Finally, an article about Palin I can get behind

This article on Reason.com, by Nick Gillespie, echoes quite a few of my sentiments about Sarah Palin (and one or two about Barack Obama), in a tone that doesn’t make me feel embarrassed for the person writing. Refreshing. Also, kind of funny that Gillespie refers to the people insisting that Palin is not really the bio-mom of her son Trig as “after-birthers”, in contrast to the “birthers” who hound the President.

OK OK OK. I’ll just post some lemony snippets.

On Palin’s less-than-inspired political platform:

… Americans have heard it all before, most recently during the administration of George W. Bush, who with the able assistance of a Republican majority managed to double overall federal spending in real dollars over the course of eight years. If the Republicans are to regroup and advance in another direction, they will need something other than warmed-over Karl Rove speeches.

On “high-profile conservatives’” criticism of her candidacy:

If her résumé (small-town mayor, then short-term governor of a low-population state) was thin upon nomination, her performance in key moments afterward was often cringe-inducing. “Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate,” wrote Parker in 2008. “Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.”

On the myth of Small Town America:

…Palin is not the voice of “small-town America” … . Small-town America hasn’t really existed since the 1920 census, when for the first time more people lived in cities than in rural areas. In her rhetoric and demeanor, Palin is unabashedly populist, and like all populists, when she talks about the past, she is describing not reality but an idyll, a dream of an Eden that never really existed.

On Barack Obama’s failure to deviate from George W. Bush’s trajectory:

… we [may] have finally reached the point where voters care more about policy than promulgation. Whatever he said on the campaign trail about repudiating George W. Bush’s legacy, the sad fact is that Barack Obama is following in his predecessor’s footsteps when it comes to foreign policy, the treatment of suspected terrorists, stimulus spending, bailouts, and the expansion of government entitlement programs.

On the hypocrisy of touting Alaska as the anti-Washington:

Palin’s frequent invocations… of free markets and rugged individualism ring false coming from a vice presidential candidate who wholeheartedly endorsed the Troubled Asset Relief Program at a point when only politicians [not the people] supported it… . As a former governor of a state that receives about $14,000 in federal money per resident (only the District of Columbia gets more) and whose total spending increased 16 percent between 2007 and 2009, she is not very credible as a fiscal conservative.

On her immediate future:

Her surprising resignation as governor bespeaks an impulsiveness that is at odds with the discipline and strategy required for a long-haul role, but her ability to draw massive crowds (and fundraising dollars), and to start a national conversation via Facebook and The Wall Street Journal about “death panels” in health care legislation, suggests Palin has a strong and perhaps instinctual grasp of many Americans’ hopes and anxieties.  And if Dick Nixon could come back from a humiliating vice presidential run and a godawful retirement speech, surely Palin can. Or at least try.