February 17, 2010

Sarah Palin Is One Tough Mother

Sarah Palin is dismissed by some on both the Left and the Right as a lightweight. She's supposedly wet behind the ears because she's rarely traveled abroad or served as a privileged United States senator, which consists mostly of ordering lackeys around. Of course, Palin is way too pretty (and a non-Ivy-Leaguer besides) to have an I.Q. anywhere near Obama's.

It's astonishing what these critics continually ignore: that Palin is a mom -- not once, but five times over. How can this inconvenient truth be so easily dismissed? Five children -- count them -- including a special-needs boy with Down Syndrome.

I, for one, have never minimized the blood, sweat, and tears of the average mother. As a non-parent, I haven't the foggiest idea how moms do it. Truth be told, I declined parenthood partly out of pure fear of such things as the excruciating pain of labor. And let's not even go there about C-sections, episiotomies, and forceps.

That's not to mention that after childbirth, you have to actually raise the child, with no sleep and often an outside job. Feeding, burping, bathing, changing diapers, calming tantrums...to me, these feats of magic are more awesome than any trick from David Copperfield.

Looking at Palin's slender frame, it's hard to imagine her actually doing this not once, not twice, but five times. She was wiping spills and her kids' mouths at the same time as she was cleaning up Alaska. Of course, being a frontier woman, Palin can do it all.

Palin can do practically anything because this is how her parents raised her. Getting up at dawn with dad to hunt moose, little Sarah then dashed off to school and later basketball practice (even playing a championship game with a broken ankle). Somehow she eked out time for homework and a myriad of jobs.

I think that people underestimate Palin because she makes it all look so easy. She's a force of nature, and she does the seemingly impossible with her trademark sunniness. In America 2010, happy and functional people like Palin are perceived as dim.

Obama, in contrast, has spent his 48 years kvetching. A day rarely goes by during which Obama doesn't complain about George Bush or having to lower himself to talk to Republicans.

Every hardship is blamed on outside forces. Obama's parents abandoned him because of racism; he was benched from a high school sport due to injustice; his friends, like Henry Louis Gates, Jr., are treated unfairly.

And because of all this alleged persecution, liberals view Obama as the tough guy. In many people's messed up minds, the angry and aggrieved are viewed as the formidable ones.

Meanwhile, Palin just glides by like a majestic bird in flight. She's called a c--t, Trailer Trash Barbie, and a moron, but she just keeps going, like the fiercest prizefighter. Palin takes the punches, gets up, and keeps on rocking -- always with her effervescent smile.

There is nothing lightweight about her, our Alaskan Amazon, who once gave a speech in Dallas while in the throes of labor with Trig. Did you hear that? I'm talking labor, which I understand is like having one of those prizefighters throwing punches from deep inside. Are you listening, the insufferable Robert Gibbs?

Fool: Does it really matter if, at the time, she had some notes scribbled on her palm?

Can you imagine the carryings-on, the mass hysteria, if people like Obama or Gibbs or Maureen Dowd had to actually birth a human being? Would they even survive to tell the tale?

Yet what Palin does is hardly different from what mothers do every day in this country. Most moms are hardworking, resourceful, intuitive, and savvy -- and persistently underrated.

And one more thing: Mothers will move heaven and earth to protect and nurture their children. Palin embodies this warrior spirit towards not only her own kids, but all the children in this country -- and the grownups, too.

Can anyone in his right mind say the same thing about Obama?