Fenger Pointing
Becky Fenger | September 3, 2008
Pistol Packin' Palin
Alaskans like to brag that they have the coldest weather and the hottest governor. From what we are learning about Senator John McCain’s pick for vice president, Sarah Palin is one amazing woman.
A measure of a politician is whether his or her principles trump partisan politics when push comes to shove. Palin chooses principle. As head of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, she witnessed ethical violations and shady practices by another commissioner, Randy Ruedrich, who just happened to also hold the position of State Republican Party Chairman. Palin took her complaints to then Governor Frank Murkowski and then Attorney General Gregg Renkes, both powerful Republicans. The only one left standing today is Sarah Palin.
By now most readers have heard of why she is the Republicans’ new heart throb. Besides being a corruption buster, she is a tax and budget cutter and practices what she preaches.
She sold the state jet on e-Bay and released her personal state chef, saying, “I can make my own sandwiches.”
In 2007 she had an approval rating in the 90s, making her the most popular governor in America. Lordy, but voters like honesty and transparency. In June of that year she vetoed 13 percent of the state’s proposed budget for capital projects, which the Anchorage Daily News claimed “may be the biggest single-year line-item veto total in state history.”
As a basketball point guard in high school, she earned the nickname “Sarah Barracuda” for her aggressive style. I want a front row seat at her V.P. debate with Senator Joe Biden, whose mother told him to “bloody the noses” of his opponents who were picking on him. My money is on the petite Palin.
My favorite factoid is that Sarah is a life-long National Rifle Association member and is a good shot, even with an M-16 rifle. Of course she hunts and fishes, and is a self-described “hockey mom” of five children. My favorite action is her lawsuit to stop the federal government from listing polar bears as an endangered species. There are more polar bears now than there ever were, and she knows it’s just a ploy for political engineering to claim otherwise.
I hope she convinces John McCain to drill for oil in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, that godforsaken piece of tundra that is not allowed to be shown in photos in the halls of Congress. (Instead, phony photos of lush scenery from elsewhere are substituted.) The argument about interfering with the reproduction of wildlife is so bogus. The Alaskan pipeline is an aphrodisiac for caribou and other furry creatures, for heaven’s sake. They gravitate to it for warmth and get horny as hell. It’s a beautiful thing to see.
Democrats are crushed that McCain’s V.P. pick stepped on their thunder following their national convention last week. Social and cultural columnist and author Camille Paglia, no shrinking violet herself, had this to say about Palin at her appearance with McCain in Dayton, Ohio: “We may be seeing the first woman president. As a Democrat I am reeling. That was the best political speech I have ever seen delivered by an American woman politician. Palin is tough as nails.” Yes, Camille, and Palin wears spikes. And a skirt! How refreshing after Napolitano’s sensible shoes and pants with pleats.
In an accusation posted on “The Daily Kos,” the smearing of Palin has begun with a lie so disgusting that even liberals should cringe. It claims that Palin’s youngest child, born with Down’s syndrome, is actually the child of Palin’s teenage daughter. They’ll have to do better than that to keep this woman down.
News commentators are giddily reporting that Palin’s mother-in-law, Faye Palin, supposedly has not made up her mind which presidential candidate she will vote for. Not for nothing are there all those mother-in-law jokes. And Senator John Kerry told an audience that Palin’s lack of belief in manmade global warming puts her in the flat earth society. Kerry shouldn’t constantly expose his ignorance regarding the fact that man does not have an effect on the globe’s temperature that is of any statistical significance.
