In Defense of Sarah Palin from CNN

Her bid for the vice presidency ended more than two months ago, but Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin appears determined not to become a mere afterthought. Gov. Sarah Palin may be positioning herself for a 2012 run for the White House, analysts say. Departing from a historical trend of failed vice presidential candidates who descend into relative obscurity after Election Day, Palin continues to command the intense media coverage that befits a national office seeker. It's an astonishing development, given that she has no role in national domestic policy and is a first-term governor of a state almost 4,500 miles from Washington. Palin empathizers say the Alaska governor is merely trying to recover her good name after months of damage by the mainstream media, liberal bloggers and even high-level members of the McCain campaign who grew publicly dissatisfied with their VP nominee as Election Day neared. But some political observers suggest that Palin's ongoing - and predominantly adversarial - relationship with the national media is all part of a savvy effort to retain her popularity with the legions of rank-and-file conservatives who stood so strongly behind her during the campaign. Should Palin eye a presidential bid herself in 2012, continued loyalty from grass-roots. Republicans will be crucial in determining whether she is the early favorite in a race sure to feature a crowded field of high-profile GOP contenders. All of that media bashing plays to the base," said David Brody, a senior national correspondent for the Christian Broadcasting Network. "And at least within the Republican primary, that works well."

Palin's latest newsmaking interview came late last week with Esquire magazine, excerpts of which were released Tuesday. In the interview, Palin bashed coverage by her home-state newspaper and lashed out at "bored, anonymous, pathetic bloggers who lie." That interview followed similarly heated comments last week to conservative John Ziegler, in which Palin targeted comedian Tina Fey and CBS News ancho Katie Courie for "exploiting" her during the presidential campaign. In the same interview, Palin charged that the national media continue to feed inaccurate rumors surrounding the birth of her 8-month-old son, Trigg. She also said news organizations have unduly criticized the upcoming marriage of her 18-year-old daughter, Bristol, to Levi Johnston, a former electrical apprentice in the North Slope oil field.

Palin made ade a phone call to People magazine late last month to defend her daughter and Johnston after the publication had suggested that neither was working to finish high school: "You need to know that both Levi and Bristol are working their butts off," Palin told the magazine in an animated voice-mail message.The mainstream media have long served as a punching bag for conservatives, even more so in 2008, when the McCain campaign itself publicly declared that many news organizations were "in the tank" for Barack Obama. If Palin wants to run for the Republican nomination in 2012, she has an issue that could rally conservatives: her treatment by the media," CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider said.
But besides harnessing conservative anger at the mainstream media, it's also likely Palin is wielding her ongoing fame to dispel lingering impressions she is a policy lightweight or, worse, incompetent. "The problem for Sarah Palin is that she may have a little Dan Quayle syndrome here in the sense that once [former Vice President] Dan Quayle misspelled 'potato,' that was the end of it," Brody said. "He had the public perception problem, and here comes Sarah Palin in 2012, and she may have exactly the same problem."

To be sure, in several recent interviews, Palin has sharply criticized how the McCain campaign handled her, particularly when it came to her dealings with the media. In her interview with Ziegler, the Alaska governor directly indicted senior McCain advisers over a series of disastrous interviews with Couric, saying further sit-downs with the CBS anchor should not have been granted after the first one went badly.

In the Esquire interview, Palin said she wished she had stood up to McCain strategists and hadn't assumed "that they know you well enough to make all your decisions for ya."

"She perhaps felt muzzled" during the campaign, said Ryan D'Agostino, the Esquire reporter who interviewed Palin. "You could really feel and sense the frustration coming through as she was answering my pretty simple questions. It was a little bit like she was exhaling and it, maybe, it felt good."

Still, some Republicans are questioning Palin's full-court media press, suggesting that the former vice presidential candidate should instead work to beef up her résumé while assuming a lower profile. After all, if Palin wants to be a serious presidential contender, she will need broader support than just the rank-and-file conservatives who respond so energetically to media-bashing.

"She needs a little time in the desert. She needs to retire," said Alex Castellanos, a Republican strategist and CNN contributor. "She needs to demonstrate growth as a politician, as a political leader. You can't do that if you keep staying in front of us day after day after day as the same person."

The Northern Sky 1.1

Michaela stood on the northernmost tip of Unst and looked across to the distant shores of Norway glowing dimly far away. She took a deep breath and sighed, breathing out heavily with pouting lips. One thing she would never have to worry about was slimming or losing weight. The word diet never entered her vocabulary, neither as a noun or a verb because all she did was traipse. All day every day she would traipse up and down the hills, holding her flock together. It kept the body trim and the legs firm. An outsider may have felt the whiplash of the wind and be left with burning cheeks and chapped lisp, but as a Shetlander, born, bred and buttered, she revilled in it. Even though the wind was cold, she wore only a light sweater made of Shetland wool (what else?) and stood on the cliff like a Numenorean guard keeping watch over Gondor, or like Elendil waiting for Gil-galad in the days of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men long ago. Yes, Norway, a dream land to her, far away, overflowing with fords and sparkling rainbow colors on the meadows and fields of gold and deep lush green. She had only ever left Shetland once, way back in 1980, twelve years ago to go to Edinburgh with her schoolmates. Apart from that, this little island was the microcosm of her life. She sighed again. At times she wished a passing fishing trawler would run aground and then transport her to Norway, so near and yet so far. Or that she could fly or go in a Soviet submarine. But it was not to be. Now she was twenty-four and lonely. So lonely. But it was getting late and the angular rays were resting on the Norwegian shore far away. She turned and traipsed back home, prodding the sheep on ahead of her and calling out to her pet ass to keep up lest he fall behind. Her ass was useful for carrying heavy burdens when the going got tough. A cow mooed in the distance and a pig somewhere could be heard to grunt. The choppy gray waves of the Atlantic flowing into the North Sea lay behind her now.

In her house, she found her father, her beloved dad of 78 ears old.

“Hello, dad,” she said.
“Och, lassie, hello,” he replied gruffly. “Sit doon, ah’ve goat tae talk tae ye.”
Michaela obediently took a seat opposite the old man.

“Since ma wife died, that’s yer mother, ye know, I’ve been a widower. And you’re my only child. But I won’t be here forever,” said Mr. McMahon, slowly choosing his words carefully. “So I’ve decided it’s time for thee to wed.”
“Get married, you mean, sir?” said Michaela incredulously. “With someone with whom I can build a life together and be happy? Who will I marry.”
“whom,” her father gently interposed with a raised finger, a careful look on his old wise face, wizened by long years of intense, self-taught erudition.”
“Oh Daddy, forget grammatical accuracy just once and tell me. Will I build a life, a future, a wonderful future with this man?”
“May be, may be,” said her father. “I don’t know if you’ll be building anything cos the chap I’ve got in mind already has built a little empire for himself. You’ll just take over. And when he goes, it’ll be all yours, ma bonnie wee lassie. Yer auld faither is looking oot for ye. I’ll not be here forever, you know.”
“Who is he, dad?”
“Jock MacGregor, the baker.”
Michaela sprung to her feet in shock and awe! “No! He’s too old for me!” she cried, her hand on her chest and her other arm striking a dramatic pose like a Shakesperian actor doing Hamlet. “He must be over sixty and I’m only twenty-four, that’s a forty-six year age difference at least!”
“Fifty-four,” her father corrected her calmly. “Old Jock, well, old to you, to me he’s a whippersnapper since I’m ten years older than him, but yes, he’s a bit older. But when he goes it’s all yours. His bakery, his house and any money left over in the bank once his funeral has been paid for and any outstanding debts, of course. You have to do right by the dead, lassie. But be that as it may, be that as it may, a nice little nest egg, ma bonnie wee lassie. Think it over. The wedding is a month from today. Father McConnolly is coming over from Fair Isle to conduct the ceremony in our cosy little church nearby.”
“But…” Michaela began to protest.

“Now, get a couple of bowels o’ porridge on the table, there’s a good wee bonny lass. Ye must be hungry after traipsing up and down them hills all day. And I’m feeling a wee bit peckish myself. And set out a bottle of beer for me, ye know I like a beer in the evening, especially in front of the hearth with the telly turned down low. A small Guiness will suffice.”

“Yes, dad,” said Michaela reluctantly. Oh dear, she thought! How am I going to get out of this? I owe my father all my loyalty and endearment, but oh to be free! A tear darted down her cheek but she sniffed it back into her widened nostril and brushed her hair over her head with a sweeping gesture of her hand as she went to put her bowels on the table to fill with porridge. They were the bowels her mother had left her when she’d died fifteen years before. Not for the first time did she think to herself how good it would be to have her mom her with her now. when she missed her mommy, she felt her heart retch inside her chest and thump in her bosom. Oh, why did you leave us! She asked, not for the first time.

And We're Off!

Well, jumping jehoshaphat and Palin for President! It’s great to be back with my newly revamped blog. In the coming months, y’all’ll be able to follow my path to publishing. I have two books in the works and a wonderful husband to boot. You will be able to read and comment totally free of charge my two stories. The first and dearest is called The Northern Sky and it’s about Michaela in the Shetland islands and how she gets her goat up when her dad wants to marry her off to a local old soak and ninconpoop. But she falls for a new beaux called Armando whose a Norwegian pilot and keeps alive the vital trade links between Scotland and Shetland and Norway on which people depend for food and other precious goods and services. Her dad, or should I say farther, is a traditionalist who just wants to marry off his daughter to keep the family in the wealth to which it has become accustomed. But after a surrpise visit from an ex-patriot who left Shetland and went aboard to try a new life in South America and who tells her all about her amazing life in Rio de Janeiro, Michaela decides that she too will change and not accept being the downtrodden daughter who will marry an old soak with flabby biceps just like that! and that’s where it kicks off in Chapter One.

The second story is called The Far Star and is about a man called Dangmar who gets caught in a time loop while going back in an intrepid attempt to find out what the big bang looked like at the dawn of time and maybe even what came before it. But his plans are foiled by getting caught up in a time loop from which he cannot excape. But he does in the end of course or it wouldn’t be worth writing about. And if he didn’t excape how would he get back to tell us the story about it. This is of secondary importance to me but my original time travel method is cool and creative.

If you are of a nervous disposition, you might not enjoy the sex scenes. They are scizzling and tantalizing and tittilating! But never in bad taste. But when I write one or post it on the blog here I’ll flag it and let you know what it’s all about, okay? I wouldn’t want you to be shocked into a corinary or anything like that because you were not expecting any thing so exciting and it could blow your mind. I recognize that not everyhone likes sex although most people do. So don’t get offended because it comes across and a breezy style with jiggling and juggling and craning and conniving bodies soaked in sweat and dripping with perspiration.

I’m really excited to be here online writing a blog about my books. I’ll post different pics for each story. Like this. When it’s a Northern Sky chapter I’ll put a little map of the Shetland aisles next to it and when it’s The Far Star, then I’ll put a picture of a star and then if your not interested in one you don’t have to read it and can read only the other. I prefer the NS but, hey, that’s just me.

As I’ve told some fans before, I don’t indulge in unusual grammar or opaque argot. That’s not in my line. No fancy stuff. I like the simple things in life. I like putting in hearty meals. My husband Norbert and I (whose a wealthy industrialist)_ eat at a quaint, quiet but quality bistro every night or almost every night or at least every other night. Last night we had boeuf bourgignon and it was delicious but I made it it wasn’t from the bistro. And a Merdoc to wash it all down. Delicious. And so you’ll feel good when Michaela has been out in the frost all day farming sheep and things like that and she gets home at night and makes a big bowel of hot porridge and sprinkles it with sugar, although macho scotch people like salt, or at least claim they do as I found out in my research for the story.

Now, I won’t let things get too political. But I’ll point out from the git-go that I am a member of Team Sarah that supports Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) for President in 2012. I like her because she’s a woman. She can get things done. She can run a state (the biggest in the Union by the by) and also a husband and five kids and now a grankchild. I think that is amazin’. She has it all down pat. She delegates and she makes rules too. I think her perspective is right for conservative republicans in the twenty-first century. A new kind of leader. That’s the name of the book that was published about her by Joe Hilley who is actually a democrat from a different church but has come to admire her as she breaks down all partisan lines like a state trooper in a fog. If you want to join team Sarah go to http://www.teamsarah.org/ and sign up today! Make a difference. In four year’s time, when it all comes crashing down, she will be the one to get us out of the whole. But that is all about politics for now. On with the story! The jostling, jiggling and jerkjerking is about to jumpstart!