"Screw political correctness" - Sarah Palin in her own words (with Michael Reagan)

(**Warning** Massively long post ahead, in which you accompany me into the belly of the beast. Adult beverage or soothing music is recommended.)

When the call came a couple days ago, and my friend asked me the question, I immediately imagined myself in one of those ads that try to get you to join the Marines. “I wanted to see if I had what it takes. I wanted to prove to myself that I had the stuff.” You know the ones.

The question? “Hey, do you want to go see Michael Reagan? I got tickets!” Now, I had already recently been to the Anchorage screening of “Media Malpractice - How Obama Got Elected and Pain was Targeted,” {I'm not sure if "Pain" is a typo -- it seems oddly correct.) and I was still working out the toxins. If that was the obstacle course in my Conservative Boot Camp, then surely this would be the part where they take you into the back room for the waterboarding. Sarah Palin was presenting the opening words.

Last week when conservative talk show ignoramus Mancow said that waterboarding wasn’t torture, and then volunteered to be waterboarded, they gave him a little plastic cow to hold; his safety cow. If it got to be too much, they told him, he could just toss the cow and they’d stop. He lasted 6 seconds. I knew I could do better than that.

So off I went to the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts. It was 70 degrees and the sky was blue. As I took a deep breath and headed in to the darkened theatre, I wondered why I was doing this. Thoughts of aborting the mission ran through my mind. But, I settled in. I looked at the crowd…a strange mixture of shorts, and suits, red blazers and tank tops. I spotted Lt. Governor Sean Parnell, and Rep. Bob Lynn who had also come to this dark room and bypassed soaking up the sun to soak up the words of wisdom from Ronald Reagan’s eldest son.

<snip>

I got a call this morning from my history teacher sister, the one who actually broke the Palin nomination news to me on August 29th. “Did you hear Obama’s speech in Cairo?” she asked, almost breathless. She had visited there last year, and explained that the hostility and anger felt toward the Bush administration was almost palpable. “They gave him a standing ovation!” she told me. “And that was before he even spoke!” I thought with some sadness that while I, and 400 other Alaskans had been listening to the drivel above, millions of others had been on the opposite end of the political universe. They were listening to messages of healing and reconciliation, and a leader who spoke about tough issues realizing that diplomacy, and seeking common ground is what will move our world forward through the incredible challenges we face. This is what we need, not the sophomoric “we win, they lose” mentality.

I look forward to listening to the speech in its entirety tonight. And I’ll raise my glass and be glad once again for the outcome of the 2008 presidential election.