The problem with Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin is back in the news with her recent book “Going Rogue.” I don’t plan to read her book, but from Rod Dreher’s review of it on NPR it doesn’t tell us anything new. While I found her intriguing when McCain first tapped her as his running mate, I soon came to the conclusion that she wasn’t ready for prime time so to speak and probably never will be. Apparently, polls have shown that the majority of Americans believe this is the case as well. I haven’t changed my opinion of her since then, and her decision to resign as governor of Alaska only reinforced my views of her. Furthermore, I do not think her continued presence in national politics is positive for conservatism. Here are three reasons why:

1) Liberals have unfairly attacked her family and personal life. It is obvious that they intensely dislike her not simply because of her politics, but because she is a religious women from “flyover country.” Irrespective of liberal prejudices against Palin, her family life is in full of drama. This isn’t likely to change, which means that the swirl of controversy that follows her everywhere will always be a distraction from much more important issues.

2) Palin loves to rail against elites and use more “folksy” language. Unfortunately, her speeches, interviews and writing have revealed that her communication skills don’t go beyond “folksy” and at times are riddled with grammatical errors. The way she speaks reminds me too much of some of the poor freshmen essays I have graded. Her interview with Katie Couric last year was embarrassingly bad. This is simply unacceptable for someone at the highest level of politics.

3) On the issues, Palin has shown that she is incapable of going beyond basic Republican talking points. This is true for both foreign policy and economics. She doesn’t appear to have thought through any important issue at length and certainly hasn’t questioned the assumptions of the neocons or the idea currently popular among many Republicans that tax cuts are always the answer to economic problems. This too is unacceptable and in my opinion alone renders her unfit for higher office.

Republicans are currently in the political wilderness. Hopefully they will use their time out of power to consider why they lost power and to reconsider their devotion to the neocons and their big spending ways under Bush. From what I’ve seen so far, I’m not convinced they have learned any lessons. They still have little credibility with me. If Palin continues as a popular figure in the GOP, and especially if she emerges as a serious contender in the 2012 presidential primaries, it will only be further evidence that the Republicans have learned nothing from the many errors of the Bush years.