Listening to Sarah Palin with Open Ears

I went to a private prep school for my last two years and a summer of high school between 1962 and 1963. The school, Rhodes, sadly, for it was a great place for many of us, is gone from the stage, fading due to a loss of direction and lack of capital, sold and sold again and then just gone. 

 Rhodes is the brick-faced building, 9-11 W. 54th St. It is now a private bank.

I had a number of influential teachers and mentors there, but this isn't about them, but about one who after a number of decades, surfaced through an alumni Yahoo list. My guidance counselor, who I wasn't particularly close to during my time at Rhodes -- I gravitated toward one of his colleagues -- wrote me off -list and we began a correspondence that has lasted for several years. It survived my being booted off the alumni list for not toeing the party line set forth by the list's founder and his successor. It survived my being admitted back into the fold and then being tossed off again. 

Hardly a day goes by that there isn't some tid-bit of information in my inbox from him and, of late, they have become increasingly political in nature. My mentor is a liberal, a staunch supporter of Obama who believes, honestly, that Republicans hate Obama because he is Black. He often lumps me in with them despite my continued reminders that I am a libertarian -- but not a Libertarian Party member -- and that I dislike the President's policies a whole lot more than I dislike him as a person, Black, Half-Black or whatever.  He has a strong dislike and distrust for the Tea Party and their positions and felt, like I did, that Palin wasn't presidential material.

So, in this morning's inbox, I got this forwarded from my mentor and friend from the New York Times. He still lives there, a place I abandoned back in January of the Bicentennial Year.

U.S.   | September 03, 2011
The Caucus: Palin Rails Against 'Crony Capitalism' and 'Career Politicians'
By JEFF ZELENY
On Saturday, Sarah Palin did not say whether she would seek the Republican presidential nomination, but she made clear that she has no intentions of simply falling into line behind one of the party's leading candidates.
   
Copyright 2011  The New York Times Company

That prompted me to respond with this comment:

"Well, I didn't think I would be saying this, but Ms. Palin seems to be speaking truth to power here and making sense. She also comes off in this appearance as someone who actually might have some presidential timber in her makeup after all. The political class is one of the biggest problems with this country and is something not envisioned by the founders. Of course, they also couldn't accurately foresee a nation spreading from sea to shining sea, nor the Internet, television, bloggers and the like either. The political landscape has significantly changed from what it was even when I first became aware of politics as a grade-school kid in Queens during the Eisenhower administration. Politicians still traveled by trains and the whistle-stop tour was not just a phrase without meaning in context.

"I don't know if removing all federal corporate taxes would sever the ties between big Business and Big Government. I suspect not. But unhitching the two Big Entities at the fundraising level, removing the motivation for Big Business to bribe candidates for office in Big Government and for the candidates to accept the bribes and do the bidding of their benefactors is long overdue.

"Whether or not Palin runs, she will impose a good deal of influence on the GOP to make some fundamental changes. And by being relatively even-handed in her criticism of the things that are wrong with both parties, will influence, I believe, some voters to make different choices."

I'm not impressed with the Tea Party, overall. I suspect them of being a manufactured and artificially supported group rather than a true grassroots movement. I also think that they are, for the most part, led by a group that fits the late Spiro Agnew's characterization of an entirely different group, but since the shoe seems to fit -- the Tea Party strikes me as nothing more than a collection of  "nattering nabobs of negativism." (Agnew said it; William Safire, for whom I have a great deal more respect, wrote it.)  They can tell you at each turn what Obama has done wrong. OK, fair enough; I can see his mistakes and the result of his policies as well as the next person and better, perhaps than some. But, what should be done to fix all of that? These folks seem not to have a clue. Nothing. Zip; zero, zilch; nada. And, I want more from a president and a congress.

These comments from Palin, brief as they were, at least shows me that she sees that the problems are bi-partisan -- if a little more evident in the present administration -- and that fixing them is necessary. She puts forth something like a plan -- doing away with federal corporate taxes -- which, as I said to my mentor, I don't think will work. But it shows she is thinking, at least. 

I will be paying attention to Sarah Palin. I have never been fond of a tease, and that is, for me, her least endearing characteristic. Will she or won't she? Is she in, or is she not? She is, for sure, a self-promoting and often rather grandiose populist whose rhetoric often isn't matched by her deeds. But that is true about nearly everyone who steps foot onto the political stage to some degree or another. I think it is certainly true of Obama. She has said some things along the way, including her remarks about 'Crony Capitalism' and 'Career Politicians' at Indianola that ring true. Now, if she can come up with some solutions, I'll listen even harder.