Wasilla Remembers Sarah

* Welcome, Conservative Grapevine and Little Green Football readers! *

Yesterday evening I had a remarkable encounter with a man here in California (let's call him “Hank”) who had been a resident of Wasilla, Alaska during the years when Sarah Palin served as city councilwoman and then mayor. He and I chatted for half an hour, completely off the cuff. More than most mainstream media stories about her life and career, Hank's memories, impressions, and opinions – of Wasilla as much, actually, as of Sarah Palin – are indeed a breath of fresh air. They lend credence to the persona that the McCain-Palin campaign is projecting: a frontier, hockey mom with “a servant's heart.”

First, Hank said that most Americans will find it difficult to understand many particulars of Alaska small-town life. Wasilla is small by head count, but it's spread over a wide area with many miles between it and the nearest cities. Yes, it has “sprawl,” but growth merely peppers (not plasters) its way toward adjacent boroughs. (“Boroughs”: the category for unincorporated land outside the city proper.) Out there neighbors often live at a distance from each other, but these individuals also learn to make do with each other -- and especially with nature -- out of non-negotiable need, not choice.

Hank never mentioned “environmentalism” or “hunting,” but instead spoke of “game management.” Area game (or, if you prefer, wildlife) seems to coexist with the citizenry in a pragmatic, managed equilibrium. Certain technology, he said, tracks the number of moose or fish that pass through certain areas. The environs can only support so many number of this or that animal, so often it's a good (and prudent) thing that hunters and fishers are issued more licenses, and get out and bring in big catches. Never forget that many Alaskans count on outdoor kills for basic sustenance. This includes roadkill – when a big animal goes down on a road or highway, a local church will receive a call and then send out members to haul and properly strip the carcass. This has to do with sustenance and community service, not with sport and spoils. Teddy Roosevelt would be proud.

This also has to do, as Hank described it, with a “pay-as-you-go” way of life. Since there are few state taxes, Alaska government remains small and usually in the background, even if services are scarcer and more expensive. For example, the state university is relatively expensive as state universities go, but that's because only students pay in to it. More bureaucratized states like California and New York fund their state universities by taxing the entire populace. Hank also wanted me to note that there's a fair amount of home schooling in Alaska. (I have to add, the tenor of these remarks reminded me of an old Dinesh D'Souza anecdote: Ronald Reagan, back in the 80s, received D'Souza as a guest at the White House. Reagan pointed out the window to a large structure, not too far off. “You see that building?” he asked. “Yes.” “That's the Department of Education. Do you know what they do over there? “No,” D'Souza acknowledged, "I don't." “Neither do I,” Reagan declared.)

Back in Wasilla, during Palin's time in office an effort took hold to incorporate his outlying borough, but Hank was wary because he knew that the city wouldn't be able right away to keep up roads and provide fire department services as he'd been used to. It was a trade-off, but one brokered in open (if close) quarters. Just as former Alaska senator, Democrat Mike Gravel recently said, Hank said he didn't always agree with her decisions, but he tended to respect them. He said she always carried herself confidently, as when she had Wasilla's chief of police replaced.

In this and other ways, Hank said, he formed over the years strong, up-close impressions of Sarah (whom he always referred to as “Sarah”). As Sarah gave birth to new children, the town paper ran items about them. She and her husband gave them funny, marvelous names – “Piper,” he explained, is named after the piper cub airplane (a fixture in long-distance Alaskan transportation). Sarah typically attended Wasilla's high school's graduation ceremonies, including his own child's graduation. Her mayor's office was “a shack.” When years later she put a former governor's plane on eBay, he said it didn't surprise him one bit. Did Hank watch her recent vice-presidential nomination acceptance speech? “It was 100% her,” he said, without hesitation nor undue emphasis.

Now that I think about it, I didn't even ask Hank whether he's registered to vote with any party, nor whether he is planning to vote for McCain-Palin in November. It doesn't much matter, since his opinions and input regarding Sarah Palin are based mostly on her no-nonsense fulfillment of two non-partisan offices. What a world of difference this is from the dozens, even hundreds of liberal journalists and Democratic operatives who – like Kremlin commissars dispatched to quell defiant Soviet republics – have descended upon Alaska to try to destroy, by any means necessary, the hard-earned, hard-nosed reputation of America's most popular vice-presidential nominee, the woman who will forever be remembered by her former municipal constituents as “Sarah.”

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Comments

[Steve Silberman]

Which part of "pay-as-you-go" was "Sarah's" driving her cute little town of Wasilla into $20 million debt? Which part of her small-town honesty prodded her to lie, over and over again, even after the lie had been exposed, about her opposition to the Bridge to Nowhere, which she championed, and then kept the money anyway? Palin's got a "servant's heart" alright, and I bet her new masters on K Street can't wait to make use of her.

[Victor]

Thank you for your blog; the more I learn, the more I like.

It's funny, though. No matter what you say, people only hear what they want to hear. So, thank you also, Steve Silberman, for your enlightening comments from left field and last week.

I liked what Wiki has done, too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_palin

What I see so far is that Sarah Palin has her eyes on the road and her hands on the wheel. She is not afraid to grow, learn, evolve. She has pride, integrity, guts... a true P.I.G. with lipstick!

[Alexandra]

Did Sarah happen to mention whether or not she finally read up on what The Bush Doctrine was? Or was she too busy giving interviews in local papers about the birth of her children.

Just curious.

Keep the laughs coming, guys. They're great!

[JMK]

Steve: My point was to lend voice to this ordinary man's experience and opinions, emphasizing (as he did) his Alaskan community as much (or more) than its now-famous politician. These are an essential part of Gov. Palin's political formation and thus deserve articulate attention. Barack has Hawaii, Chicago, Kenya; Sarah has Idaho, Wasilla, greater Alaska.

Barack has written monster bestsellers, has a cottage industry of lesser titles, and is the subject of an award-winning (and largely uncritical) biography by a Chicago journalist. Sarah has been ... running things. Your dollars-and-sense concerns speak for themselves, and might speak even louder without your partisan invective.

I'm glad to do my part to contribute to a fuller understanding of America's latest political phenom.

Alexandra: A few days ago the originator of the phrase "Bush Doctrine" called the interviewer on his faulty grasp of it, which could have resulted only in a faulty question to Palin. It has had several meanings, or emphases, over time: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/12/AR2008091202457.html

Can't an MTF transsexual relate to a changing concept of "Bush Doctrine"?

[Steve Silberman]

That's right, Palin's been running things -- into the ground. Let me preface this by saying that I fully appreciate your giving voice to an ordinary citizen in Wasilla. That's a good impulse, and your post was beautifully written. Having been to Alaska myself, I found it an incredibly beautiful and rugged landscape full of proudly independent people like your spokesman, and like, indeed, Palin herself. But there was also a tremendous amount of naive and sentimental projection in your post, like the kind of sentimental projection that saw in Bush's stubbornness a sign of strong, firm leadership, when now we know it was the opposite. When you discover how the Alaskan government works financially, you may find that you description of the reporters up there as somehow Soviet is actually a better description of the infamous cronyism of the Alaskan state government. Here's an article from today's news:

Moo

[...]

Palin's Alaska is a cultural cousin to this kind of capitalism. The state may seem like a rugged arena for risky free-marketers. In truth, it's a strange mix of socialized projects and who-you-know hiring practices.

Let's start with those cows. A few years ago, I met Harvey Baskin, one of the last of Alaska's taxpayer-subsidized dairy farmers, at his farm outside Anchorage. The state had spent more than $120 million to create farms where none existed before. The epic project was a miserable failure.

"You want to know how to lose money in a hurry?" Harvey told me, while kicking rock-hard clumps of frozen manure. "Become a farmer with the state of Alaska as your partner. This is what you call negative farming."

That lesson was lost on Palin. As the Wall Street Journal reported this week, Governor Palin overturned a decision to shutter a money-losing, state-run creamery -- Matanuska Maid -- when her friends in Wasilla complained about losing their subsidies. She fired the board that recommended closure, and replaced it with one run by a childhood friend. After six months, and nearly $1 million in fresh losses, the board came to the same conclusion as the earlier one: Matanuska Maid could not operate without being a perpetual burden on the taxpayers.

[...]

http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/moo/index.html

[shari]

Well, as an American whose roots go back to the Founding Fathers and whose family spent the greater part of the 19th Century freezing to death in the middle of nowhere and eventually built their own town and ran the local economy, you have your head up your moose jelly when it comes to having an opinion about survival and putting sustenance on the table - it's 2008 - go get a can of tuna fish and a 99 cent bag of macaroni - my family has shot and killed every elk and pheasant in the entire Midwest and the reason you're not getting Iowa is my family isn't interested in hunting down dinner anymore. As far as kicking and screaming to the new world order - I used to work for the Gov. of Arizona when he took the hit for McCain and his cronies - there is no new world order - just more dirty politics - and there's always an ambitious woman in the mix somewhere - there's going to be a big cat fight between Cindy and Sarah - especially after Cindy caught him looking at Sarah's buttocks and it's all over UTube - you guys need to hang it up and get a life.

[JMK]

Steve: Thanks for the follow-up and the link. I take your opinion seriously, although I don't accept your take of "naive and sentimental."

Is it naive and sentimental to try to compensate, during the final lap of the election, for the deficit this most energizing GOP pol has in the "life-narrative" category vis-a-vis Obama (her Democrat counterpart, in terms of age and experience)? Or is it a good-faith contribution to my preferred ticket? Besides, "naive and sentimental" are two of the first words that come to mind when thinking of your and your colleagues' (professional journalists) preferred candidate (Obama).

Smart conservatives know that Palin will have to earn continued interest, let alone adulation. Like George Will:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/02/AR2008090202441.html

shari: You're right, the populist political brand is risky - and, yes, she's pretty easy on the eyes.

[Alexandra]

Oh dear.

The Bush Doctrine had one meaning, and one meaning only. Palin had never heard of it before and had no idea what the heck anyone was talking about. It's not that she didn't understand the meaning, it's that she didn't know what Gibson was talking about.

Like....at all.

If she did understand him she would have said:

"That depends, Charlie. There's a variety of different meanings to the Bush Doctrine, so which one would you like me to comment on?"

That's an answer that says, "I know what you mean, and you can't box me into a corner."

Her answer was:

"In what respect?"

And then as Gibson continued, she pontificated on what she thought he was referring to. She had no idea what he was talking about. Although I agree with you that Gibson may have gotten it wrong, and there certainly may be different meanings, Palin was completely clueless. There's no getting around that.

But, as far as believing it changes and morphs into something Palin wasn't briefed on, okay. I'll go along with that.

And yes, as an MTF Transsexual I can certainly relate to change. But if you ask me which sex I am, at least I understand the question.

I also know what the Bush Doctrine is.

And I can see Russia from my house!

Sorry. That last part was mean. Funny...but mean.

[JMK]

On a clear day she says she can see Russia. What can you see? Forever and ever more?

[Alice]

Alexandra, I’ve read since that interview with Gibson that the Bush doctrine has changed as events have dictated. It would be kind of weird for it not to after many years and 9-11. One component of the latest incarnation being that we have the right to pursue terrorists in any country we desire. I think she is lacking in experience and am bothered by the fact that she hasn't traveled much outside this country, but I could care less if she didn't know exactly how to answer that question. Having said that, I think she could be interesting on domestic issues, but wince at the thought of her traveling the world talking tough with world leaders.

I heard her say in an interview that the voters of her town had a referendum and decided to borrow money to build a sports arena which accounts for a large part of the deficit. They voted for it. She gave them what they asked for. I think that’s reasonable.

[Steve Silberman]

For the record, Alice, a significant part of the cost of the arena was paying off a lawsuit, because Palin pushed the arena through before the city really owned the land:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/18/palin.arena/

It's still losing money for the town every year.

[Alice]

Thank you for that information. It does not sound like she managed that development well. They certainly should have the wherewithal to make sure they owned the land before developing on it. To then attempt to grab it using emminent domain seems wrong to me, granting that I don't know much about how that works.

[JMK]

from "Dissecting the Palin Rumor Mill":
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/dissecting-the-palin-rumor-mill/

Step one: assert something in a way that doesn’t stand out....
Step two: repeat the story, unsourced, across many sites....
Step three: it becomes a standard talking point....

# # #

[Zbigniew R Nowosielski]

Very nice, JMK, I'm proud of you. Your blogsite is very professional, not to mention the quality and the informative content of your writing. Do you have an RSS feed I could subscribe to? I plan to be visiting your blog on a regular basis.

By the way, I totally agree with you about total bias against Sarah Palin from the get-go. It's to total discredit not only of the mainstream media but the entire Obama camp.

Also, post a comment now and then on my own post. We all need feedback!

Wishing you the best and send my regards to all, Shawn in particular.

Roger Nowosielski

[B.A.]

To Victor:

You're a moron. There are four Bush doctrines. The last one always supercedes the one before it. Palin referred to the last doctrine which was proper, while Gibson talked about the second one which was wrong.

WSJ journalist Charles Krauthammer coined the term "Bush Doctrine." (See Wikipedia.) It's a media term, not one usually used by politians.

Charles Krauthammer, in his column published after the Gibson interview, had to correct the New York Times because it defined the Bush Doctrine wrong too. So much for being able to trust the liberal MSM.

BTW: During the VP debate, Biden made 14 errors. At least three involved foreign policy. Palin made one error: she mixed up someone's surname.