SHANNYN MOORE: JUST A GIRL FROM HOMER

While preparing to jump out of a cake for Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday, Sarah Palin found time to serve up a fresh batch of Word Salad. My condolences to the transcriber who probably has a giant case of Post Traumatic Punctuation Disorder. The topic? Egypt, Reagan and 1 Timothy.

Palin was asked about Egypt on the “Brody Files“:

Sarah Palin: “Remember, President Reagan lived that mantra trust but verify. We want to be able to trust those who are screaming for democracy there in Egypt, that it is a true sincere desire for freedoms and the challenge that we have though, is how do we verify what it is that we are being told, what it is that the American public are being fed via media, via the protesters, via the government there in Egypt in order for us to really have some sound information to make wise decisions on what our position is.  Trust but verify, and try to understand is what I would hope our leaders are engaged in right now.  Who’s going to fill the void?  Mubarak, he’s gone, one way or the other you know, he is not going to be the leader of Egypt, that that’s a given, so now the information needs to be gathered and understood as to who it will be that fills now the void in the government.  Is it going to be the Muslim Brotherhood?  We should not stand for that, or with that or by that.  Any radical Islamists, no that is not who we should be supporting and standing by, so we need to find out who was behind all of the turmoil and the revolt and the protests so that good decisions can be made in terms of who we will stand by and support.”

“Trust but verify” has been an escaped mantra for Palin. You’ll wait years for a records request to find out what she was really up to in Alaska. How about this Sarah, we (you) don’t get to boss around another country. Remember how you didn’t like the United States Federal Government telling Alaska about building codes? Yeah, well, they don’t like it either. We’ve been propping up and funding a dictator in Mubarak who has amassed more personal wealth than the Alaska Permanent Fund in its entirety.

When asked how Obama was handling the situation:

Sarah Palin: “It’s a difficult situation, this is that 3am White House phone call and it seems for many of us trying to get that information from our leader in the White House it it seems that that call went right to um the answering machine. And nobody yet has, no body yet has explained to the American public what they know, and surely they know more than the rest of us know who it is who will be taking the place of Mubarak and um, no, not, not real um enthused about what it is that that’s being done on a national level and from D.C. in regards to understanding all the situation there in Egypt. And um, in these areas that are so volatile right now because obviously it’s not just Egypt but the other countries too where we are seeing uprisings, we know that now more than ever, we need strength and sound mind there in the White House.  We need to know what it is that America stands for so we know who it is that America will stand with.  And um, we do not have all that information yet.”

SERIOUSLY? The answering machine? If you haven’t had the situation explained to you, it may have to do with the basics. We’ll start with, “Egypt is not a state in the country of Africa.” Sorry, I hate to get all “Gotcha”. We need “strength and sound mind” in the White House. You Betcha. I’m so glad John McCain isn’t living there. We DO have the information on what it is that America stands for and it’s not you. We do have that information. You’re tanking. The more you talk, the more you unravel the myth the McCain campaign worked so hard to spin.

When she was ask about a run for President, and what might she do differently?

Sarah Palin: “I would continue on the same course of not really caring what other people say about me or worrying about the things that they make up, but having that thick skin and a still spine, knowing that what is needed in America are those things that Ronald Reagan did espouse and what he lived and not worrying about what the critics are going to say me or my family or what it is that I stand for because I do believe, David, that there are more commonsense conservative Americans on our side on the issues that we stand for than there are those who oppose the idea of individualism and God given liberty and opportunity to work hard and to, um, to progress according to our own work ethic and our own merits.  I would continue to believe that there are more who are believers in those values than there are not, so I would continue down that same path.”

Yes. That is a tremendous way to get people to vote for you. Not caring what they say about you.  This skin? No. It’s stretched tight and even thinner than it was when you were governor. Good Lord, take a breath. That first sentence is a doozie.  You, madam, should never utter the words “work ethic” within earshot of any Alaskans. You are a quitter.

On Media Attacks?

Sarah Palin: “You know, I’m reminded so often of 2 Timothy 1:7 knowing that God does not give us a spirit of timidity or of fear, but he gives us a spirit of power and love and a sound mind.  A sound mind so that we can keep things in perspective.  We can stay grounded, we can know what is real, we can know truth, so just calling on that verse, reminding myself over and over again what’s God promises, that gets me through the tough times.”

Sarah, Sarah, Sarah.  I know a few really wonderful Christian Alaskans who have prayed their way through the hell you have wrought on them personally or through policy. Watch out for lightening.

The rest of that interview is here. It’s just about time for her to reconsider her “sit down and shut up” status.

And by the way. Remember that guy that “discovered” you back in 2007 on an Alaska Cruise to Juneau? William Kristol?  Perhaps you haven’t yet read this, but Bill Kristol talks about the very fear you and your buddy Glenn Beck are promoting. From the new issue of the Weekly Standard out on February 14:

Now, people are more than entitled to their own opinions of how best to accomplish that democratic end. And it’s a sign of health that a political and intellectual movement does not respond to a complicated set of developments with one voice.

But hysteria is not a sign of health. When Glenn Beck rants about the caliphate taking over the Middle East from Morocco to the Philippines, and lists (invents?) the connections between caliphate-promoters and the American left, he brings to mind no one so much as Robert Welch and the John Birch Society. He’s marginalizing himself, just as his predecessors did back in the early 1960s.

Nor is it a sign of health when other American conservatives are so fearful of a popular awakening that they side with the dictator against the democrats. Rather, it’s a sign of fearfulness unworthy of Americans, of short-sightedness uncharacteristic of conservatives, of excuse-making for thuggery unworthy of the American conservative tradition.

Kristol continues:

Let’s hope that as talk radio hosts find time for reflection, and commentators step back to take a deep breath, they will recall that one of the most hopeful aspects of the current conservative revival is its reclamation of the American constitutionalist tradition. That tradition is anchored even beyond the Constitution, of course, in the Declaration of Independence. And that document, let’s not forget, proclaims that, “Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness], it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.”

An American conservatism that looks back to 1776 cannot turn its back on the Egyptian people. We should wish them well—and we should work to help them achieve as good an outcome as possible.

Conservatives are used to focusing on the downsides of situations. And there are potential downsides ahead, to be sure. But there is also a huge upside to a sound and admirable outcome in Egypt. American conservatives should remember our commitment, in the words of Federalist 39, to “that honorable determination which animates every votary of freedom, to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government.”

Egypt turns out to have its votaries of freedom. The Egyptian people want to exercise their capacity for self-government. American conservatives, heirs to our own bold and far-sighted revolutionaries, should help them.

I agree with Bill Kristol.

I need to get my skates out. Hell just froze over.