If one listens carefully, one can hear the sounds of conservatives hearts breaking all over the lower 48.
Gov. Sarah Palin on Wednesday picked a former board member of Planned Parenthood to fill the latest vacancy on the Alaska Supreme Court despite efforts by a conservative Christian group to convince her to do otherwise.
Heartache?
Now, before you write off Palin completely there are some extenuating circumstances. You should know the way the process in Alaska goes. A liberal board (made up of leftist trial lawyer types) nominates two people and the Governor has to pick one. And from what I understand, neither option was great but of the two, it would appear that Palin may have picked the more liberal of the two, at least according to Alaska Family Council’s Jim Minnery. Minnery wrote Palin in support of the other candidate, Judge Eric Smith saying Smith was “more conservative” and that Christen would be “another activist on the Court.”
This would not seem to be good news for those who love Sarah. There’s one thing conservatives take seriously – and that’s judges.
I hope this wasn’t some calculated move by Sarah Palin to show that she’s not an extremist. But either way, I believe many people are not going to be happy.
Some people who clearly are happy, however are liberal bloggers. According to the Alaska Standard the liberal bloggers there are esctatic.
“Ohmigawd!??The governor’s been taken over by space aliens.??What an improvement!”
“Wow. Way to go Palin! I can’t believe I just said that. But hey, credit where credit is due.”
“Glad to see a woman in the position to balance out the court. Good for Palin for keeping bible thumper beliefs out of the court system and honoring the separation of Church and State.”
“This is the one good action that Sarah Palin has taken over the past three years. And I have no problem admitting it. Great pick!!!! So even if the wing-nut parental consent bill passes, the state Supremes now have enough votes to overturn it as unconstitutional.”
The fact that the liberals are so excited is likely a bad sign.
Years ago, then Governor Murkowski refused to appoint any of the names given to him but caved after the liberal media jumped ugly on him. Likely, Palin didn’t want to make this her fight as it would’ve surely become a national spectacle.
In short, this smells like political calculation by Sarah. And it’s one I don’t think pro-life conservatives are going to forget.
One can almost imagine the one person who is happily reading this news today – Mike Huckabee.
Some updates can be found at Conservatives 4 Palin.
Thanks to Matt Swaim for alerting me to the story.
March 6, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Put not your trust in kings and princes.
March 6, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Murder is not nice. Shame, shame, shame. I voted for Sarah for President (unfortunately, some dead weight was attached); I will not do so again.
Rush Windbagh is obnoxious, Mr. Steele is weak, and Sarah Palin caved. Oh, where is the Republican Party?
March 6, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Amen, Scott W.
Have to say I was never really won over by Sarah Palin. The convention speech was brilliant, but as with all modern politics, just more theater.
I’m done with political parties.
-Emil Berbakov
March 6, 2009 at 3:34 pm
You guys are kidding, right? Including the other commenters, yes? What cave are you living in? What realm? What universe? Ayn Rand wrote “Conservatism: An Obituary” in 1960. You people have been dead so long you don’t even smell any more.
Go Sarah!
March 6, 2009 at 3:41 pm
What? You mean you bought the lie that Palin was a doctrinaire movement conservative, instead of the libertarian-leaning conservative her record suggested? Jeez, folks, the only people pushing that one were Daily Kos, the Obama campaign, and to be redundant, the MSM.
March 6, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Let me see. The procedure in Alaska is some group picks two people, and the governor picks one to fill the vacancy. And this proves that she caved? Maybe the more “conservative” one has some other issues. Get some more information before you make Sarah Palin persona-non-grata. Jeez, talk about reacting without all of the facts!
March 6, 2009 at 3:59 pm
I agree with Mike. She was likely presented with two undesirable candidates, and picked the lesser of two evils. This is a non-story. Unfortunately it will be spun against her, as we see already.
March 6, 2009 at 4:14 pm
I thought conservatives were supposed to follow the rules or change them in an open manner.
She should NOT have refused to nominate. If it was that big a problem she should have resigned.
Jeeze peeps. Been so long since you’ve seen personal responsibility you can’t recognize it?
-XC
March 6, 2009 at 4:17 pm
The self-professed conservatives who are ready to throw Palin under the bus for this are terribly misguided. She governs with her brain, not with her Bible. And that’s a good thing.
March 6, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Don’t worry, the mainstream feminists and leftists will still shriek incessantly and wrongly about how she hates women and wants us all to die in childbirth and/or be punished with a baby instead of getting a safe healthy abortion, and millions of voters will still believe them and vote for the pro-abortion Marxist instead.
March 6, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Between two pro-abortion judge candidates, one of which is also an environmental activist, it's not clear that Sarah really made a worse choice.
Sarah would do well to push for some revision in that selection process.
Her support for parental consent & notification is far more important for pro-life people.
March 6, 2009 at 4:39 pm
I agree with Seneca the Younger and Will. Just means that Sarah isn’t the caricature the media and the democrats made her out to be.
March 6, 2009 at 4:40 pm
The other option, Smith, was also liberal and likely pro-abortion. He was also an environmental eco-nut.
Christen was the least bad candidate.
March 6, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Disappointing, but since this is all I’ve read about it, I’ll reserve judgment.
March 6, 2009 at 5:09 pm
One swallow does not a summer make.
March 6, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Subvet – Is that an unladen South African Swallow or a European Swallow?
March 6, 2009 at 5:44 pm
@Mack:
Dude, get a grip. Out of a choice of two, she picked the one that’s not an econutter. You really think that one would have been pro-life? If so, call Guinness, because we’ve found a species rarer than unicorns.
Now, back in the real world, the actual worst you can possibly say about Sarah! is that she put the good of the state economy above her personal beliefs. Which I for one can live with. And even that’s only if the nutter would have been more pro-life, which I would consider vanishingly unlikely indeed.
March 6, 2009 at 6:03 pm
There are many grounds on which Sarah Palin may be defendable, but this is not one of them.
You would think that with the Brownback blowback, someone in her damage control department would have advised her not to open this Pandoran box.
FORMER. PLANNED. PARENTHOOD. BOARD. MEMBER.
STATE. SUPREME. COURT.
Remind me again how local cases get referred to the Supreme Court?
March 6, 2009 at 6:13 pm
So, all the rabid anti-Palin partisans were lying when they called her a Christianist extremist?
March 6, 2009 at 7:03 pm
There are some things worth battling over. For Palin, I think this was one of them.