A pit bull, or a silly girl?

George L. has a counterintuitive theory about Sarah Palin: far from being the formidable hunter, fisherman, and political insurgent we’ve heard about, she is naive and fragile and therefore wholly unable to handle tough leftist opponents, not to mention hostile foreign leaders. When I expressed my doubts, George linked a video of Palin speaking at her local church earlier this summer. The Sarah in the video couldn’t be more different from the Sarah we’ve seen over the past week.

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Anthony Damato writes:

The video you linked does not seem at all to me to diminish from Gov. Palin’s demonstrated oratory skills, her record of executive achievement or her life experiences which drove her to high office. In fact, if you heard her in this video, she stated that she did not have time to prepare for her presentation because she was not sure she would attend this event.

Despite this, she was still able to speak in an appropriate, candid manner. I assume this was some sort of graduation from a religious school. She mentioned Jesus Christ several times in as refreshing a demonstration of un-PC talk as you’ll ever see from a politician. This made me quite happy, though I suspect her character assassins are cutting and splicing a video of her mention of Jesus as we speak to show her “far right” inclinations.

To me, this video shows her consistency and ability to improvise without the aid of a teleprompter. It shows faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and it shows a likable person.

One last thing. You continue to imply that Gov. Palin called herself a “Pit Bull.” She did not. She interjected that joke while on the topic of soccer moms and applied it to them. Of course she referred to herself as a “soccer mom” earlier. But to imply she called herself a pit bull is taking it out of context and in my opinion, incorrect.

LA replies:

She called herself a hockey mom, then said that hockey moms were pit bulls with lipstick.

Ergo she said that she is a pit bull with lipstick.

M. Mason writes:

She’s speaking to a group of young people, George, and adapting her tone of voice and manner to communicate more effectively with her audience. You must realize that an intuitive, charismatic speaker like Sarah Palin has a gift for doing exactly that, because a person with her temperament has a keen sense of knowing what others want or need. Also, look more closely beyond her put-on “girlish” manner in that video and notice her essential communication style. Sarah does not use tentative phrases like “I think” or “I would suggest.” Instead, she forcefully claims, maintains and alleges. Notice too that she is both relating to those kids and telling them what to do at the same time. That’s how she takes control of a situation. People like this have strong measures of influencing and domineering traits in their personalities. They have the ability to be both entertaining and confrontive. And by the way, they are also willing to face rejection for what they believe.

Jake Jacobsen writes:

I just watched the video and with all due respect to George I have no idea in blazes what in the heck he’s talking about. She seems loose, comfortable talking policy, comfortable talking Christianity, comfortable talking extemporaneously. What exactly were we supposed to be seeing in this video that was so devastating to Mrs. Palin?

Has George ever been to a church? This is how folks talk in mainstream Evangelical ones, nothing sounded off or forced or even politician-y, which I imagine is why people are so taken with her. I freely admit I find her manner extremely appealing and wish that it wasn’t being harnessed to the intractable border smasher John McCain. This isn’t necessarily an endorsement, just my gut feeling.

As the focus of my group is on illegal immigration, I have far too many questions to offer any actual support for the GOP ticket as of yet, as detailed here and here.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 06, 2008 08:19 PM | Send