Obama and Palin: Two sides of the same coin?

Barack Obama and Sarah Palin.  Both are young, attractive and relatively inexperienced.  Both engender a fervid dedication among devotees and bitter bile in their critics.  And Sarah is catching up to him in the polls. 

Jack Cashill, heroic slayer of liberal myths, has written a brilliant piece comparing and contrasting the trajectories of Sarah Palin and Barack Obama.  No good soundbites, just a solid comparison that leaves the current president wanting while putting Palin in a very good light.

A Neutral View

Chris Good in an Atlantic article asks, How Popular is Palin?  It's standard boilerplate, but I liked this reader post, who offered a less flattering, but probably standard non-partisan comparison:

Jennis Psycho said:
She's about as popular as Obama, and slightly less divisive. Both are in the mid 40s in the reputable polls. 

She's really just Obama's mirror image in a sense, both are largely ignorant and inexperienced politicians with penchants to say ridiculous and divisive things, and what you think about them largely says more about you than them.

Just like if Palin was ugly, if Obama wasn't an attractive African-American he would be Jimmy Carter, and about as popular.

That's bound to make Palinites mad, but they need to take a deep breath and realize that everyone doesn't share their devotion, and all criticism is not a hateful attack.

Kinda like W, I look to The Bible for a bit of political advice:  Test the Spirits

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
-- 1 John 4:1

Palin has entered the arena, so she's fair game.  And if she's as tough and sincere as she seems, she has nothing to worry about.  I like my candidates tested in the crucible of political battle. 

Rick Moran at Pajamas Media had the temerity to write an article critical of Palin, and her fans went nuts, calling this conservative all kinds of names!

Here is my comment:

OK Palinites, political hero worship is what has brought our country to the brink of disaster.

Sarah Palin is a fine woman and has a great record to stand on in Alaska politics. Like any politician in the public arena, she needs to be debated over and tested. It’s called the marketplace of ideas.

If you get testy because someone dares to question some aspect of her, you are no better than an Obamabot.

Lighten up! If Palin is the real deal she will withstand the criticism and prove a formidable candidate in 2012. If she can’t stand the heat, I’d rather find out now.

And screaming RINO! at everyone who disagrees with you is getting old. Scozzafava is a RINO. Rick Moran is a conservative who believes in “testing the spirits” by evaluating arguments and ideas.

If that’s not for you, stop trolling blogs where serious discussion takes place and instead spend your time at fan club sites where everybody agrees with you 100% of the time.

Let her speak

Although I have not made up my mind on this woman, I do get PO'd at the GOP Elitists.  An Ivy League education is no substitute for common sense and strong values.  Just ask the "best and brightest" who crashed our economy or who got us into Vietnam and then stabbed out troops in the back getting out.

This best sums up how I feel about the whole Sarah Palin phenomenon:

"Personally, I'm not sure she's ready to be president, but this is a person who has resonant voice for many Americans who are engaged in our political life and who deserve to have someone speaking for them," said Wilfred McClay, a professor at Pepperdine University's School of Public Policy.

"Anyone who tries to shut that down, particularly by a relentless campaign of personal abuse, is really an enemy of our political system," he said. "They are trying to suppress discourse at a time when we need more of it and not less."  (Washington Times)

Time will tell...

Barack Obama's America

This is Barack Obama's America: An America where ACORN, La Raza and his fellow community organizers demand home loans for people who cannot repay them.

This is Barack Obama's America: Congress caves in to the leftist agitators and passes laws that force mortgage lenders to abandon prudent, time-tested standards, creating bad debt and collapsing our financial markets.

Wonder what an Obama presidency would be like? We have a taste of it right now: Liberal politicians conspiring with Wall Street banksters to drive our nation into penury. And all in the name of "helping people" by building a Socialist utopia.

We don't need to call him a closet Muslim or accuse him of not being a US citizen. That only makes us look like kooks. Established facts alone can be his undoing.

A guy named David Deming really flames Barack Obama in an opinion piece in the Edmond Sun. Mr. Deming's criticism sticks to basic facts is is very effective. Here are a few highlights:

Obama disdains large swathes of American Culture:

Nothing exemplifies Obama’s antipathy for American culture better than his statement that Americans “cling to” religion and guns out of frustration or bitterness. We only can suppose that Obama regards religion or firearms as aberrations that need to be eradicated.

Obama sat for 20 years in a church where the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr preached “goddamn America.”

Obama is an empty vessel into which enraptured followers pour all of their hopes and dreams:

What is Barack Obama for? His campaign motto is “change.” But even a 6-year-old child understands that “change” can be either good or bad. Lacking specifics, the invocation of “change” as policy is completely empty. As we witness Obama’s minions mindlessly endorse the meaningless maxim of “change,” it only can call to mind the barnyard animals in George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” chanting “four legs good, two legs bad!”

David Deming is an associate professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma. If you want to see what good, effective criticism is, go read his opinion piece.

The ideas that Barack Obama believes in are what caused this financial crisis.