We already know that Sarah Palin is an Internet troll, but it sure does feel nice to have a journalist confirm it. According to today’s piece in The Atlantic, Palin “obsessed over her image” and “orchestrated a campaign to inundate newspapers with phony letters praising her.” A particularly odd obsession, considering that she actually got stuff done for Alaska.
Joshua Green gives a history of Palin’s work as governor, detailing her (admittedly brave) defiance and takedown of Alaska’s corrupt Republican politicians. When Republicans rejected her gas pipeline proposal, she shrewdly turned to the Democrats to get it passed and the ACES bill that eventually passed with Democratic support was far more dramatic than what she originally proposed (suck on that, hyperpartisans). Palin managed to make a hell of a lot of money for Alaska: “While other states reel under staggering deficits, budget cuts, and protests, Alaska has built up a $12 billion surplus, most of it attributable to Palin’s [oil] tax.”
The AP found out that the Evil Overlord Satan Incarnate Dick Cheney even called her twice to urge her to make Republican concessions that favored Big Oil. Surprisingly, she had not yet sold her soul:
Palin seems to have been driven by a will to advance herself and by a virulent animus against anyone who tried to impede her. But this didn’t prevent her from being an uncommonly effective governor, while she lasted. On the big issues, at least, she chose her enemies well, and left the state in better shape than most people, herself included, seem to realize or want to credit her for. It’s odd that someone so preoccupied with her image hasn’t gotten this across better. And it raises the question of what she could have achieved.
Green wonders what could have been if Palin continued on the path she had traversed as governor, instead of taking the mantle of chest-beating soundbyte idol of ridiculousness that she became once she emerged on the national stage.
Palin haters, don’t fret. This piece will only make her political shift seem more self-serving, ever more reason to find her distasteful.
(Source: “The Tragedy of Sarah Palin“)
