In Solidarity: I Respect Sarah Palin

A combination of defiance and curiosity compelled me to add The Undefeated (documentary about Sarah Palin by conservative filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon) to my Netflix queue. I'm tired of the dominant media monopolizing the stage and influencing the narrative, as they did (or tried to do) with the fictional movie about Palin called Game Change (correctly categorized  in the Internet Movie Database under "drama" and "history" and not "documentary," since it's clearly not a documentary).


Where Game Change zeroes in on Palin the candidate, The Undefeated introduces us to her first as mayor of Wasilla and then as governor of Alaska before being selected by John McCain to be his running mate.


Palin-haters have derided her as stupid, incoherent, incompetent, unintelligent (and those are the nicer comments). In spite of the annoying sound track (someone needs to talk to Bannon about re-releasing this doc sans cheesy music), I watched the entire movie documenting her rise in politics, and I'm going on record as saying that whatever else you may say about her, Sarah Palin is not stupid, and she's certainly not incompetent. Sarah Palin is gutsy and ballsy, defying not only the good old boys of her own party, but the powerful oil companies, as well. I'd bet if Palin had done the exact same things she did in Alaska but had a "D" and not an "R" after her name, she'd be in the feminists' Hall of Fame, by now. Just look at how the liberals catapulted Sandra Fluke to stardom (apparently feminists are now encouraging her to run for office). Instead, because Palin's a conservative, maybe because she's a Christian, she's been demonized.


We could argue all day about whether the decision to lure Palin away from Alaska to join McCain on the GOP presidential ticket was a good one. Maybe the Republicans should have left her alone and let her "ripen on the tree" a bit (ditto for Barack Obama, by the way). Did her run for VP ruin her? I watch her in action as mayor and governor. Impressive! I watch her fall apart as VP candidate. Painful! But then, I watch her fight back after returning to Alaska (weakened, some have said), see her make the controversial decision to step down as governor (to pay the legal bills), and then watch her get back into the arena, bruised but not beaten, ultimately to become the face of the tea party rebellion, and I marvel at her never-give-up tenacity (hence the title). Should they have let her be? Maybe. But maybe not. Maybe it's better now that she's not in public office. She owes allegiance to no one. She seems to thrive in those circumstances, enemies be damned.


Why do I marvel at her ability to get back into the arena and keep fighting? It would have been easier to simply crawl away, lick your wounds, return to private life, take care of your family. That's my tendency. I went AWOL at the first bared teeth of criticism when I started writing years ago, and we're talking about letters to the editor and phone calls (before we went unlisted), not the instant commentary, the blogosphere, the world of Twitter and Facebook. It's brutal. I didn't have the stomach for the vitriol then, and I doubt I have it now. Palin is made of sterner stuff. I admire her for it. It's why I admire Andrew Breitbart, and so many others, really, who endure the frontal assault of the left's hatred. 

Breitbart's in this film, by the way, at the end. And he skewers the GOP establishment for not standing up for Sarah Palin when the media did everything they could to destroy her ("Alinsky-ed" her, is how Tammy Bruce put it), referring to them as "eunuchs." 

Tammy Bruce, now there's another rebel on the front-lines, fighting for conservative values. Palin and Bruce, Malkin, Coulter, Bila, Charen, Seipp (now deceased)...these are the real feminists, if you ask me. Those other so-called feminists? The Flukes, et al? They're just lackeys. Posers. Lap dogs. They sign on the dotted line, toe the line, stand in formation. But they don't think for themselves. Fluke calls on other women to run for office, according to a write-up in the Huffington Post. But not just any woman. Just those who advocate for family planning. Liberal ladies, step up, sign on the dotted line. Conservative women, go home.


I think it's time to re-think what "feminism" means.