The Conservative Question:

Sarah Palin is getting much press recently for her forthcoming book, "Going Rogue." Apparently it is being confused with a cheap Leftist comedy book -- damned near identical -- called "Going Rouge." Get it? Har de har-har. Man, that's clever. A purposeful shot by Leftists at attempting to confuse book buyers and get them to not purchase the Real Deal. It was enough to already confuse Fox News. And that's how much she's hated by the Left.

According to the Huffington Post:

Clocking in at over 400 pages, "Going Rogue" is, at its heart, one giant complaint about the conduct of John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. At the nexus of Palin's grievances lies (former McCain campaign manager Steve) Schmidt, a character cast as out of touch, overly cautious, and vindictive.

The relationship between vice presidential candidate and the campaign manager doesn't start off on the rocks -- but it ends there. And though she claims they were "very comfortable with each other right off the bat," she also describes Schmidt as "business to the bone." During her vetting Schmidt plays it cool. When Palin admits "the one skeleton [she'd] kept hidden in [her] closet for the past twenty-two years," Schmidt "didn't bat an eye" -- though he does "wince" when she mentions God. That oh-so-dark secret, incidentally, is a D-grade Palin received in a college course.

Palin complains of being "told to sit down and shut up" when she "spoke on the trail about Obama's associations with questionable characters." She bemoans the campaign's unwillingness to tackle "Obama's pastor of twenty years, Jeremiah 'God Damn America' Wright."

"I will forever question the campaign for prohibiting discussion of such association," she writes. "All the more since these telltale signs of Obama's views, carefully concealed with centrist campaign-speak have now been brought into the light by his appointments and actions in office."

Can't say as I, with the above information, much disagree with Palin's assessment of McCain.

Texas Fred writes about Sarah Palin here, saying:

Well… I guess Sarah Palin is a Great Pretender. Playing to the masses. Putting on the dog, as they say. And it all came out looking like a seriously bad version of Northwoods Barbie.

Sarah Palin’s life reads a lot like a reality program too, Jon and Kate comes to mind. Dysfunctional, didn’t finish out the contract, accusations of improprieties, lots of similarities. Personally, I want my politics to be a reality program, but I want it to be an accurate representation of LIFE, not some shrill voiced QUITTER that doesn’t represent my family values or work ethic.

I hate a quitter! Sarah Palin will forever be known as a QUITTER. You just don’t walk out on the job of Governor of Alaska because the *pressures* of the job were too much for you to take and because it was playing havoc on your family.

If Palin, or ANY of her supporters think for one minute that the pressures she would face as President or Vice President are less than those she faced as a state Governor, you are sadly mistaken! If she quit over those lesser pressures, what do you think she’ll do if it’s a GLOBAL crisis? What happens when she has to face the life or death decisions that ALL Presidents face?

Wake up folks, Palin is playing a part, that’s it, she is yesterdays news and even then she didn’t carry that much credibility. Then she became a QUITTER. Is thatwhat you want in the White House? Do you want someone that’s better suited to reality TV or someone that can LEAD this nation?

I'd have to say that, now, Texas Fred is correct though -- up to the moment she stepped down as Alaska's Governor -- she once had a chance.

I customarily thought that the vetted and perceived value or threat of a potential candidate could easily be measured by the slanderous and libelous things portrayed about them by their opposition. The more the Left attempted to skewer Sarah Palin, the more I tended to like her. She was a pro-gun hot chick who rankled the Left because she wore short skirts, had a square jaw, an hourglass figure (no cankles, like some people we know), was far more Conservative than her running mate, didn't source from the east coast or from anything having to do with the Ivy League, wasn't an attorney, didn't believe in abortion, had a Downs kid, had an actual intact marriage.

Yes, of course, she wasn't perfect but there is no such thing as a Perfect Candidate.

Conservatives harken back to Ronald Wilson Reagan but in point of fact he predominantly stepped away and avoided any kind of confrontation with Terror in its myriad forms when President. A response to the 1983 Beirut Marine barracks bombing? Mostly terse words. "In fact, there was no serious retaliation for the Beirut bombing from the Americans,[16] besides a few shellings."

And Iran/Contra. The battles between the Secretaries of State and Defense (Reagan chewed through four National Security Advisers in six years ) and their adversarial policies. We forget that Reagan never submitted a balanced budget to Congress despite his commitment to fiscal restraint, and the national debt tripled during his presidency. Reagan was, in the end, a man of contradictions. But, Lord, how I felt so much better about my nation when he was around, how he rallied my country, how he left behind so many better words bigger than himself.

That said, I rallied around Sarah Palin because I believed that, as is being revealed now, McCain trotted her out as a Show Horse but then muzzled her. Go on, yes, we can reference her shrill voice (though I still liken Hillary and Nancy to Rosie Perez and Fran Drescher -- like split nails dragged across the proverbial chalkboard). Her Frances McDormand accent.

But, ultimately, when she canceled her Day Job, she doomed herself. She proved she couldn't take the heat. Either she couldn't take the heat or her heart just wasn't "in it."

In any case, the microsecond that happened, she jettisoned all the power cables from the Mother Ship.

Texas Fred also asked, in his post: "What has happened to the idea of *straight talk*?"

I responded, in the comments section:

Fred, I can tell you why NO ONE wants to speak freely, clearly or truthfully anymore, and I can do it in two words:

FREE CHEESE.

The American electorate, the bulk of it, is only concerned with its Free Cheese. What can the “gubmint” GIVE ME?? is the rallying question from the great unwashed masses.

Politicians know this, and know that, without skyrocketing promises of MORE Free Cheese, they stand a snowball’s chance in Hell of acquiring much of any political seat.

The PEOPLE have brought this about; I believe every bit as much AS the politicians themselves.

The American electorate has lost its courage and is becoming more and more accustomed, through education, through youth, through the courts, of having their Free Cheese mindsets VALidated.

We’d best be talking, if we want to save this country, about a lot of NO! in our immediate future.

You know, Fred, any politician truly capable of saying NO! to the electorate?

Really? Honestly?

WHO is there?

So I ask that question to ALL of my readers:

WHO is any kind of a viable Conservative presidential candidate for 2012?

And can they say NO?

BZ