Post-Debate Palin Brings Back a Fighting Attitude

With the combination of the bad economic news and a couple of poor interview performances, something happened last week that hadn't happened in quite a while in this campaign: Palin wasn't the big news story. Her attitude changed, too. Conservatives argued that she was being handled too severely by McCain's advisers and the "Free Sarah Palin!" movement started.

After the debate (watched by an astounding 70 million people) and highly positive reviews on her performance, it appears that a free Sarah Palin is indeed back and exerting her influence on the campaign.

McCain's campaign recently announced they were pulling out of Michigan. Palin volunteered to go to Michigan and campaign on her own. Now, it probably won't happen and her energies will likely be more effective in other states such as Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania. But this is the attitude and energy that was missing from McCain's campaign the last week or so.

Continuing on this theme, Palin also made a statement that Obama was not ready to be commander-in-chief based on his comments on Afghanistan.

Calling Obama "reckless," Palin said that where she comes from Obama's remarks "disqualify someone from consideration for the next commander-in-chief."

"Some of his comments that he's made about the war, that I think, in my world disqualify someone from consideration for the next commander-in-chief," said Palin. "Some of the comments he's made about Afghanistan, what we are doing there, 'just air raiding villages and killing civilians.' That's reckless."

Somehow that comment by Obama had slipped past me.

That comment seems very typical of Obama's style. First, he is calling for more troops in Afghanistan. How does that sit with his anti-war-for-any-reason, Code Pink base? Second, he suggests that the American military is willfully just killing civilians. This is along the same lines of Biden assuming U.S. Marines are guilty of slaughtering civilians in Iraq before a trial. Trials have now acquitted 8 of these 9 Marines of all charges with the last one still awaiting trial.

You just can't hide a distaste this strong. Obama and Biden and many of their supporters have no respect for American military personnel. They don't just disapprove of military actions--they disapprove of the people that carry them out. That is an important distinction. People, in their opinion, become soldiers not out of sense of honor or duty to country, but because they are poor and have no other choices in life. With an attitude like that, I find it unlikely that they will carry states like Virginia where so many veterans reside.

McCain has not called Obama out on this attitude. Perhaps his military background and demeanor prevent him from doing so. But the invigorated Sarah Palin is able to do so and that in the end could have a significant impact on the campaign.