HubPages: A hockey mom from Wasilla beats back the darkness

Josh Painter at Texas For Sarah Palin gets a big hat tip for picking up on an article written by "the blogger who writes using the pen name of weholdthesetruths" at HubPages. The piece is titled Why Palin Makes Liberals Nuts.

Having observed what the pop culture and the media had done to Sarah Palin during the 2008 campaign, it was apparent that the liberals were playing by a set of rules on a board that they now owned.  For decades, conservatives were a silent majority. Never ones to get their hands dirty, they silently rejected the politics of personal destruction and shied away from the pop culture which they saw as being in conflict with the values they were trying to pass down to their children. Suddenly, conservatives found themselves in a street fight, having to resort to tactics they once disdained simply for the sake of survival.

"Truths" writes:

They attacked personally, the conservatives, by making Palin the proxy, and conservatives, for the first time, didn't roll over and die. Nor did Palin. Instead, the more they throw at her, the more she generates support for herself and the ideology attacked by proxy.

Conservatives realized they could no longer bring a knife to a gunfight. Instead, they got up and spoke out. They took on the government, the media and the cocktail party circuit. Realizing that the country was still center-right and that they outnumbered liberals 2-1, they found the courage of their convictions and took on their attackers.

They also realized that they couldn't sit on the sidelines and watch the pop culture run roughshod over the values of the country. They learned from the lessons of the 1950s and 1960s that by complaining about the music and the movies that they were being the negative ones. The moral majority was stigmatized by the left as being intolerant, self righteous and judgmental. Well, the kettle calls itself black now as they have become the intolerant, self righteous and judgment ones. And in response, the conservatives became positive and engaging.

When conservatives were unwilling to play the game, the liberals won. But when it came down to do or die, conservatives rolled up their sleaves and played the ugly game only to find that they were smarter, faster and more cunning than those who had swept in from the underbelly of the infiltraton of American institutions. Now confident, conservatives take on the Left in the media, pop culture and on the cocktail circuit. Conservatives speak up now in the check out lines of supermarkets and when talking amonst their peers. The sheep are sheep no more.

And who better to lead this movement than a badass from Wasilla Alaska? Who better to show us that if you engage the opponents at their own game and beat them at it that you could take the board back and put the grown ups back in charge. If there was ever a time for conservatives to get their hands dirty underneath the hood of the American car, it's now. And because of that, the grown ups may someday emerge from the childishness of vitriol, liberal lies and an unwillingness of many to confront the fact that the Constitution is not an outdated document and conservatism is not an outmoded dogma.

What more of a lightning rod could Palin be, than to subvert media and celebrity to campaign for conservatism? You could not possibly be more "in your face" than to use the very tools and venues of progressivism to promote conservatism.

Palin's not dumb. Not ignorant. She is the child of two passionate teachers. She knows more about biology and physics and math and history and geography and the list goes on, than the vast majority. She knows her place and our place in history. And she knows where we, Americans came from. And that exceptionally bright "city upon a hill" and "beacon of liberty" to the world. That's the kind of teaching that real teachers taught. It may be "ignorance" as defined by progressives. But it's the wisdom of age, time, and history.

And just when they believed the battle to overcome history and wisdom was won, along came the most unlikely hockey mom from a dusty and un-sophisticated town, in the most primitive state, championing the most unprogressive ideas, and in doing so, taking that victory and flushing it down the toilet. Instead, the TEA Party showed up. It's the worst nightmare of the intellectual, the elite, the progressives. Thank God. I thought for a while the darkness would win. We had forgotten that even a hockey mom from Wasilla can beat back the darkness. We fear it no more.

And because of Sarah Palin, we fight. We bleed. We battle the demons in the dark. We know that the battle will be hard fought, that we will suffer the slings and arrows of vitriolic hatrid and that we will take on some of the most entrenched enemies of freedom that have ever gotten such a stronghold on the internal fabric of our institutions. But we know that we are headed toward the light and we can see that flicker from a city that shines so distant on hill. That flicker grows brighter. It grows brighter because we are coming home.

In Defense of Karl Rove

Two years of doing battle with the media, Republican insiders and the hating left has conditioned Palin supporters into becoming "trained" political fighters with fast reflexes. Their rhetorical weapons have become razor sharp and their abilities to use them have become surgically precise. The sword unsheathes swiftly. The laser fires directly at the target. The time between aiming and pulling the trigger has gotten shorter. On Hannity Thursday night, Karl Rove pointed out how he was attacked by Palin supporters after his “gravitas” comment. He responded by pointing out that “I am a commentator.” In response to his “war wound,” Rove suggested that Palin supporters not be so thin skinned, and that there will be many hits to come if Palin wants to be president. There is an important lesson to be learned from this for all involved.

The political battlefield is littered with television, radio and print journalists who have been hit, and hit hard, by the Palin army. Yes, what Karl Rove has said since demeaning Christine O’Donnell until now has been offensive to Palin supporters. And yes, the response has been swift, hard and on target. This blogger among many has held no punches and didn’t flinch in the face of past loyalties as a Bush supporting Republican to stand between Sarah Palin and an oncoming truck, even if that truck was being driven by Karl Rove. Rove was trying to be an analyst and the Palin army was simply doing what they reflexively always do: jump to the defense of their beloved Sarah by shooting first and taking names later.

In defense of Karl Rove, it's understandable that he would want to be a fair analyst and provide his insight and opinion if indeed he is trying to be constructive. If his motive is genuine, let’s hear him out. His statement that he was not taking a punch at Sarah Palin tells us that he felt the arrows and the steel of the Palinista sword.

Does Rove have a Republican insider uniform underneath the suit? Could he be worried that one of his more favorite candidates might not get the nomination because of her? Sure. But we should leave it up to him to show us whether we’re right or wrong about that. If he really wants to be a fair balanced commentator and not allow an agenda other than a conservative Republican victory be his guide, I say let him report and we decide.

Now, don't wander off here, readers. There are some good things to be said about this from a Palin perspective as well. Rove advised us not to be thin skinned. There is an explanation of why he may misread Palin's supporters here.

The last time we let nature take its course, a Katie Couric interview, a Charlie Gibson sit down and a Tina Fey impression nearly killed Sarah Palin before anyone on the Palin side even had a chance to put up a post about it. We hear the criticisms of Palin supporters. Palin supporters are intolerant of any criticism whatsoever of their exalted high leader. Palin supporters ignore Palin’s flaws. They worship her. Palin can do no wrong. I hear it. I get it. I understand it.

So now let me explain it.

We have been in the political desert since Ronald Reagan left the stage in 1992. We have been thirsting dreadfully for his message, his vision and his dream. It was the darkest moment in the history of modern conservatism when moderate John McCain wrapped up the nomination and was doing rallies in front of sparse and yawning crowds. Speaking loudly enough to be heard above the crickets, Senator McCain spoke about straight talk and being honest with the American people. At the same time, we were being honest with ourselves. We knew it was coming. We knew we were about to get our butts kicked by the Democrats and that socialists would not only take over the country, but destroy the conservative movement in the process.

Then she came.

The Left knew it. They knew she was a game changer. They also knew they could not beat her in a debate on the issues. Knowing this, they chose the politics of personal destruction as their tactic. They told us she was dumb, shallow and not intellectually curious. But that was only because they wanted us to believe that over the truth. They unleashed one of the most vicious smear campaigns ever in the history of American politics and it worked. It’s still working now every time you hear someone say they like Palin but don’t think she can win. To beat the media smear campaign, we need to beat that kind of subliminally planted response.

The response to overkill is overkill. With Palin's documentary, her appearances on Fox News, her Facebook notes and the proliferation of pro-Palin websites and blogs, the answer to tons of negative sand is tons of positive sand. Push Palin's good stuff into a pipeline stuffed with the Left's bad stuff and we can displace it.

We can’t forget what Sarah did to enamor the base when she first hit the political stage. But, the Left wants us to forget. They want that magic to be watered down by focusing on a couple of mistakes along the trail. This is their way of diminishing people's abilities to make an informed decision about who they want to be president by planting the seed of doubt in their minds. Remember, we were all thirsty political desert wanderers on the brink of dehydration and she gave us water – lots of water which we still drink today. Regardless of what any Journolister, nightly news anchor or Washington Post writer tells you, that water is still good to drink.

Those who support Palin are not in a fan club nor are they in a cult. They are in this for the future of our country. Some may say they blindly follow her, but that’s not true. If there was someone truly better than her out there, they’d be behind them. There are Romney supporters, Hillary Clinton supporters, Giuliani supporters and people who voted for other candidates in the 2008 primaries who will not be voting for those candidates in 2012 for the simple reason that there was no Sarah in 2008. For the record, this writer was a Romney supporter then (although I would have taken Fred Thompson more seriously if he was more viable).

It’s not that Palinistas are blind to the fact that Sarah Palin screwed up a couple of Katie Couric’s questions. It’s not that they are blind to the fact that she was a little shaky on the Bush Doctrine. And, it’s not that they're not humorless. They understand comic license. They have senses of humor. If Tina Fey wants to turn Palin’s comment about seeing Russia into a satirical mock, that’s fine. The problem is not Tina Fey's delivery or with the interview questions themselves, but rather in how the media treated these in relation to the wider picture of a campaign where there was so much more substantial stuff that could have been scrutinized under the same microscope on the Obama side which wasn't.

As for Fey, the answer is to infiltrate the pop culture a la Bristol style. As for the rest of the media, let the light shine and the facts will come out.

There were some fabulous, high shelf, answers to the other questions that Couric and Gibson asked Sarah Palin. There were moments of brilliance at the Convention and then during the debate with Joe Biden. Sarah Palin was drawing crowds in excess of 60,000. And she was just the vice presidential candidate. Yet, the media consistently pounded the negatives. They massaged Obama, ignoring his negatives and playing up his positives so ridiculously that Bernard Goldberg called it a “slobbering love affair.” At the same time, Sarah Palin could have been curing cancer. But if there was no Fox News Channel, no one would ever hear about it unless one of the test patients died of course (at which point the headlines would read “Palin Kills Patient.”)

Any reasonable person can review the historical events of the 2008 presidential campaign and realize how miserably the media failed to portray what was happening accurately. A couple of missed answers during an interview simply cannot outweigh lofty hidden left wing agendas, ACORN voter fraud and socialist associations (and don’t forget the numerous gaffes and misstatements of Palin’s counterpart which didn't get a fraction of the coverage or mocking that Palin's lesser miscues did).

There was no one there to defend the movement or Palin until people figured out later what the complicit media was trying to do. The McCain campaign tried to take the high road and have thick skin. But that got them killed. Standing up and pointing out that there is something wrong with the way the media is doing its job is not whiny if the future of our republic is being jeopardized by liars, partisans and those who don't have the interests of the country's Founders at heart.

The attacks, lash backs and sharp tongued responses to the media from the Palin camp were manifested out of survival instincts that kicked in not only because of the media malpractice during the 2008 campaign, but continued well after the 2008 election was over as the vicious unwarranted attacks on Sarah Palin continued. It's understandable that this may appear as being thin-skinned to Rove who may not have been clinging to his computer by his fingertips the way Palin supporters were during the pounding that she took between November 2008 and July 2009. In fairness to Rove, Palin supporters are in a much better and stronger position now to pick and choose their battles. So in that respect, they should navigate it better and not give Rove as much to say on the subject.

Palin supporters have to walk the fence of being happy and above the media fray while at the same time remaining swift and harsh in rebuking it when no one else will. Karl Rove has said that it's how candidates respond to the media that will be more important in 2012 than what the media says. He himself admits that he wished he would have fought the smear campaign against George W. Bush harder. If there is a role for Karl Rove to play here, it should be to help us regain that balance if we sway too much toward the whiny side of the fence yet to support the truth when the truth is being molested by the media.

Karl Rove can help conservatives and Palin supporters improve by fairly critiquing them provided he's not doing it based on an agenda. He is in a unique position to give us an insight into what the Establishment is saying so that the Palin machine can adjust for that. (Let me cut the liberals off here and explain that I’m not saying we’re not good enough and that we need improvement or that we need Karl Rove to tell us what to do. I’m saying that no matter how good you are there is always room for improvement.) Rove is going to bring us commentary that we like (like when he says Palin will be a formidable candidate and he lists the good candidates in alphabetical order so as to be unbiased and not diminish her). He is also going to say things we don’t like. When that happens, let’s hold him accountable and see if his motive is genuine (and he gives us something we can learn from) or if he is just being a mouthpiece for the Establishment.

This by absolutely no means should be read to be a course changing suggestion for Palinistas. Now, more than ever, Palin supporters must be ready to do battle with and take on the Establishment, the media and the Left at every turn. As this post is being written, another hit piece by an Establishment type is being speared by the swift and surgically precise Palin army. The Palin strategy will work best if it is flexible yet sticks to principle.

Think about how effective Palinistas are in their ability to get Rove's attention. What if this and the ability to turn a victorious Lisa Murkowski into one of the biggest whiners of all time puts the Establishment on its toes? What if the Establishment realizes that Sarah Palin is too big to get rid of and that they have no choice but to work with her? What if they find out they can’t beat her? As a commentator, Karl Rove will have to explain that to us (and to the Establishment who will also be listening to him) when the time is right. If that happens and he doesn’t embrace it, then we will know whether we are being thin skinned or genuinely upset about what he might be saying about Palin.

Let’s help the Establishment types figure out what they figured out when they knew they couldn’t beat Ronald Reagan. We can show them that the thrill of victory far outweighs the desire and lust for power on their own terms. As much of an anti-establishment candidate Reagan was, the Establishment flourished under him. It was the prosperity and electoral victories that made them happy - even if in a self-interested way. A rising tide lifts all boats, including those obtained through the good ole boy network.

This is not to make a case for crony capitalism and insider establishmentarianism. Business as usual must come to an end permanently. Our government must be run by the principles of the Constitution, not by a tyranny of statism or through the rigging of back room deals. Those who play by the insider rules of elitist power consolidation need to find our game of principled politics more attractive and more worthy a cause than theirs. It should be enough to make them want to join us. Otherwise, they must go. There can be no other way.

When it comes down to crunch time, the GOP’s very existence will depend on whether or not the Tea Party can smoothly merge with and eventually become the majority shareholder in the Republican Party. It is cringe-worthy every time we hear the words “GOP co-opting the Tea Party.” That’s like saying the company should co-opt the shareholders. No, it should always be the other way around. We can work with the Establishment only when it chooses to stop tearing down our candidates not because we demand it be done on our terms, but because we demand it be done on the most effective terms.

Eventually, the Establishment will have to learn that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. With every election they lose by supporting moderates and moving to the center, with every commentator and journalist that gets rhetorically bloodied by the Palin
army after they shoot off about how she’s not qualified or can’t win, with every moment a commentator like Rove goes on Fox News in the aftermath of a Palin army barrage, the Establishment will eventually come to the moment in time when understanding that a President Palin is the best thing this country has on the table right now. If they realize that in time, we will win.

Considering that the same type of dialogue was going on before Reagan was elected under very similar circumstances, the Establishment should come to see that history proves they are as wrong about Palin as they were about Reagan just as history proved the country wrong about electing Carter and Obama. 90% of the things the Establishment worries about won’t happen; and the other 10% they can’t do anything about anyway. The message to the Establishment is this: fear not a Palin presidency for it will be way better than you think.

Palinistas, too, have lessons to be learned from this. The true enemy is the Left. The liberal Left is a despicable movement of negative people whose utopian visions of social justice and collectivism are backed up with intellectually bankrupt arguments and morally vapid core values. They do not want to simply defeat us, they want to destroy us.

The most important line in Barack Obama’s inauguration speech is “On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.” That was the moment when they had the boot on our neck and the sword held cocked above our heart. At the time this message was delivered, Sarah Palin was back in Alaska being slammed with frivolous ethics violations. Conservatism and its future leader were on the brink of being destroyed.

It was just as conservatives were about to be skewered that they broke free of the submission hold and marched on Washington with their signs and Gadsden flags. Palin supporters were holding the fort for her wing of the movement until she could also free herself from the shackles.

The Left’s mission was to go back to Alaska and destroy Sarah Palin immediately following the election. The conservative movement was about to be obliterated. If the Tea Party didn’t arise and if Sarah Palin had succumbed to the attacks, we’d all be living under socialism now. That’s how close we came. Imagine if Sarah Palin was never chosen by McCain. The thought is frightening.

One lesson that we can take from Rove is that Palin conservatives need to develop a different reflex for those whom we fight on our side than that which we use to fight the Left. It is going to be very important that we nurture the “trembling tigers.” There are many in our movement (the conservative movement, the Tea Party movement) who are as dead set on the Constitutional commonsense principles that Palin supporters are. But some have been damaged by the media’s subliminal message that Palin is not electable. They are looking for a candidate to beat Obama and they don’t see one because they are looking right past her. Palinistas need to effectively communicate Palin’s qualifications to the rest of the movement without alienating them. They also need to make sure that the Establishment doesn’t further poison them.

So, yes, we need to stay on the Establishment and fight it when it rears its head. The quicker we stabilize the units behind the lines, the stronger the force will be in doing battle with the Left. Don’t open fire on the people who like Palin but don’t see her winning. Keep your powder dry because these are the people Palin
will ultimately need to help take back the Shining City on a Hill. These people can eventually be convinced that if you just say screw it, take a leap of faith and get behind someone, it might be better to push a bandwagon that already has an army the size of Palin’s than to set up another bandwagon right next to it.

Why is it that many who aren’t sure about her yet don’t already have another horse? Leadership is the ability to make a decision, act on that decision and stick to that decision no matter what. Those folks haven’t arrived at that point in the thinking process yet. They think the water is cold. But as soon as they hold their noses and jump in, they will find it refreshing and exciting. Being a Palin supporter is a wild ride. If they can stomach it, the reward will truly be Reaganesque.

To start, they’re going to get hit with the resignation thing. They’re going to get hit with the Katie Couric thing. They’re going to get hit with lies, smears, innuendos and more regurgitation of misrepresentations about Palin’s past. We need to be prepared to articulate an answer for them as quickly as we articulate an answer for the Left when they attack, only without the daggers. Don’t be quick to anger. We are in a unique position where our ability to articulate the real truth about the conservative movement includes the ability to explain why there should be no concerns about Sarah Palin becoming its leader.

Sarah Palin’s resignation is not a liability if we don’t allow it to be. In retrospect, it is in fact the most profound moment in our movement. Sarah Palin’s ability to become the leader that she is was directly bolstered when she parachuted out of the vehicle of her governorship just before it was about to
go down in flames. And while some may criticize her for “quitting,” intelligent people know it’s smarter to eject from the plane when it is going down so that they can live to fight again than to stay onboard and die in the crash because of fear people will criticize you for bailing out. Only an idiot would have stayed on as Alaska governor under those circumstances.

Sarah Palin’s resignation is not a weakness. It is strength. Just as James T. Kirk became a starship captain in the fictional series Star Trek by beating the no win scenario, the Kobayashi Maru, Palin proved that she has the decision making abilities to make the hard choices during difficult times even if it means risking her political career to do it. This does not disqualify her for president; instead it greatly enhances her qualifications.

If Sarah Palin had remained governor, she would be well over $500,000 in debt, under intense scrutiny for hawking a book while in office, criticized for moonlighting on the national stage and baggy eyed from trying to bone up on national and foreign policy as she prepared herself to become president under the covers with a flashlight and a stack of books. That Sarah Palin would not be qualified to be president.

So remember the words of Ronald Reagan whose dream for us was "that you will travel the road ahead with liberty's lamp guiding your steps and opportunity's arm steadying your way." It is time to take those blue and pale pastel marbles out of your heads and replace them with red ones. And realize that when liberty’s lamp shines in the hands of the right leader, we must follow.

Helium Writer Sheds Light On Palin's 2012 Chances

In a superb piece on Helium.com, Nancy Seddons precisely lands every truth about the left's fear of Sarah Palin and the real reason why she resigned the governorship. David Letterman, Chris Matthews and Anderson Cooper for some reason are hell bent on carrying on a dead meme with their swipes at Palin that pierce their roles as comedian, political commentary show host and journalist respectively. She quite clearly explains how the Left's attacks on her are more indicative of the fear they have for her than any real sense that she can't win the presidency; and she explains the resignation with pinpoint accuracy that it should be in every pro-Palin political ad on the subject should she run.
Now the next time someone brings up her resignation, remember what Seddons wrote:

She definitely knows how to duck and weave as demonstrated by her resignation of the governorship of Alaska. As Governor she was a sitting duck for frivolous lawsuits and ethics violations and in spite of every one of them being thrown out of court, she and her husband as well as the state of Alaska incurred huge expenditures.

The state had to investigate every ethics charge and the Governor and her husband were required to pay their own attorney fees. Rather than continue in office while, not having the time to do the job justice, going deeper into debt (about 500,000 in lawyer fees when she left) and seeing her state’s coffers drained, she stepped down and turned the reins over to the Lieutenant Governor. The sitting duck declined to sit still any longer.

She didn't retreat, she reloaded.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Humor (a take-off of the Sam Kinnison scene in Back to School)

SAY IT! SAY IT!

Okay class, let's go over what happened with Palin losing the election in 2008 and resigning her governorship Sam Kinnison style.

Now, can someone tell me why Sarah Palin left the Governorship in Alaska?

(left wing blogger raises her hand and answers the question)

"The failure of Palin to win popular support after returning from a losing vice presidential campaign caused an ongoing erosion of confidence in her ability to govern and the various lower 48...but illegal... trips."

Is she right? 'Cause I know that's the popular version of what went on there. I know a lot of people like to believe that. I wish Sarah could, but she was there. She wasn't in her pajamas blogging in the basement hoping she was right, thinking about it. She was up to her knees in frivolous ethics complaints and unnecessary legal bills with a media that didn't do its job going up against liberals, sllugging it out with them while wussies like you were back here partyin', watchin' Saturday Night Live doin' drugs, listening to the g*&damn idiots on MSNBC!

(Rodney Dangerfield steps in)
"Hey, Professor, take it easy, will ya? These kids were only getting their information from the media at the time. And me... I'm not a journalist, I'm a regular guy."

Well, I didn't know you wanted to get involved with the discussion, Mr. Helper. But since you want to help,
maybe you can help me, OK?

You remember that thing we had two years ago called the election?

Yeah. Where we failed to achieve victory. How come we didn't point out Obama's radical associations and
and push those media misfits to the Great Wall of China and take the media and the Obama campaign apart brick by brick and smear them back into the f*&kin' stone age forever?

How come? Tell me?

Why? SAY IT! SAAAAAAY IT!
"All right, I'll say it.
'Cause Steve Schmidt was too much was too much of of a wussy wimp to to let Palin be herself and go in and blow out those media bastards!"

Good answer. Good answer.

The next time someone asks you  to explain Palin's role in the 2008 election or her resignation from the governship, just remember Sam Kinnison and Rodney Dangerfield's scene in Back to School.

Thank You Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin via Twitter:

"Thank You, America/Thank You, Candidates" message! Shake it up!"@Newsmax_Media: Sarah Palin Releases Post-Election Ad http://bit.ly/cvEDYd"

No one in politics has worked harder than Sarah Palin. Since her arrival on the American scene in August 2008, she has pounded the pavement, the keyboard and television studio desks in Wasilla and on Fox News. She has given speeches, stumped for candidates, headlined fundraisers and mixed it up with the Left. Despite their arrows, she goes straight on, fearless to their vicious attacks, smears and lies. Sarah Palin is a warrior.

She has given so much to the cause. In fact, she revived the cause for this blogger. On August 28, 2008, I told friends that we were at the end of America as we knew it. Standing on the precipice of an Obama presidency, I never felt worse about the political future of the country.

On August 29, 2008, it was becoming more and more apparent that Sarah Palin was the VP pick. I researched her. I watched the Fox News Alert pop up on the screen. I prepared to listen to McCain announce her on my lunch break.

My opinion? This is too good to be true.

Rush Limbaugh covered the introduction. His excitement and enthusiasm matched mine as I listened on my car radio. I said to myself "no way."

A few days later I watched "the speech" at the Republican National Convention. I saw something that I have only seen on the video tapes of Ronald Reagan's 1976 and 1980 convention speeches (I'd been watching them and others since he passed in June 2004). It was the faces and the eyes of the people at the 2008 RNC. They looked just like the people in the Reagan crowds.

I experienced the despair of watching Bill Clinton win the election in 1992. But nothing - no despair, no hopelessness for my country - was ever as deep as it was the day before John McCain, foot soldier to the last great one, introduced us to our next great one.

Two and a half years ago, I thought I was watching my country falling off the edge and heading down that road to a thousand years of darkness that Reagan had warned us of. Then she came along. Since then, I have never been more optimistic about my country's future. I have never felt as confident about our ability to return to that "Shining City on a Hill" as I do now.

With her on the ticket, I had hope again. I got active. I went to the campaign office and made phone calls on lunch. I sent emails to everyone I knew (this was the pre blog days for me). I told everyone that she was the next great one. Some agreed. Some laughed. But I knew. No media smear campaign, no peer pressure, no ignorant partisan could get me to think otherwise.

What she has done over the last two years to overcome the 2008 loss, to pull the plug on the frivolous ethics violations campaign against her as governor, to take control of her message and to get beyond the nonsense of the caricature the media tried to portray her as, is simply amazing. What she has done for the cause is monumental.

So as I read her tweet again and as she thanks America, I say:

"No. Thank you."

The Light of Liberty Burns Brighter

As we approach the November 2 elections, we can feel the optimism and the hope that we may finally put the breaks on the onslaught of Obama socialism. There are some great conservative candidates running for office across the country. Many of these candidates are fueld by the grass roots which has been energized by the Tea Party movement. When Sarah Palin was nearly beaten into submission by the liberal media, left wing bloggers and ankle biters in her own state who filed frivolous ethics complaints, the flame of liberty seemed to just flicker dimly as a speck in a dark corner. But today, it burns bright, like the fireball that Sarah Palin has become since those despairing days following the 2008 election.

Sarah Palin has ridden triumphantly into Anaheim and Reno over the past few days. In Anaheim, she gave a fiery speech that raised the roof off the raucos room at the RNC Victory 2010 rally. In Reno, she enthusiastically and optimistically told the Tea Party Express rally that we could not only see 2010 from our houses, but that we could see 2012. It was her first reference beyond this November's elections.

Palin has demonstrated her qualifications as a Republican leader as well as a Tea Party leader because she easily speaks the language which should be the language of the GOP and which is the language of the Tea Party: common sense Constitutional conservatism and limited government. The Republican Party of Palin is the Republican Party of Reagan. Anything else is a different party.

Reaganites can rest more easily now knowing that Ronald Reagan's dream that we "will travel the road ahead with liberty's lamp guiding your steps and opportunity's arm steadying your way" lives on in the servant's heart of one Sarah Heath Palin.

Vetting Sarah Palin—The Assignment of a Lifetime

I'm not going to write this one. It's already been written by Christopher Massie of the Canada Free Press. It truly is a Liberty's Lamp worthy piece.

This city on the hill has grown dim. Sarah Louise Palin is the lantern to light that torch for the world to once again turn towards.

Wow.

Read the whole article. 

h/t Texas4Palin

Dana Perino: 'Barack, we need to talk'

Dana Perino writes an excellent piece on FoxNews.com likening the relationship between America and Barack Obama to a romantic relationship between a girlfriend and boyfriend. I couldn't help but think of some great corollaries that could come from her analogy. If ideological love truly exists, then America found true love when Ronald Reagan was president. After his passing, we were widowed. The political "dating scene" has been pretty funky ever since.

When the chivalrous George H.W. Bush fought that big bad Saddam for us, we thought we were in love again until he took the paycheck money that he promised he would never touch and bought a whole bunch of stuff with it that we didn't need. I knew it was not a relationship based on trust. Anyone who says "read my lips" and then does it anyway ultimately gets dumped.

Unfortunately, America sacraficed its moral values when it jumped into bed with Bill. He might have been a good provider, but the lying was just too much. With Ronald it was love. With Bill it was lust.

Then there was George. He wasn't the smoothest talker in the world but he kept us safe after the house got broken into and a  lot of stuff got damaged. He didn't pay attention to the money because he was so obsessed with fighting bad guys that he would often come home with cuts and bruises. We ended up fighting like cats and dogs. It hit the fan when we found out that that he let Barney and Chris handle the bills and they had screwed us up financially.

I think it's maybe partially our fault because we really never appreciated what he was trying to do for us. We could have said something to him earlier about the finances, but we went along with it. And with the relationship we are currently in now, we'd probably take George back in a heartbeat if we could.

Barack was a smooth talker who swept us off our feet. But he turned out to be a lot more like a really bad boyfriend named Jimmy. We dumped Jimmy when we met our true love. Ronald was our greatest love. Barack may even  be worse than Jimmy. I fear that we may have just made a mess of this whole thing.

I know how we ended up with Barack. He came along at a time when we were vulnerable after Ronald died. We really weren't happy with the people we were dating. Ron was kind of wierd and Mitt was too metrosexually conservative that we just couldn't tell if he was real or not. Fred was great in ideological bed, but he was never around as much as we would have liked. Mike was a nice guy, but he was too nice, ya know? We thought we might end up settling for John, but he wasn't as ideologically good looking as we wanted.

I remember before Barack and we became an item. Hillary was constantly hitting on us and Barack did everything to stop her from getting us. John was okay, but we fooled ourselves into thinking we were in love with Barack. I think it was more that we were in love with the idea of being in love than anything else. Barack never loved us. He thought we were arrogant and mean. But he was a great b.s. artist and like I said a real smooth talker.

What makes matters worse is that while we were falling for Barack, we harbored a deep secret that we still to this day can't fully admit. When we were on a date with John, he introduced us to his friend Sarah and we have just not been able to keep our eyes off of her ever since. All of Barack's friends hate her and they talk crap about her all the time hoping we'll believe it and never leave Barack for her. Shannyn, Jeanne and Keith think we should stay with Barack. They're like soap opera characters the way they try to undermine Sarah. They are forever spreading rumors about her or writing nasty stuff about her on the bathroom wall hoping they can make us think she's a political "ho" so we don't pursue her.

Part of us believes them and we think we might hate her. But we really don't know why. Yet, part of us gets ideologically turned on everytime we're around her. It's so conflicting. Everything they say about her is a lie, yet we tell people she'd never make a great "ideological spouse." It's like we are just denying our feelings for her. We are obsessed with her. We can't get over the fact that she is as ideologically hot as Ronald was, but we have this cognitive dissonance going on in our heads. We so want to jump in ideological bed with her, but we're really afraid of the commitment.

I don't know how much longer we can resist her. She hits on us all the time. She practically made out with us at the rally. We know we want it. But we're too afraid our friends will be mad at us if we do. Damn them!

Barack's friends were so mad about that rally. They said some pretty mean things about Sarah, her friend Glenn and the people at the rally. Glenn won't admit it, but I think he's secretly trying to set us up with her.

I think our reluctance has something to do with being afraid that she might leave us. They say she "quit" her relationship with Alaska. They say she just walked right out on them one day. But they never told us that the real reason why she walked out on Alaska was because it was an abusive relationship. When she came home from hanging out with John and us, they were so jealous. They beat her and accused her of cheating on them with us.

She still loves Alaska, though, despite the abuse. She never has a bad word to say about them. In fact, she talks about them all the time. But it is becoming more and more apparent that she is really in love with us. I think she loves us more than we even know. Could we possibly love her back as much?

We can't deny ourselves any longer. We need to sit down with Barack and let him know it's not working out. "It's not, you, Barack. It's us. We're just too conservative for you. No hard feelings, okay? You're a good dad, but you're just too bossy and you never let us do the things we need to do to make the house run right."

 He's always out spending money with his union and bank buddies while the house is falling apart. He won't fix the refrigerator or mow the yard, but he can go on vacation. Now we're broke because of him.

We need to just get over our fears and give into these deep desires that we have and get involved with Sarah. Why deny ourselves any longer the torrid ideological love affair we as a country have longed for since the passing of our beloved Ronald.

At What Point Does Someone Become Unreasonably Humble?

At what point does someone become unreasonably humble?

Take this conversation Sarah Palin had with Sean Hannity:

HANNITY: You know, Governor, as I have watched -- I know you were out in Washington this weekend and you've been traveling around the country with varying candidates and you've been on the stump.

Wherever you go, it seems that no matter what you say, what you do, you seem to draw the most attention of any political figure out there today.

Why do you think that is at this point? What do you think -- what do you think the difference is? Because I know a lot of candidates would probably like to have your popularity, but they don't.

PALIN: You know, I'm -- I feel very, very blessed that a platform that perhaps I have been given at this point can be used for good to help get this country back on the right track. And it's quite humbling but no, there are so many people out there, Sean, you being one of them, with that megaphone, that voice that people are craving to hear.

And what people want to hear are time-tested truths and how they can be applied to the challenges facing America today. And just that acknowledgment that there is nothing wrong with America today that Americans can't fix.

You have that same platform, Sean. And there are a lot of candidates out there with the same and let's be thankful for that.

So, Sarah, you are our modern day great one. You tell us exactly what you think. You call on us to be patient and keep our powder dry. You sit atop a powder keg of a movement, an army if you will that will obey your every command and trust you even during moments when we don't understand. Yet you are humble.

I see the trends online. The polls have not caught up yet. But the writers, the bloggers and the tweeters are seeing it more and more. Whether Sarah Palin knows it or not, she holds our nation's future in her hands because her power comes from us - not an establishment, not a political machine and not an economic group. She controls something more powerful that that: the truth and an army of supporters who know that she owns the truth because it is the same truth we understand.

We know what the light looks like. Sarah sees that same light. And she leads us toward it.

UPDATE: More ridiculous humility. Go to the 11:50 mark.

The Risks and Rewards of Sarah Palin

There was a time when Sarah Palin was like a moose out in the open. The local ankle biting bloggers and frivolous ethics violation filers, the local and national media and her political opponents on the Left were the hunters who riddled her with shots taken with ease during the post election Obama euphoria. Smartly, Palin retreated into the darkness of the woods and, hiding behind the rock of a self imposed exile, began the process of reloading. She emerged not as the hunted, but as the hunter who was about to go on the attack. In shining her light on the sludge and corruption that infects our political system, she would be startling beasts that would instinctively attack and she took on that danger willingly and aggressively.

Media on both sides, the pro-Palin and the anti-Palin, have been engaged in a vicious battle for the hearts and minds of Americans who are too busy working and raising families to be engaged enough to understand what's going on except for what they hear or read in a blurb here and there in the mainstream media - which normally does not show Sarah in a positive light. But even for those of us who are engaged, we can sometimes miss key elements that should be communicated to the public to make them more aware of just how incredible this leader from Alaska really is.

It began to strike me the other day when I wrote about what happened when Sarah Palin was videotaped by a creepy stalker that this woman is taking incredible risks for America. The heart dropping thought of "losing her" crossed my mind again like it did after Mark Sanford went missing and when she resigned. I put these thoughts out of my mind as quickly as possible because I don't want to manifest them. But, it's a demon I battle regularly as I hope and pray that my country will be saved from the disaster that is now destroying it.

It only takes one Sirhan Sirhan to literally destroy a country's dream. And it only takes one Dean Scream to figuratively destroy it. As I watch Sarah Palin walk the tightrope of American politics, the stalker who shot only with a camera on this occasion reminds us that Sarah Palin is not a moose in the open anymore, but a politically armed hunter who is becoming a target now not because the Left is on offense, but because they are on defense. And, like a cornered animal, they are most dangerous now because they are in self defense mode. The existential threat to the ideology of liberalism (I must always credit Monica Crowly on this talking point) that Palin poses is "life threatening" to them and they will "kill" to protect themselves.

Taking shots at Sarah Palin is no longer a sport to be handled by the likes of Tina Fey or Kathy Griffin. It's life and death for the Left.

The physical threats to Sarah Palin will have to be addressed and security will have to be increased. She is a modern day Bobby Kennedy, albeit from the other side of the spectrum. History dictates that she be protected.

The political threats to Sarah Palin must be addressed differently because they occur in the arena of ideas and competition where winning and losing is not physically life threatening per se, but simply part of the fair game. All is fair in love, war and politics. In a New York minute a misspelled potato, a poorly timed photo on an aptly named boat, a ride on the wrong tank at the wrong time, an improperly timed scream recorded directly through the recording board without the context of crowd noise or the wrong political endorsement in one's home state could spell doom to the aspirations of the courageous ones who seek the golden ring of the presidency. The rhetorical Sirhan Sirhans of this world are the wolves at the door waiting for that one unguarded moment. Though the rhetorical gunshot will not snuff out the physical life, it could mean the end of a political life as we know it.

As our country heads into bankrupcy, economic collapse, military decline and social decay, we need someone to get us out of the mess. And just as Sarah Palin took a risk with her life when going through the airport , she took a major risk with her political life when she endorsed Joe Miller. She walked unsecured through the political airport of endorsements and credibility. She has stared political death in the face many times and she has yet to flinch. She is, as she has said, willing to "politically die" trying to save this nation. She is incredibly and amazingly unafraid. She knew endorsing Joe Miller could have killed her and she never told us.

Had Joe Miller not won or sent the Alaska GOP Senate primary into overtime, Sarah Palin would have opened herself up to legitimate criticism that she was no longer powerful in her home state of Alaska. This would have been one instance where the left would not have to rely on the lies and nonsense that populate their otherwise empty bag of legitimate criticism for the former governor.

Columns, blog posts and television pundit talking points were already written in advance of "Murkowski's landslide." The left would be able to celebrate the election of a liberal (albeit a Republican) and simultaneously give creedance to the notion that Palin could not win a national election if she was so weak as to not even garner respect or consideration from residents in her own state.

Let me explain the kind of risk Sarah Palin took in endorsing Joe Miller more bluntly: Mitt Romney could have won the 2012 nomination Tuesday night.

With this risk, Sarah Palin demonstrated not only an incredilbly high level of faith in God, but in the people themselves, not just the people in Alaska. John Dickerson of Slate explains:

Palin now has more support for a favorite story line of hers: The pundits and so-called experts said things were going to go one way but she had faith; she knew the real deal. This is part of her larger pitch: that she understands something fundamental about conservative voters. That, in turn, is what voters believe about her, which makes them think she has a special light to guide the country out of the muck.

To that, all I can say is "yup."

Sarah Palin beams the light of liberty's lamp as she joyfully walks through the minefields of detractors looking to film a "gotcha moment" and politicos who lambast her on the op ed pages of their local newspapers when she endorses "dogs" like Bondi and Ayette who supposedly should have no chance of winning. She draws forth the anger of a Bob Ehrlich when she endorses Brian Murphy just as easily as she draws forth the anger of a Lisa Murkowski when she endorses Joe Miller. Palin shines a spotlight on the sewer rats, even when they are in her own party. When they show their teeth she takes them out with their own negativity and a helpful nudge from her Facebook page.

This leader, who sometimes can appear to be leading us into a dark woods with no guarantee that we will make it to the other side, tells us confidently that our nation will be great again. She tells us to hold our powder when she knows we're within inches of reacting for our leader in a way our leader doesn't want us to react. We adore our leader, but do not blindly follow her like Obama's people did. We know her. She is us.

Like a mother who tends to her cubs, she leaves the cave to navigate the arrows and bullets of the hunters and becomes the hunter herself as she destroys those who threaten her cave and at the same time gathers the political food we need while boning up on the issues that she will have to handle with fingertip precision come campaign time. When she returns to the cave, her detractors think she merely took a Mary Poppins walk and her cubs don't even realize that she nearly got herself "killed" preparing them for the political adulthood of power where we will all be thrusted into in 2012.

The existential thrill of being as close to glory as to death is something she hides from us. She tells us constantly not to worry. Even when she resigned, she said not to worry, "it's a good thing." Even when the left is slamming her, she watches as her army fights desperately to protect her and laughs as she hits the send button on her computer that will put a Facebook note online that will slaughter her enemies like the Excalibur sword.

When a business associate laughed at me because I told him that Sarah Palin was smarter than I am, he meant it more as a compliment to me than a slight of her. But it told me right then that this guy doesn't know what I know, and maybe - just maybe - my greater intelligence is the result of knowing who the real Sarah Palin is and that the strength of what he sees in me as a businessman is rooted in my ability to study successful people like her and learn from them.

And because Sarah Palin does the things she does, she continues to evoke the loyalty, faith and love of her followers. We have no more room in our hearts for how we feel about our great leader, yet she makes us love her more. We have no more patience for those who want to destroy her, yet she makes us wait for her to handle it. We are sick as dogs about what's happening to our country, yet she makes us see a shining city on a hill - a vision of something that we can embrace during a period where unendurable madness would prevail if she was never here.


ASIA - Sole Survivor
Lyrics

Liberty's Lamp Quote of the Day 08/16/10

From Martha Cano at Palin Promotions:

Again, I ask…Is the torch still burning? It may still be burning on Liberty Island, but is it still burning inside of us Americans? Do we still have that desire for “enlightenment”…that enlightenment that will light the way to freedom showing us the path to liberty? It seems that everyday we lose more of those precious freedoms and liberties. Do we still care to “stand tall and strong” for this County? A Country for which many have given their lives? I believe the answer is yes and “you betcha”. So to all my freedom loving friends….Let’s Keep The Torch Burning!

Patrick's World USA

When I was married and would talk politics with my wife, she would joke with me saying "it may be that way in Patrick's World, but..." So from that, I came up with the idea for my website and my Blogtalk Radio show Patrick's World USA.

My world is Ronald Reagan's world. My America is the same America that our founders envisioned and that many hard working, freedom loving people once experienced and enjoyed during the time when the great Ronald Reagan led us from the darkness and despair of the Jimmy Carter years and took us home to that shining city on a hill - a beautiful, prosperous and majestic place that brings tears of joy to the eyes and warmth to the heart.

Patrick's World is not a fantasy land, but a real place that once existed between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans when I was a young man in college and then entering the work force. It still exists today in the hearts and minds of people like me who I see at Tea Parties, Townhall meetings and on Twitter and Facebook. While the "official America" may appear to be declining rapidly, the real America still exists in our dreams and vision.

Our journey will be a long hard fought one. We will fight many battles, take on many slings and arrows of smear and slander. We will be mocked. We will be marginalized. But our strength lies in the truth. And in keeping with that truth, we SHALL return to that shining city on a hill some day.

Our founding fathers designed our country to be a diverse and free society based on the premise that all of our freedoms and blessings come from God and that self government means limited government. God, not the government, is the source of our liberty.

Under Ronald Reagan, America brought great prosperity to its citizens and stood as a beacon of freedom for those abroad. His leadership resulted in millions of new jobs being created and a tide that lifted all boats at home and the collapse of the Soviet Union in a world that once stood on the brink of nuclear destruction every day. Free economies flourished as the United States economy positively affected the economies of other nations who reaped the financial rewards of having a free citizenry.

Ronald Reagan left the city stronger and more free than it was before. But after he left the world stage in 1992, we allowed it to decline. We did not hold our politicians accountable. We took it for granted that our leaders would automatically keep the city shining. But, in our loss of focus, we didn't pay attention to the growing progressive movement who planned to snatch the city from our control while we weren't looking.

As conservatives, we assumed that there would always be a protocol, professionalism and maturity in how our public business was conducted. We went about our daily lives not getting heavily involved in the issues or the candidates. When election day would come, we'd vote for the Republican that secured the nomination. In many instances, these people were party insiders or people who were professionally active in politics and the party.

We are a representative republic after all, and the Founding Fathers really wanted us to select "trustees" to do the day to day work of carrying out our public business while we focused on raising our families and working our jobs to keep the nation productive. However, as Ronald Reagan said, freedom is never to be taken for granted and must be fought for every day of our lives.

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

As party insiders drank the Potomoc water, progressives took over key leadership positions, government spending increased and the size of the government grew cumbersome, the eyes of our leaders were taken off the public good as politicians lined their paths with cushy jobs, incredible perks and a sense that retaining power was more important than listening to the will of the people.

As progressives infiltrated our system and our institutions, political correctness, judicial activism and social and religious intolerance were institutionalized under our very noses. We watched as the left used the system to regulate our speech, even informally, to overturn laws they didn't like or to interpret into law stuff that they did, tear down our family unit and shut down our ability to worship God in the public square and in some cases the private one.

Since the passing of the great Ronald Reagan, we have been wandering leaderless in the political world. When he left the world stage in 1992, Reagan said "My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty's lamp guiding your steps and opportunity's arm steadying your way." Yet, we still lost our way. Liberty's lamp had seemed to have gone dark.

Wandering leaderless in the political wilderness with the American ideal dying in the liberal onslaught made me question whether our best days were behind us. How did we nominate John McCain to be our presidential candidate? Was there nobody out there that could bring us the vision and leadership that Reagan did?

Providence gave us John McCain for a reason. He was a war hero whose service is a debt that can never be repaid. His political skills as a maverick gave him the ability to move more fluidly along the ideological spectrum than rigid ideologues could. There are many, including those who read and listen to me, who will take exception to my praising of McCain. They will call McCain a RINO. They will call him part of the problem.

But without understanding the bigger picture of history, we miss the key components of how Patrick's World works. It's not really my world. It's God's world. God created us to be free and inasmuch as he created history, a masterpiece of a picture that is complete in His eyes and His eternal time frame, we are still in the process of painting that picture.

I didn't agree with John McCain on some important issues in the 2000's. I wasn't pulling for him in the primaries. I threw my hands up. I was distraught, telling my friends in an Archie Bunker voice "geez, Edith, the woild is going to hell in a handbasket." I saw no way out. I had already settled for Romney, but now it seemed that society was crumbling and the liberals were moving in for the spoils.

How I lost faith in providence, I'll never know. But I gained that faith back and I realized the true value of John McCain on August 29th, 2008 when he introduced us to a beautiful woman with a killer ideology, Ronald Reagan's ideology.

When I researched Sarah Palin prior to McCain's introduction of her that day, I thought to myself "this is too good to be true." She was my age, she embraced, understood and knew Ronald Reagan the way I did and her political philosophy made her a true ideological soulmate for me much the way Reagan was.

Watching the Republican Party's vice presidential nominee give her speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention immediately brought to mind another "coming out" speech given for one Barry Goldwater at the 1964 convention. I saw a look in the eyes of the crowd that I had not seen since Ronald Reagan.

It was at the convention and at her rallies that I saw the America I love. I saw my America, your America, Ronald Reagan's America. We were no longer alone. We had a leader again. I saw it again when I went to Sarah Palin's campaign rallies at Richmond International Raceway on Oct 13, 2008 and Deep Run High School Nov 1, 2008. Tens of thousands were chanting "Sarah! Sarah! Sarah! They mobbed the stage after the speech.

Is Sarah Palin the next Ronald Reagan? There will never be another Ronald Reagan, as there will never be another Abraham Lincoln. But I also know there will never be another Sarah Palin. I am convinced she is the next great one. I am convinced she is the one who can lead us.

I spoke with a friend during the GOP primaries who told me that America was becoming an idiocracy. I said Americans were sheep sitting idly by as the liberals enacted their hidden agenda to undermine our Constitution and fundamentally transform America into a European socialist democracy. Like the Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man," we were unaware that we were being led to slaughter.

And like the character in the show who discovered "it's a cook book," Americans by the millions woke quickly and took immediate action by forming Tea Parties and attending townhall meetings once they realized where they were being taken by the Obama administration. Americans become complacent, like before Pearl Harbor and 9/11, yet are quick to respond when awakened to action when their freedom is threatened. The first Tea Parties in 2009 showed us that Americans were waking up to institutionalized liberalism and a the soft tyranny that comes with an increasingly larger and larger government with stifling bureaucracies that slowly kill the goose that lays the golden egg they pilfer.

Today, the people in Patrick's World are politically active. We are numerous. We have an online presence. President Obama's favorables have dropped. The sheep are sheep no more as they speak out and wake up to the real intentions of the Obama administration. We are not an idiocracy. We are citizens who have heard the call to action and who now work feverishly to return home to that Shining City on a Hill.

Our journey will be a long hard fought one. We will fight many battles, take on many slings and arrows of smear and slander. We will be mocked. We will be marginalized. But our strength lies in the truth. As Ronald Reagan said, "may every dawn be a great new beginning for America and every evening bring us closer to that shining city upon a hill."

And in keeping with that truth, we SHALL return to that city. We are coming home.

Getting there will require us to understand Reagan's wish that we are to be guided by liberty's lamp. The one who leads us home must hold that lamp for us and with our support find that way back through the dark night. That person may have to take us through the dark forest and take on the cuts and bruises that come with cutting through a liberal underbrush that is thick and foreboding. But it must be done if we are to take back our once great nation.

Carrying liberty's lamp is not a task to be undertaken by just anyone. It requires bold leadership, vision and a strength to go against tides and fight for positions that some may brutally criticize you for.

Carrying liberty's lamp is not for the faint of heart or the philosophically weak. It is a task that should only be assigned to someone with Reagan's character, values and strength of convictions. It is the only metaphorical way we can keep the ideals of and fondness for Ronald Reagan alive and to pass these on to future generations.

We have found the one who can lead us. She talks of the light. She tells us "With hope and dedication nothing is impossible, and the Almighty never abandons those who seek the light." After speaking with a reporter who revealed emails between journalists conspiring to destroy her, she encourages us. She writes "May the light keep shining!"

The time has come to follow liberty's lamp and re-awaken the industrial giant that America once was. We have vast resources that go untapped because of the heavy hand of government. We have people who could spring into action by opening businesses if only the tax structure, credit climate and regulatory environment weren't such overwhelming obstacles. We are begging for help and we are willing to help.

We are asking ourselves to keep fighting and we are asking the ones who lead us to help us destroy all the impediments to prosperity, freedom and national security. We are asking that we repeal the horrors of the past two legislative years and replace them with just laws and just restraints on a government gone wild in a world that is increasingly growing more dangerous again.

Our city is going to shine again. Our dreams are going to have a chance to be realized again. We will win again. And when we come to power again, we will lead. We will never squander the opportunity like we did the last time by becoming like them or by blurring the lines between big government and Constitutionalism. Our world, Patrick's World, Reagan's World and with God's help and mercy, Sarah's World will be beautiful again.

We must keep our petty differences from destroying us. We must accept libertarians, independents, conservatives and Republicans into a tent that will grow in size and stature as the halls of power in Washington hear the sound that the Scots heard as William Wallace's army approached. We must embrace Sarah Palin as our leader and despite any reservations some may have about her, commit to the fact that if we all push her to the top, we will be stronger and better for it than if only some of us do.

And when we get there, whether a Ronulan, a Romneyite, a Huckster, a Newty or a Palinista, whoever gets that gate to open across the moat and whoever gets to the door first must hold it and let us all pour in. There are many tables and many seats at the banquet where we will all feast in the hallowed halls of our great city.

We will remember Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan whose moments in history and whose great accomplishments have led us to the moment where Sarah Palin can stand on their backs and find that the compass, when properly read, still leads us to the better days which are yet to come in an American whose destiny still calls us to a greatness we may never know for generations to come.

We envision and manifest that great day on the mall with our desire and our hard work when our leader will step up to accept the office of the presidency of the United States and tell us "My fellow citizens, the grown ups are back in charge."

We are an exceptional nation. We are a great people. Given the right information, unfiltered by media lies, we can make the right decisions about Sarah Palin, conservatism, libertarianism and Constitutionalism. We can see freedom from our houses and if we are ever to support a death panel, may it be a panel that casts death upon the morally and intellectually bankrupt philosophy of liberalism.

We will remember the crack in Ronald Reagan's voice in 1976 and the tears in Sarah Palin's eyes in 2008 and resolve that we will never ever let it get to that again.

God bless all of you who read this. God bless all of you who are the inspiration for these words and for the support that we will need in order to make all of this happen. The fight will be tough, but we can do it. We can beat them at their own game because we are smarter than them and we have truth on our side. And when we do beat them, we will own the board and we will make the rules.

The discourse will be civil again and the focus will be positive instead of negative.

God bless all of you.

Now let's go take it back!

Fight The Good Fight

Sarah Palin in the Dark

You can hide in the sun 'till you see the light
Between the velvet lies
There's a truth that's hard as steel
The vision never dies
-Ronnie James Dio


During the "Pre-Palin days" when conservatives wandered in the wilderness, some of them like me settling on Mitt Romney with others turning to Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul. Fred Thompson had the philosophy, but his campaign ended early and most conservatives were in "settle" mode after that. With John McCain now to face Barack Obama in the general election, it was a moment where this blogger had to face the possibilities that he would never see Reagan's America again.

It was a dark time. Sarah Palin never endorsed a candidate in the 2008 primary. Rumors were that she liked Romney, but she also thought highly of John McCain because of the war hero thing. This blogger didn't know much, if anything about, Sarah Palin then. I wasn't looking for the next Reagan. I didn't think we'd ever find him. Sarah Palin was just another governor with an R after her name.

The country was going to hell in a handbasket. It was so politically arid that crickets chirped at sparsely attended McCain campaign events. The pending inevitability of that "first step into a thousand years of darkness," as Reagan called it, was a heavy fog on the morale of a once excited political science major who followed Ronald Reagan during his college years. It was then that this blogger stared directly into the heart of darkness.

But when Palin's light shined for the first time on the national stage, the liberal media wanted to keep her and America in that darkness that existed before her selection for VP. The Journolist emails show a mainstream media that was dead set on dimming the light that was now emanating from the Republican presidential campaign.

Sarah Palin revisited that "heart of darkness" again last week and yesterday when she was painfully reminded of what the media not only did to her, but what they said about her down syndrome child. "The horror, the horror."

Palin writes:

There is a sickness and darkness in today’s liberal media. With revelations like the JournoList exchanges, may the light keep shining to expose the problem.

How fitting that the political "Shakespeare" of our time would make another literary reference at a time when the media is scrambling to find their own words to shirk off this damaging revelation and exposure to the light. This writer's dual B.A. in Political Science and Literature dances on the wall to the words of Sarah Palin.

Mistah Kurtz-he dead. A penny for the old guy.

Let the Light Shine!

Yesterday Sarah Palin tweeted Mark Levin and the Daily Caller to thank them for doing what we in the Palinosphere have been working tirelessly to do for over a year and a half.

Thanks Levin, & thanks Daily Caller; let the light shine! RT http:///

And so the light shines. Tucker Carlson is a hero to Sarah Palin fans everywhere after blowing the lid wide open on the media bias that slanted the information the public was getting during the 2008 campaign toward Obama and away from Palin.

There was, as we have all been saying here amongst ourselves, a concerted effort on the part of the mainstream media to destroy Sarah Palin. The facts are on the table. The argument is over. We are right.

God bless Tucker Carlson and Jonathan Strong for bringing liberty loving Americans the day we have so long yearned for since the trashing of Sarah Palin during the 2008 election.

Sarah Palin takes everything I have been saying, everything I have been feeling and everything that I have been fighting for and gives it a voice that shouts from the rooftops through the loudest of megaphones. "“I have lost all respect for the ‘mainstream’ media because they lied; and still lie. And they abuse America’s freedom of the press — because with freedom comes responsibility."

THE MEDIA LIED; AND STILL LIE

God bless you, Sarah Palin. God bless America.

Sarah Palin has been vindicated today. While it will still take time to undo some of the damage the media has done to her, today has undone a lot.

The American people get a new Sarah now, a new Sarah who will have the opportunity to re-introduce herself to a country that knows nothing about her except for the lies. Now that they know they are lies, they will have no choice but to step back and give her a second look.

God bless America. God bless those who took on the challenge to fight for what's right. God bless those who have pulled the string on a quickly unravelling media sweater that once covered their vicious agenda and their destructive intentions for America.

I could go running in the streets fist pumping, yelling "yeahhhhhhhhhhh!" at the top of my lungs.

Tucker did it! Tucker did it! Tucker did it!

This is a monumental day in our journey home.


Read more here.

Liberty's Lamp

My fellow citizens -- those of you here in this hall and those of you at home -- I want you to know that I have always had the highest respect for you, for your common sense and intelligence and for your decency. I have always believed in you and in what you could accomplish for yourselves and for others.

And whatever else history may say about me when I'm gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears, to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty's lamp guiding your steps and opportunity's arm steadying your way.

My fondest hope for each one of you -- and especially for the young people here -- is that you will love your country, not for her power or wealth, but for her selflessness and her idealism. May each of you have the heart to conceive, the understanding to direct, and the hand to execute works that will make the world a little better for your having been here.

May all of you as Americans never forget your heroic origins, never fail to seek divine guidance, and never lose your natural, God-given optimism.

And finally, my fellow Americans, may every dawn be a great new beginning for America and every evening bring us closer to that shining city upon a hill.

-Ronald Reagan 1992 Republican National Convention Speech

Memories of the Fourth of July

Last Fourth of July reminded me of being at a barbecue at my uncle's house in 1980. It was the final year of the Jimmy Carter years and my first real recollection of having a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach about the state of my country. I was 16 going on 17 at the time. Charlie Daniels had a song out, America. I had been headed toward conservatism in the years leading up to this time, but I mark this song as the first time I officially considered myself "a patriot no matter what."

I still get chills when I listen to the song, especially now that it captures the same feeling today during the Obama years as it did during the Carter years. My country is a strong and proud nation. It has done great things. It has survived the Civil War, Pearl Harbor and WW II, the Cold War and 9/11. It has also come through some rough political times as well such as the late 1960's, the late 1970's and now the late 2000's. We have this uncanny ability to fall asleep at the wheel yet wake up just in time to keep the car from crashing into the guard rail. I know we can do it again.

In 1980, I shot my fireworks off at make believe Soviet divisions in Afghanistan. And despite my disgust at the Carter administration, I believed in the American people. I believed we would get the bum out of office. And we did. Five years later, it was morning in America. I graduated college and went wide-eyed into a world with unlimited potential. The economy was cranking, the job market was great and we were militarily strong. The Soviet Union was on the brink of collapse. What happened to that? Where did that go?

I cry about now, but  I know we have it in us to make it that way again.

In 1986, I was outside with friends shooting off fireworks. I had to go to the bathroom so I went in my house. Ronald Reagan just started giving his "Statue of Liberty" speech. I sat with my parents for entire speech, hiding the tears that started streaming down my cheeks as I beamed with pride and joy over my great nation and the great man who now led it. All was well with the world. God that felt great.

The Fourth of July following 9/11 was a defiant one. I was on my in-law's at the time boat and we were on the lake as the fireworks display started. I felt good because I knew we were taking action in Afghanistan and that George W. Bush had America's back. I knew we would not falter and we would not fail. I still felt good about America. I was not a Bill Clinton fan by far, but I thanked my lucky stars that he listened to Newt Gingrich and signed off on the Contract For America.

Last year was the roughest Fourth of Julys I can ever remember.  I had my Palin shirt, my Gadsden flag and a cooler full of cold beer and good food all ready. Even though it was the beginning of the Obama years, I wasn't going to let his America - a lackluster apologetic weak excuse of a nation - interfere with my celebration of my America - the shining city on a hill. It was going to be my way of declaring Sarah Palin as my real leader and the successor in my heart to Ronald Reagan. I was at Virginia Beach when a friend of mine called me on the beach to tell me that Sarah Palin had resigned.

When I went up to the deck, Stuart Varney replayed Sarah Palin's speech on Fox News. I watched stunned as the pundits talked about a possible FBI investigation and how the frivolous ethics violations had cost her and the state of Alaska a fortune. I was alone in the wilderness. Obama was leading my country off a cliff and my leader just stepped down from her position of power. I felt like I wanted to throw up.

There was a 5 minute period during the entire time I was at my friend's condo when his son was not on the laptop, so I read everything I could about her resignation the next morning which was July 4, 2009.

Sarah Palin called her minions in off the ledge with a tweet (link no longer available - emphasis is mine): "Critics are spinning, so hang in there as they feed false info on the right decision made as I enter last yr in office to not run again...." On her Facebook page, she wrote (emphasis is again mine):

I am now looking ahead and how we can advance this country together with our values of less government intervention, greater energy independence, stronger national security, and much-needed fiscal restraint. I hope you will join me. Now is the time to rebuild and help our nation achieve greatness!

She put her resignation speech on her Facebook page underneath the headline which included these words: "it is good, stay tuned." I read the speech and this line jumped out at me (emphasis not mine - Sarah capitalized the word TRUST):

I do not want to disappoint anyone with my decision; all I can ask is that you TRUST me with this decision - but it's no more "politics as usual".

I'm a political science guy who was taught from the textbook in college. It would have been easy to draw a conclusion that she was done. A friend told me it was her "Checkers" speech. It would have been just as easy to get off the emotional rollercoaster of being a Sarah Palin fan at that point. But she said the right words when she was talking to her fans. She was talking to us. She was talking to me. She was asking me to hang in, join her, TRUST her. And like I did before when the media lies were going un-debunked before the Palinista presence we have on the web today, I decided to listen to her.

I wrote:

Take a deep breath. There are 3 1/2 years left until the 2012 presidential election. A lot can happen. Sarah Palin holds the answer. Whether it works or not is totally up to her now. With more freedom to control her brand, her future will no longer be in the hands of an unchecked hostile media that spreads lies about her.

We will be participants in a future political science lesson that has yet to reveal its answer to us.

I deferred the future to Sarah, knowing that the only way to explain the resignation could not be done until after the fact. Now that it is after the fact, I can explain it. I also know that I was right to trust her.

I put on my Sarah Palin shirt last Fourth of July and flew that Gadsden flag that day. When someone commented on my shirt "looks like your girl's in trouble," I hid my concern and simply told him, "nah, she's just getting ready to run in 2012."

Now that the emotion and the uncertainty of last year's Fourth of July is over. Let's do this again right this time. I'm wearing the shirt again this year and this time I'm really going to enjoy it.

It's a year since Sarah resigned. Since then she has made over $12 million dollars and her PAC has donated tens of thousands to political campaigns across the country. She is a best selling author, Fox News contributor, professional speaker and a documentarian. Did I mention she's in the top tier of contenders for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012? Resignation, smesignation.

In 2010, I will shoot off my fireworks off at make believe Taliban and al Qaeda strongholds in Afghanistan. And despite my disgust at the Obama administration, I believe in the American people. I believe we will get the bum out of office. Five years from now, it will be morning in America. And kid's who weren't alive when Reagan was president will be able to graduate college and go wide-eyed into a world with unlimited potential. The economy will be cranking, the job market will be great and we will be militarily strong. The terrorists will be on the brink of collapse.

It will be morning in America again. Sarah Palin will give her "Statue of Liberty" speech and we will beam with pride and joy over our great nation and the great woman who will be leading it.

Awesome Quote of the Day 06/29/2010

Josh Painter at Texas for Sarah Palin:

We believe Gov. Palin's endorsements of a few moderate Republicans, sprinkled as they are among the much greater majority of conservative candidates who have received her blessing, are beginning to bear some fruit. They may not have set well with the absolutists on the far right, but they have helped to broaden her appeal significantly. One does not win the White House solely on appeals to the left or the right. Ronald Reagan proved that conservatives win when they make conservative principles make sense to the broader spectrum of American voters. Despite the left's worst efforts to define her as a far right winger, Sarah Palin is breaking through that false narrative to demonstrate that her common sense brand of conservatism shares common ground with the concerns of a growing share of the U.S. electorate in these tough times. Like Reagan, she remains optimistic about an American future when that America returns to Reagan's shining city on a hill. And that precisely where Sarah Palin is leading it.

That is some awesome work!

For those that still don't believe she can do it, read my post at Patrick's World USA.

I Had a Dream

I had a dream last night that I went to see Sarah Palin on Long Island. I stayed with friends and ended up missing the appearance because of traffic and time issues. By the time I got there and parked the event was over. I went back to my friend's house. I stepped out on to the back patio at the end of the night and there was Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin.

Not knowing who I was, Glenn Beck stepped up to me and said "be careful about what you say to her. I care a lot about her."

This probably popped into my thoughts because I've been doing a lot of blogging on the mainsream media's treatment of her. This, combined with the fact that I have a bunch of brainwashed friends who live on Long Island, explains Beck's defensiveness in the dream.

Beck was wearing a brownish beige sport jacket and slacks with an open collared shirt. I was wearing jeans with a blue polo shirt. Sarah Palin was wearing dressy shorts that came down to just below her knee (small black and white checkered color) and a black blouse. I swear, I remember exactly what everyone was wearing in the dream.

I put my arm around Glenn Beck and said "I care a lot about her, too." Then I let go of Beck and turned to Sarah and said "when I first saw you, I knew we could get our country back."

She smiled and said "that's what I'm working so hard for."

Then she began walking to the side of the house into the darkness where there was woods. Glenn and I began to follow her. I woke up right then because it was time to go to work this morning.

I'm not a dream analyst. But I will tell you what I got out of this. The fact that Glenn was quick to warn me about talking to her represented a sensitivity to media bias. The fact that I remembered exactly what we were all wearing represented the clarity of our feelings about Sarah and where we knew she could take the country.

The killer part is that she turned her back on Glenn and me almost as she was finishing her sentence about working hard, as if there was a sense of urgency. It had to represent that Sarah couldn't wait and was walking into the darkness and into the woods knowing we would follow her - knowing that we are aware the darkness and uncertainty of the woods was America today and that we would have to walk through that dark night to get to where we wanted to go.

Quotes of the Day 6/14/10

On Palin and Reagan:

Whitney the Pipsqueak:

Many conservatives see Governor Palin as the political love child of President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher.
...

While President Reagan is no longer with us, the potential of this meeting between Governor Palin and Margaret Thatcher may prove to be the proverbial passing of the torch, perhaps leading to the re-lighting of that shining city on a hill.

Raj Rajagopalan (h/t Conservatives4Palin):

In the American political landscape of the current decade, there is no other politician who has the same appeal as Ronald Reagan; there is no other politician who agrees in principle with Ronald Reagan much more than Sarah Palin does.

Conservatives in America are hailing Sarah Palin as the “Reagan in a skirt”.

Conservatives in America voice it day and night that it took a weak and incompetent President like Jimmy Carter to create the most popular Conservative hero Ronald Reagan. And they see weak and incompetent President Obama as the next Jimmy Carter, creating the next Reagan in Sarah Palin.

Roger at Gipperwatch:

The same, or another, unnamed source goes on to reflect on the purpose of the overture: "Palin’s big hero is Ronald Reagan. In US Republican folklore Thatcher and Reagan brought down the Soviet Union between them. That’s why Maggie is so important." An excitable Washington Examiner columnist has also represented this in terms of Palin's claim on the Reagan mantle. The suggestion of her meeting Thatcher seems to further confirm her as the "heir to Ronald Reagan". There is, though, more than this association to Palin's interest in the former PM. Thatcher is occasionally held up in Going Rogue as both a heroic proponent of the free market and "creative destruction", and implicitly as a model of female leadership. The blessing of the West's most famous and successful stateswoman might bestow Palin with some new gravity and credibility.

On Palin and snobbery:

Adrienne Ross:

Listen to these political minds discuss the brilliance of Governor Palin, her influence in elections, and how she totally outweighs Mitt Romney, who appears to be doing nothing right now but running for president. The ridiculous aspect of their conversation, however, is that they find it necessary still to try to diminish her. They say she makes them "nervous."

Gary P. Jackson:

Those snobs among the Republican elite and the "Good Old Boy Network" haven’t changed either. They still remain blissfully ignorant, and educated well beyond the level of their actual intelligence. It so happens that Stacy Drake has just published a brand new article on this very subject and takes these clueless GOP snobs to task. You can read Stacy’s Sarah Palin vs Snobbery here.

Sarah Palin:

Shoot, I must have lived such a doggoned sheltered life as a normal, independent American up there in the Last Frontier, schooled with only public education and a lowly state university degree, because obviously I haven’t learned enough to dismiss common sense (a prerequisite for power in Washington these days). Help me out, friends! Help someone like me – and the majority of Americans – understand why we would ever kowtow and bow to foreign regimes that hate us, instead of doing all we can to starve the beast of terrorism in our plight for security, prosperity, and peace.

America "will again be the exemplar of freedom and a beacon of hope for those who do not have freedom." - Ronald Reagan