Memo to Sarah Palin: You’re really not in a position to criticize anyone for ‘retreating.’
Palin appeared on Fox News Channel’s Justice with Judge Jeanine over the weekend and was asked about the Wisconsin stand-off wherein 14 Democratic state senators have skipped over state lines to foil GOP Gov. Scott Walker’s attempt to strip public sector workers of their bargaining rights. The host asked the former half-term governor whether the absentee lawmakers should be fired. Palin’s answer:
Yeah, they absolutely should be fired. They should be recalled. You know, they’ve retreated—it’s not like they’re reloading, they’ve retreated. They’re not doing their job.
Apparently in Palin World there are two states of being: retreating and reloading. One would think that the woman who couldn’t be bothered to actually do the job that Alaska voters hired her to do would have a bit more respect for retreat, or at least would have a better understanding of, say, a strategic retreat and flat out quitting.
Maybe that’s the issue: Perhaps if the Democratic state senators had simply quit because they weren’t getting their way (or because they thought they could make more money in reality TV and the unreality of Fox TV, Facebook, and Twitter) she would take a kinder view of their actions. Or, really, if they were Republicans instead of Democrats. [See editorial cartoons about Palin.]
Palin is fond of the aphorism “don’t retreat, reload,” but the fact is sometimes you have to retreat. As a wise military mind once suggested, if your enemy is in superior strength, evade him. Faced with overwhelming numbers of Republicans trying to break state worker unions, the Wisconsin state Democrats decided that they had to do whatever they could to win the fight. I’m still not sure I approve of it (and the precedent it sets), but I understand it. [See photos of the Wisconsin protests.]
And as someone who quit her job--and had the mind-bending chutzpah to declare in doing so that hard work was “the quitter’s way out”--Palin is not in a position to pass judgment on it. [See photos of Palin and her family.]
Final question: You can watch the video clip of Palin's appearance here. Does it strike anyone else as odd that she refers to "that Wisconsin governor" ("bless his heart!") twice but doesn't actually use his name? She does know it, right? Right?
- Take the U.S. News poll: Is Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker right about the unions?
- See photos of the protests in Wisconsin.
- See a slide show of the best cities to find a job.
Reader Comments Read all comments (19)
jimatmadison of WI 1:42PM March 16, 2011
Observer of WA 8:47PM March 15, 2011
dom youngross of OH 4:54PM March 09, 2011