Monday, December 14, 2009

Palin Passes Kobayashi Maru

reprinted and edited from a post I did on Team Sarah July 7, 2009 (three days after Palin announced her resignation as Alaska governor)

The Kobayashi Maru is a test in the fictional Star Trek universe. It is a Starfleet training exercise designed to test the character of cadets in the command track at Starfleet Academy. The Kobayashi Maru test was first depicted in the opening scene of the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and also appears in the 2009 film Star Trek. This provided context for how the main character ensign (later admiral) James T. Kirk deals with the possibility of unwinnable situations in general and death in particular.

The civilian vessel Kobayashi Maru is in a simulated battle with the Klingons. The ship is disabled and the approaching cadet crew must decide whether or not to attempt rescue of the Maru crew - potentially endangering their own ship/lives - or leave the Kobayashi Maru to certain destruction. The difficult decision to assist "Maru" revolves around the issue of the disabled ship's location being in the Klingon Neutral Zone, as entering the zone would be in violation of the Organian Peace Treaty. (The test itself is to see how a starfleet captain would handle a no-win scenario.)

James T. Kirk takes the test three times while at Starfleet Academy. Prior to his third attempt, Kirk "surreptitiously reprograms the simulator so that it is possible to rescue the freighter." This fact finally comes out, later in the movie, as Kirk, Saavik and others appear marooned, near death. Saavik's response is, "Then you never faced that situation. Faced death." Kirk replies, "I don't believe in the no-win scenario." Despite having cheated, Kirk was awarded a commendation for "original thinking." - Wickipedia

Like Kirk, Palin doesn't believe in the no-win situation.

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Leigh Scott wrote :

Then, as Sarah Palin announced her resignation, it hit me. Sarah Palin is Captain Kirk. Why? Because she just passed the Kobayashi Maru.
The article is a good read and supports my point about how Sarah Palin has beaten a no-win situation where she would be hacked at by ankle biting ethics complainers until she was bankrupt and could no longer conduct the state of Alaska's business effectively.

Resigning was the most dangerous political move she could make, but it was also the shrewdist. As we watch her complete an enormously successful book tour, we see the brilliance and genius of Sarah Palin who now commands 6 figures for speeches, will make millions on the book, will be exposed to the types of donors needed to fund SarahPac and will be able to speak freely about her political opinions without the risk of being slapped with an ethics complaint because she is "neglecting the business of the state" for doing all the above from her desk in Anchorage.

It's clearer now more than ever that had she stayed on as governor of Alaska, she would have been destroyed by the media and the ankle biters.

She has followed all the principles outlined in my web page: Fight For the Right. The web page was designed originally as my suggestion as to how the conservative movement should rebuild itself. Written shortly after the 2008 election, it outlined what I believed were the key ingredients to a return to power for the Republican party and the conservative movement. It then goes on to ask:

Rank and file: Are we ready?

Congressional leaders: Are you ready?

Sarah?

Ironically, the page was not designed to tell Sarah Palin how to revive the movement or sell Sarah Palin to the movement; it was directed at everyone in the movement. But as Sarah Palin fulfilled more and more of the "requirements" on this page, references to her were added to support the original theories. I also added the Courageous Conservatism section after the Carrie Prejean incident. It was around that same time that Palin gave the "If I die, I die" speech.

It's amazing how Sarah Palin has such a "shared world view" or a "unity of thought" with this blogger. These were the same characteristics that attracted me so strongly to Ronald Reagan. Sarah Palin is quickly becoming an example that supports everything that I wrote on that page.

One of the things I wrote about (and included quotes from Andrew Breitbart to support this) was our need to infiltrate the pop culture. The years of ridiculing that George W. Bush took from pop culture, the shots at conservative values that are constantly being taken, and finally the Tina Fey caricatures led me to believe that we conservatives needed to get writers and actors to infiltrate Hollywood and use the techniques of the left for our purpose. The days when conservative Dan Aykroyd called called liberal Jane Curtain, "Jane, you ignorant slut" came to mind, but I chose to leave it out of the page.

I never dreamed that Sarah Palin herself would take to a Hollywood set and handle this part for me.

Which brings us to Captain Kirk and the Kobayashi Maru again. One can't help but to think that biographers should make a note that the video below is going to be a major player in a historical discussion of how Sarah Palin overcame the ridicule. It's also really cool that part of beating the political Kobayashi Maru included a roasting of the actor who played the character who defeated the original Kobayashi Maru.



Ronald Reagan used humor to defuse the ridicule that was directed at him, too.

Conservatives4Palin.com could not have made a more accurate assessment of the positive effect that Palin's appearance on the Tonight Show had.

Sarah Palin’s book tour has ended, and its cessation coincides with the end of the media’s vile attempt to de-legitimize her. That doesn’t mean the smears will come to a halt or the condescension will lessen, it means that this character assassination will no longer be taken seriously by serious political observers or by the portion of the American public at large who can be described as anything other than “Palin-hater.” What Gov. Palin did at the Gridiron and on Conan put an end to such foolishness.
Set a course for the shining city on a hill. Warp factor 4, Mr. Sulu.

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