"As for me, after more than a year of seeing how [Obama's] 'prodigious oratorical and intellectual gifts' have worked themselves out in action, I remain more convinced than ever of the soundness of Buckley's quip, in the spirit of which I hereby declare that I would rather be ruled by the Tea Party than by the Democratic Party, and I would rather have Sarah Palin sitting in the Oval Office than Barack Obama."
So says Norman Podhoretz today, here.
Conservatives will wonder at the choice of language.
Ruled? By political parties? The Tea Parties' very existence is in large measure a reaction to being ruled, especially by political parties which are tone deaf to the broad feeling rising in the American people that the founding ideas have been under attack by both Republicans and Democrats grown long in the tooth and that our traditional liberties are being flushed down the toilet. Self-rule and self-government are the ideas conservative spokesmen ought to be expounding, if in fact they are conservatives.
Sarah Palin's on-going work on behalf of old guard Republicans like Senator John McCain is not encouraging in this regard, the other aspects of her appeal notwithstanding. McCain's long miserable record precedes him, proven by his mad dash to the right in his difficult re-election bid. Sarah Palin ought to consider more carefully how a loss for McCain on August 24th, after supporting him so strongly, might be a liability for her going forward.
