinding obviousness of it all. Palin hasn’t faced a subtle shift in tone or language, but a political gang rape. That’s a violent analogy, but one that flows naturally from the obsessive abuse we’ve witnessed over the past two weeks.

And it must be said: she has responded with a strength and cool-headed assurance we’ve grown to expect from, well, Obama.

That’s why we loved Saturday’s Charles Krauthammer column about the much-discussed Charlie Gibson interview with the Republican VP nominee. The scene, as described by The New York Times:

“At times visibly nervous . . . Ms. Palin most visibly stumbled when she was asked by Mr. Gibson if she agreed with the Bush doctrine. Ms. Palin did not seem to know what he was talking about. Mr. Gibson, sounding like an impatient teacher, informed her that it meant the right of ‘anticipatory self-defense.’ “

(Yes, this is from the same NYT that mistakenly reported, on page 1, that Palin had been a member of the secessionist Alaska Independence Party.)

Krauthammer is wonderful in attacking not the tone, but the substance and intellectual ineptness of Gibson. The “Bush doctrine,” notes Krauthammer, who might be the first person to use the term back in 2001, has meant four completely different ideas during the Bush presidency, from a kind of new-isolationism, to a post-9/11 “with us or against us” policy vision, to Gibson’s “anticipatory self-defense” to the most recent, “the idea that the fundamental mission of American foreign policy is to spread democracy throughout the world.”

Gibson laid a semantic trap for Palin rather than ask a direct, substantive question. Worse, he probably isn’t sharp enough to realize that, actually, he was wrong on the definition of the “Bush doctrine.”

Krauthammer finishes in master style:

Yes, Sarah Palin didn’t know what it is. But neither does Charlie Gibson. And at least she didn’t pretend to know — while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain, sighing and “sounding like an impatient teacher,” as the Times noted. In doing so, he captured perfectly the establishment snobbery and intellectual condescension that has characterized the chattering classes’ reaction to the mother of five who presumes to play on their stage.

Wait, Sarah Palin was not a member of the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, as The New York Times claimed last Tuesday? It was actually her husband?

Huh. Who’d've thunk it? The mighty New York Times thwarted in its quest for truth by, um, the fact that someone told ‘em so.

The Times’ Caucus blog explains:

The information in the Times article was based on a statement issued Monday night by Lynette Clark, the party’s chairwoman, who said that Ms. Palin joined the party in 1994 and in 1996 changed her registration to Republican. On Tuesday night, Ms. Clark said that her initial statement was incorrect and had been based on erroneous information provided by another member of the party whom she declined to identify.

They didn’t bother to check with Palin?

The Times retraction went out fast, already on Tuesday, but apparently it wasn’t prominent enough to be widely noticed. So thanks to Tom Gross for bringing it to our attention. Tom notes other clearly accidental media blunders about Sarah Palin:

No, Sarah Palin didn’t support Pat Buchanan in the 1999-2000 campaign; she was an official on the campaign of Republican presidential contender Steve Forbes.

No, her eldest son Track (who is deploying to Iraq this week) didn’t join the National Guard because he was a drug addict.

No, her daughters Willow and Piper aren’t named after witches on TV.

No, she’s not anti-Semitic. In fact, she has an Israeli flag in her office, and quietly turned up for services at a newly opened Wasilla synagogue to pay her respects.

No, she didn’t cut funding for unwed mothers, but increased it by 354 percent (and no, the Washington Post doesn’t appear to have corrected its story about this despite being asked to do so).

Then there’s this. We really don’t know what to make of this. As summarized by the Sydney Morning Herald:

The internet was aflame at the weekend after the liberal internet columnist Charley James accused the polarising Governor of Alaska of making a racist, sexist remark to friends while dining at a restaurant in Alaska just after Barack Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

“So Sambo beat the bitch,” she said, according to James, whose source was the waitress who served Mrs Palin. No one else has interviewed the waitress – known only as Lucille – to confirm it and none of the other diners have come forward.

But it was James’s exhibit A in an article that accused Mrs Palin of being “openly racist” and “vindictive and mean”.

The campaign is working hard to offset the left-wing rumor mill. No, not the psychotic agitation about pregnancies. We’re talking about the rumor that Palin is anti-Israel. Palin met with AIPAC yesterday, and organization spokesman Josh Block told NBC:

“We had a good productive discussion on the importance of the U.S.-Israel relationship, and we were pleased that Gov. Palin expressed her deep, personal, and lifelong commitment to the safety and well-being of Israel. Like Sen. McCain, the vice presidential nominee understands and believes in the special friendship between the two democracies and would work to expand and deepen the strategic partnership in a McCain/Palin Administration.”

McCain did choose a woman, as we were told he would, but not the one we thought was the front-running contender. Sarah Palin, we believed, was too inexperienced, too new, too provincial. After a few years in small-town Alaskan politics, she catapulted to the governor’s mansion in 2006, where she’s served no more than two years before McCain chose her for his VP this week. If it’s at all possible, she’s even less experienced than Obama.

Then there’s the personal story: mother of five, the youngest child, Trig, with Down’s Syndrome, the oldest son, Track, serving in a US Army infantry brigade that will deploy to Iraq in a month.

Her degree is from the University of Idaho, as opposed to the East Coast credentials of the opposition. She likes hunting and fishing.

At left, Palin looking like any hometown girl on her way to the gym. But she’s not. This picture is of a governor visiting her state’s National Guardsmen in Kuwait. Human touch, anyone?