Thank you, Hugh, more wisdom, and always welcome. I’m delighted to read your take on Sarah Palin and a bit surprised too. I listen to your show quite frequently and read your blog too, and I recall scarcely a mention of this now canonized modern day Joan of Arc. Today you pour out amazing details, information I’ve been trying to gather all day and to no avail. 

Here, according to your current post, is what Sarah Palin brings:

1.    “A country well led in the war for the next four years.” (Four years! I thought the surge was working.)

2.    “A real deal conservative, down the line, on all the issues.” Of course the oil companies, whose taxes are skyrocketing, might not agree, and what about that veto of the ban on domestic partnerships, and what about the pipeline owned by the people rather than by the oil companies?

3.    “The Palin pick guarantees that the party will remain a conservative party long-term.” So Federalist Society, she’s a member of that? Heritage Foundation? Can you tell us anything about her politics in college or as a young adult beyond that she “came of age politically during the Age of Ronald Reagan”? And what if the public rejects this pick as pandering and the ticket goes down in flames? What future does that guarantee the party?

4.    “…a vigorous exploration/conservation strategy has an ideal spokesman in Palin.” Might want to check with Big Oil, Hugh, or your counterpart conservative radio hosts in Anchorage. Just Google “misguided populist and intellectual lightweight” and you’ll see what I mean.

5.    “She is not a beltway Republican.” Tell you what this sounds like – “Compassionate Conservatism” – you remember how that George W. Bush utterance made the faithful cringe. The Republicans who have been in charge, the ones who will be hanging around, are the Beltway Republicans. And you ignore where she is from – Wasilli, population 6,000, and she has been there her whole life except for the college years in Moscow, Idaho. This is hardly an experience that most Americans will find relatable to their daily lives.

6.    “Young enough to bridge to the next generation.” One for six Hugh, she’s certainly younger than McCain.

Spiro T. Agnew, six years county executive, Baltimore County (population larger than all of Alaska) and then Governor of Maryland, population ten times larger than Alaska, a state of rural and urban settings. Dan Quayle, lawyer, newspaper executive, House of Representatives 1976, Senate 1980, VP 1989. And now Sarah Palin, Mayor of Wasilli and then Governor of Alaska starting twenty months ago. Three obscure, controversial in their time choices and of the three, she has the thinnest resume by far. Maybe a fine woman, probably a fine woman, one of tens of millions of fine American women. But heartbeat away from the Presidency? Come on, Hugh, not even you think that.