SEVENTY-TWO
"I wasn't sure how the transition of power would work, so I just showed up and wanted to know, well, who's going to show me where the light switches are, and let’s get this show on the road. But no one jumped out of their swivel chairs to say, 'Welcome! Here's what you'll do when you take over.' It was a pretty cold reception in the mayor's office…
"When I was finally sworn in a couple of weeks later, I walked into my first staff meeting and saw all of the department heads sitting around a long table….I knew that most of these folks , along with some council members like Nick [Carney], had campaigned vigorously against me. And they'd had every right to do so.
"But the campaign was over now, and it was time to get to work on the changes that the voters had just mandated. They sat with their arms crossed, staring at me. Some of them had been in government about as long as I'd been alive. Their collective stare transmitted a single message: 'YOU'RE going to tell US what to do?' (italics in original)
"I attempted to turn them into allies. 'Thank you all for coming,' I began. 'I know you guys weren't really rooting for me, but I'm anxious to work together. Are you ready to go, team?'
"Yeah, right."
I think we witness in the young Sarah Palin here (not that she is "old" now!!) certain qualities that have remained with her to this day, albeit modified by the hard and bitter experiences that she has undergone in the "big leagues" of hardball American politics.
What we see, first, is a Sarah who stands by her commitments, and is always willing to try to work with people, even individuals who have been her opponents. Behold how she fulfills her promise to volunteer in Track's first-grade classroom. A small thing? Perhaps. But I think that many newly-elected mayors, governors, etc. might have "blown off" the obligation. Not Sarah.
Next, notice how she enters a "lions' den" of people who, frankly, hate her guts, and shoot icy stares at her. She stretches forth the olive branch to them. It is not her fault that the olive branch is broken into pieces and cast back in her teeth!
I think that Sarah still retains this fundamental characteristic of willingness to offer a gracious hand to all. What has changed, IMHO, is that a certain mantle of wariness, maybe wisdom would be a better term, has descended onto her shoulders. She has won and gained this protective and shielding mantle as a bitter but beneficial fruit of her searing experiences during and since '08.
Behold the eloquent brevity of the two words with which she concludes the passage I have just cited: "Yeah, right."
I think that Sarah, strong and tough and resilient as she has always been, was not quite prepared for the storm and whirlwind that was unleashed against her after Sarah Palin Day, both from the hateful Left, but also from the GOP establishment. Remember how the McCain team treated her, how "Headquarters" treated her.
The name of Steve Schmidt, the McCain campaign manager, is just one name of many on a shameful list of ostensible and apparent "friends" who were really not in her corner. I think Sarah learned much from the horrific sixty-seven-day maelstrom of her VP campaign. In words that go back at least to the immortal Greek dramatist Aeschylus in their eternal verity, out of pain was born wisdom for our Sarah.
The Sarah of today is still willing, I believe, and always will be ready to stretch out a hand of reconciliation and peace to those who truly want to help her and help the nation. However, I believe that she is today a wiser and more wary stateswoman than was the VP candidate of '08.
Let me conclude these brief remarks by citing a bit of JFK's inaugural address, and then applying it, mutatis mutandis, to Sarah.
I cite from memory, so it may be a bit off: "Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, and unwilling to witness or to permit the slow unraveling of those human liberties to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we stand committed today, both at home and around the globe.
"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we will pay any price, bear any burden, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of Liberty."
We may justly and rightly apply this to Sarah, after her painful experiences of the last three years:
"Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new kind of leader, born in the far reaches of the Final Frontier, tempered by life in the cold and glorious Great Land, disciplined by a hard and bitter national campaign, and unwilling to witness or to permit the slow unraveling of that Constitutional Order to which this nation has always been committed, and to which she stands committed today in the hearts of all true patriots.
"Let all Americans know, whether they be Republicans, Democrats, or Independents, that we, the friends of Sarah, will pay any price, bear any burden, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of that Constitutional Order to which Governor Palin has always been committed, and to which she stands committed today, in heart and in soul."
