If you can make it in Wasilla, you can make it anywhere.
By Eastan McNeal on September 2, 2008 at 5:10 AM in Current Affairs
The fact is, regardless of what you will hear over the next few days, Bristol’s pregnancy is not a legitimate political issue. Sarah Palin is a longterm member of a group called Feminists for Life, which is not opposed to birth control. So you probably can’t tag her for consigning young people to unwanted pregnancies.
I was going to write a post centered around a sensible story by an obviously sensible reporter, who was sent to Alaska to “get the scoop” for CNN on the Pailin secret.
But I think it is more important to quickly get this story out to as many people as possible, because this reporter’s story counters the entire “news” desk team’s narrative on the “issue” and how it influences the state of the Nation.
Note. My family is from Iceland. They live with exploding volcanoes and ships lost to the violent North Atlantic Ocean and Artic Sea. Little things are little things, compared to living in a world that is filled with as much danger as beauty. I can identify with these people in Alaska, one of our 50 states. From what I read I think the writer that came back with the story of her visit to Wasilla found real people in a part of our country that most people have only seen on TV. But this is not TV. This is not Hollywood. This is the real survivor story. If you can make it in Wasilla, Alaska, you can make it anywhere.
I think, after reading this article, you will understand why Palin is no Shrinking Violet. She will not back down because of partisan or MSM attacks on her or her family and Sarah will, once in DC, have no problem leading the Senate in the charge of taking on the little squirrels inside the beltway with much greater ease and effort than she exerted in taking down some moose-sized corruption in Alaska.
Washington be now put on alert. There may, perhaps, be a VP-level influence and corruption investigation coming that will rival all other investigations. And, as a taxpayer, I welcome the idea of such a fighter being in the White House.
So here is the opening of the story. Be sure to give Time its due and follow the link for the rest of the story.
From TIME, Monday, Sep. 01, 2008 By NATHAN THORNBURGH/WASILLA
In Wasilla, Pregnancy Was No Secret
That’s about the only thing that I didn’t know about Bristol Palin’s pregnancy. The rest of the details I picked up almost without trying, while talking about other things with townsfolk — some who know the governor and her family well, some who don’t. It was, more or less, an open secret. And everyone was saying the same thing: the governor’s 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, the father is her boyfriend, and it’s really nobody’s business beyond that.
I happen to agree.
This tiny town wedged in between the Chugach and Talkeetna mountain ranges has intrigued the whole country since John McCain’s surprise Friday announcement that Wasilla’s favorite daughter, Sarah Palin, would be his running mate. Sure, some of the interest was a prelude to attacks on Palin’s readiness for national office. But Wasilla also offered a welcome chance to get specific about the geography of a politician. It’s one of our most cherished myths, that a leader can come from somewhere and you can guess at their qualities not just by what they say, but where they live.
Well, here’s the deal: small towns have their own value systems, and in this situation those values are more a lot more valid than the dispassionate, pushy inquisitiveness that political journalism encourages.
I just got off the phone with a longtime Wasilla resident. She had urged me to find time today to go up to Hatcher Pass—”the most beautiful place in the valley!”—when I mentioned that the story on Bristol’s baby is now national news. Her voice slowed. “Oh,” she said. “I’m so sorry. That’s so unfair.”
Wasilla seems at times to be utterly without guile. It’s a large part of the town’s charm, and it’s exactly the quality that could make an unorthodox pick like Palin pay off. Don’t get me wrong — she’s a tough politician with sharp enough elbows on her own. But still, she appears to be more steeped in the values of her hometown than any politician I’ve ever come across.
Maybe that means Palin is a little too much Northern Exposure for America—after all, her father’s good friend Curt Menard happily showed me a picture of the governor as a high schooler in 1981, in a root cellar with family and friends, helping skin and cube and cure a whole moose. It’s enough to make you almost miss fake hunters like John Kerry and Mitt Romney.
People in Wasilla are Alaskan tough, so not only does a thing like teen pregnancy not seem like anyone’s damn business, but it’s also not seen as the calamity so many people in the lower 48 might think it is. This is dangerous country — it’s not just the roughneck jobs on cable reality shows. It’s real life here. I listened to the absolutely heartbreaking story of how the godfather of Track Palin, Sarah’s oldest son, died in small plane crash just minutes after having dropped off four kids. Another family invited me into their home and told their incredible story; with one son in Iraq, their other son was working on a conveyor line in Anchorage, got caught in the belt and had his head partially crushed. He lived to stand across the kitchen table from me and his parents, looking fully healed just three months later, grinning at his dumb luck and wondering what comes next in life. “It makes you realize that a thing like a little teenage pregnancy isn’t such a big deal,” his mom said. “Bristol—and lots of other girl like her out there — are going to be just fine.”
If you haven’t guessed yet, the people here are genuinely friendly.
Read the full story at: Time.com
by Ronald Scott
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