PAGE 121

Swearing in

On p. 121 of GR, Sarah continues her discussion of her inauguration as Governor of Alaska, and she continues with her observations about the Alaskan Constitution.

She writes, "Thanks to our state's simple and concise founding documents, our founding mothers and fathers had provided a level of opportunity and prosperity that other states, even other countries, could only dream of. I believed then--and still do now--that in addition to God's grace, the credit for Alaska's prosperity should be given to our Constitution's framers.
"We chose as our venue the Carlson Center, the arena where the Nanooks, the University of Alaska Fairbanks' hockey team, play. Looking up at the team banners hanging overhead, I remembered the many days I'd spent in this arena, cheering young athletes, keeping score and compiling stats, bandaging bruised bodies, organizing their journeys up north and then home again after the games.

"During the ceremony, floorboards protected the ice, which was covered with fresh blade marks carved by kids who were full of hope and goals and energy. Instead of a sterile conventional venue, the arena was the perfect place for our inauguration celebration."
Let us note the wise and wonderful juxtaposition here of the Alaskan Constitution and the Carlson Center!!

Indeed, as we have often observed in the course of these reflections on GR, it is frequently not just what the Governor writes, but the ORDER in which she writes, the things that she chooses to place in close collocation one to the other, that shed a bright and brilliant Northern Light on the truth of her life and on the truth of things!!

What we may call her ARS DISPONENDI, her Art of Arranging, her Art of Setting in Order, is one of the salient features both of her beautiful writing and of her brave, patriotic life!!

So, what is the theme of this page? It is the FERTILE versus the STERILE!!

The SIMPLE Alaskan Constitution has engendered abundant fruits of peace and prosperity for Alaskans.

The SIMPLE Carlson Center has nourished many young athletes (and cf. her contrasting of the Carlson with "a sterile conventional venue").

The "simple and concise" Constitution!!

The simple shouts and joy of youngsters!!

Let us briefly posit two contrasts.

"Simple and concise": Do you hear that, Nancy Pelosi?? Do you hear that, Harry Reid??

Your abomination of a "healthcare bill," "obamacare," is anything but "simple and concise." LIARS will often attempt to hide and conceal their malevolent designs and intentions under the cloak of a useless fog and cloud and prolixity of obfuscating and deceptive words!!! (This is not to condemn ALL works of length and bulk--just look at the magisterial biography of Sir Winston Churchill, for example, by William Manchester and Paul Reid. It is long, but it uses length to a GOOD purpose, not a deceiving one!!)

The Alaskan Constitution has been FERTILE.

The obamunist "obamacare" "law" can engender only death, euthanasia in particular; can engender only misery; can engender only confusion, can engender only chaos. It is STERILE; it is DEATH-DEALING; it is DEAD--just like the minds and hearts and souls that conceived and created it.

Now let us contrast the Carlson Center, which has been the scene of so many trials and triumphs of young athletes, and which was the scene of the beautiful inauguration of Governor Sarah Palin, let us contrast the Carlson with Denver's Invesco Field on 28 August, 2008, the night of obama's 2008 DNC acceptance speech.

As Sarah has so memorably pointed out, once the roar of the crowd died away, once the Styrofoam Greek columns were hauled away, what was left???

NOTHING BUT THE EMPTY, STERILE, DEAD WORDS OF A GREAT DECEIVER, barack obama, domestic enemy of the United States of America.

Let us then, Brothers and Sisters, do all that lies within the compass of our various capacities and resources and powers, let us do all that we can to turn the minds and hearts of our fellow citizens away from the sterile and dead persons and policies of "leaders" like obama, Pelosi, Reid, and the GOP Establishment, and bring them into the bracing and noble orbit of the Lady of the North Country.

Her life, like the Constitution of the State she loves so much, has already brought forth abundant fruits of joy, hope, courage, strength, and peace for her fellow Patriots during a bleak and blight-filled era.

And just wait until she places her hand on the Holy Bible, and takes the Presidential Oath of Office!!!

It will be like America rising out of the tomb that has been prepared for her by her dire enemies.

ARISE, SARAHAMERICA; ARISE TO BATTLE; ARISE TO VICTORY!!!!!!


Read It For Yourself:

Read It For Yourself:

Other Great Sarah Books:

Other Great Sarah Books:

Palin Essentials:

Palin Essentials:

Credits:

All sidebar photos are from Wikimedia. I have tried to post all royalty-free images or to get permission, but in a few cases I could not locate the original source of a photograph or find a way to ask permission.


Contact info: bbrianus@gmail.com.

Other Great Going Rogue Reviews:

Jedediah Bila:

"Palin’s inviting first-person narration that is sometimes whimsical, often confident, and always patriotic...Going Rogue is truly one of those reads in which you put the book down after your eyes graze the final lines and you somehow feel like the writer is someone you’ve known all your life."
John Ziegler:

"I was simply blown away by Going Rogue on almost every level. For many reasons, this is by far the best book and greatest literary achievement by a political figure in my lifetime..."
Brigadier General Anthony J. Tata:
"Her book washes away all doubts that any reader might have had about her readiness to be president. She comes across as exceptionally bright, dedicated, and passionate about public service. Her moral compass is strong, pointing true North in this case. And she has a wicked sense of humor."
Don Surber:
"Conservatives know why Palin is still standing — and standing taller today than those who tried to bring her down. What does not kill you makes you stronger. Thank you, Tina Fey."

Sarah Palin is Coming to Town

Review by Stanley Fish:

When I walked into the Strand Bookstore in Manhattan last week, I headed straight for the bright young thing who wore an “Ask Me” button, and asked her to point me to the section of the store where I might find Sarah Palin’s memoir, “Going Rogue: An American Life.” She looked at me as if I had requested a copy of “Mein Kampf” signed in blood by the author....

A few days later...I had begun reading Palin’s book, and while I wouldn’t count myself a fan in the sense of being a supporter, I found it compelling and very well done....

First, the art. The book has an architectonic structure that is built around a single moment, the moment when Palin receives a call from John McCain inviting her to be the vice-presidential candidate of the Republican party. When we first hear about the call it is as much a surprise to us as it was (at least as reported) to her, because for six pages she has been recounting a wonderful family outing at the Alaska State Fair. When her phone rings, she hopes it might be a call from her son Track, a soldier soon to deploy to Iraq, but “it was Senator John McCain asking if I wanted to help him change history.”

And that’s the last we hear of it for 200 pages. In between we hear a lot about Wasilla, high school, basketball, college, marriage, children, Down syndrome, Alaska politics, the environment, a daughter’s pregnancy. The re-entry of John McCain into the narrative on page 208 introduces Palin’s account of the presidential campaign and its aftermath, especially her decision to resign the governorship before the end of her term....

Paradoxically, the effect of the neatly spaced references to the call is to de-emphasize it as a dramatic moment. It is presented not as a climax, but as an interruption of matters more central to Palin’s abiding concerns — her family, Alaska’s prosperity, energy policy. (She loves to rehearse the kind of wonkish details we associate with Hillary Clinton, whom she admires.)

Indeed, it is a feature of this narrative that events we might have expected to be foregrounded are elided or passed over. Palin introduced herself to the nation with a powerful, electrifying speech accepting McCain’s invitation to join the ticket. It gets half a sentence (“I gave my speech”)....

The only event that receives an extended discussion is her resignation. It is important to her because as an act it reflects on her integrity, and she has to be sure (as she eventually was) that she was doing it for the right reasons.

Resigning was a moral act for which she was responsible. The vice-presidential candidacy just happened to her; her account of it reads like an extended “what-I-did-on-my summer-and fall-vacation” essay.

For many politicians, family life is sandwiched in between long hours in public service. Palin wants us to know that for her it is the reverse. Political success is an accident that says nothing about you. Success as a wife, mother and citizen says everything...

I find the voice undeniably authentic...It is the voice of small-town America, with its folk wisdom, regional pride, common sense, distrust of rhetoric (itself a rhetorical trope), love of country and instinctive (not doctrinal) piety.

It says, here are some of the great things that have happened to me, but they are not what makes my life great and American. (“An American life is an extraordinary life.”) It says, don’t you agree with me that family, freedom and the beauties of nature are what sustain us?

And it also says, vote for me next time. For it is the voice of a politician, of the little girl who thought she could fly, tried it, scraped her knees, dusted herself off and “kept walking.”

In the end, perseverance, the ability to absorb defeat without falling into defeatism, is the key to Palin’s character. It’s what makes her run in both senses of the word and it is no accident that the physical act of running is throughout the book the metaphor for joy and real life. Her handlers in the McCain campaign wouldn’t let her run (a mistake, I think, even at the level of photo-op), no doubt because they feared another opportunity to go “off script,” to “go rogue.”

But run she does (and falls, but so what?), and when it is all over and she has lost the vice presidency and resigned the governorship, she goes on a long run and rehearses in her mind the eventful year she has chronicled. And as she runs, she achieves equilibrium and hope: “We’ve been through amazing days, and really, there wasn’t one thing to complain about. I feel such freedom, such hope, such thankfulness for our country, a place where nothing is hopeless.”

The message is clear. America can’t be stopped. I can’t be stopped. I’ve stumbled and fallen, but I always get up and run again. Her political opponents, especially those who dismissed Ronald Reagan before he was elected, should take note. Wherever you are, you better watch out. Sarah Palin is coming to town.

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