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.