Palin Loaded for Bear

Some how I've gotten the idea in recent months that Sarah Palin couldn't take it. She was whining too much at the media instead of taking it like a man. I don't know where I got the idea. I must have read it, and heard it from every liberal friend.

Anyway, what would a liberal know about Sarah Palin?

But the Palin exit speech, delivered at the inauguration of her successor as Alaska Governor, certainly didn't sound like a whimper. It sounded like a declaration of war.

Palin spent a lot of time talking about the armed forces, and then just to emphasize the point, reminded the media that the armed forces were there to protect them. Oh, and by the way, lay off the children of my successor, she added.

Then it was on to remind everyone of her extraordinary record as governor, getting the Alaska gas pipeline off dead-center.

Here's how it sounded to me. Palin is positioning herself as the candidate of conservatives and moderates. She's not really running as a movement conservative but as an American patriot who believes in America, independence, self-reliance, faith, reform, small government, and neighbors.

Who believes in that sort of stuff? Well, there's the 40 percent of Americans that style themselves as conservative, and the 35 percent that style themselves as moderate. You could say it's a start.

There are two kinds of politicians in America. There is the kind like President Obama that follows the liberal trade-winds. It's the kind that hopes, by staying right in the middle of their political party, that she'll eventually be rewarded.

Then there are the politicians that make their own weather. I am thinking Ronald Reagan. Even in 1980 he ran as the outsider. Even in 1980, after a decade and a half in national politics he just wasn't considered "safe."

Sarah Palin is like that.

It's been pretty obvious since Palin first emerged as a national politician that she makes her own weather.

But that won't make any difference to the doubters. People will be predicting that she just doesn't have what it takes right up until the day of her election as President of the United States.