The Daily Intelligencer from Doylestown, Pennsylvania • Page 39

www.intelligenceronline.com To Place a Classified Ad Call 1-866-938-3010 The Intelligencer Sunday, November 22, 2009 E5 Sarah Palin and the future of conservatism I 'm sure I would like Sarah Palin if I got the chance to meet her. We share many things in common. She is still married to her first spouse, as I am. She has a Down syndrome son. I have a brother with Down syndrome.

We share the same faith, and we both like the outdoors. She is on economic and social issues, and so am I. In her new book, "Going Rogue," Palin complains about her running mate's handlers, whom she says kept her from being herself I have similar complaints. Those handlers also kept me from interviewing her. The handlers are long gone, of course, but still I cannot get close to her.

I could either play the victim or move on. I choose to move on. But before I do, the Palin phenomenon for that is what it is because her celebrity flows singularly from John McCain's choice of her as a running mate offers an opportunity for conservatives to choose their path to the future. Will it be a path of the angry and disenfranchised outsider, or will it be something of substance that produces triumphs in both politics and policy? The victim thing is getting old. Conservatives have a significant presence in virtually every venue they like to denounce.

That includes government (though not this one) and especially the media. Talk radio rules, and the rulers are conservatives. Fox News Channel dominates the ratings. The conservative presence in academia lags, but there arc universities that do not revise American history and mock religious values. Movies? Cal Thomas Commentai'y There are some with solid conservative principles, such as Sandra Bullock's latest film, "The Blind Side." Will conservatives go see it, or are they more comfortable denouncing How about reinforcements for those conservatives already "making it" in the mainstream media? In her interview with Oprah Winfrey, the queen of talk asked the queen of politics about the famous Katie Couric interview.

I thought Couric gave her ample opportunity to reveal herself and to let viewers see if there was substance behind Palin's attrac- tive exterior. Couric legitimately tried to find out what shapes Palin's worldview and what she reads. Palin couldn't name a single publication. Oprah gave her another chance, but she never followed up to ask about books or a newspaper from which she gets information, ideas and inspiration. It is true that conservatives are often asked questions that are never asked of liberals and in ways that seem condescending and superficial.

But that is an opportunity to give an answer that can skewer the questioner while making the point you wish to make. Do I wish Palin had more intellectual depth like Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ronald Reagan's United Nations U.S. ambassador? Of course. But that can be developed if she gets serious about it. Because of her notoriety, she can surely command the best and the brightest tutors.

Still, if she is as bad as her detractors say, why are they wasting so much time dumping on her? One might think they would be cheering the prospect of her becoming the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, thus guaranteeing in their mind a second term for President Obama. Victimization plays well with the consen'ative base, and that's a problem. If conservatives don't rise from the muck of feeling excluded, disrespected, ignored and mocked, they will continue to suffer all of these things. There is nothing like proving the worth of your ideas to put the mockers in their place. Victimization can raise money, sell books and get one face time on TV, but it doesn't advance the ball.

Sarah Palin is a force the Republican establishment must reckon with. She has energized a sizable portion of the GOP base. If the party ignores that base and nominates another candidate in 2012 who is'part of the inside- the-Beltway crowd, it could lose. And that would be a double tragedy, for the GOP and the countrj', as President Obama keeps giving Republicans issues that make a conservative agenda far more attractive than the hard-left one he is attempting to impose on the country. Palin's optimism is refreshing.

If she can sharpen her intellect, in three years she won't be mocked; she will be feared. Cal Tliomas is a colunntist for Tribune Media Services Inc. His column appears on Thursdays and Sundays. Leave e-mail at Palin is sti for political prime time ASHINGTON "Don't you say anything bad about Sarah Palin," admonished one of my sisters. "We love her.

Be nice to her." "What is this infatuation about Sarah Palin all about?" said another sibling. "I can't understand it. She has no real solutions. All she does is criticize and look hot." This love-hate relationship we have with Palin says more about us than it does about her. As thousands line up to buy the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate's book, they sport "Palin in 2012" T-shiris and vow undying affection for her.

The airwaves are saturated with speculation about the motivations and political future of the former Alaska governor. She even overshadowed the debate on health care insurance as she got back into her trademark uniform black skirt, high heels and red jacket to sign copies of her ghost-written book, "Going Rogue." Martinet aides controlled the crowds, who obediendy stood in line for hours, pushed books at her for signing and gushed like excited schoolchildren when in front of her. Her most avid supporters seem unable to articulate why they are fans. Several told MSNBC they admire her devotion to the Constitution but could not explain how that distinguishes her from other politicians. They adore her eagerness for candor but can't explain why she frequently changes her mind on such things as federal bailouts and bridges to nowhere.

They tell her "Right on!" Ann McFeatters White House Watch when she defends profiling members of a class or ethnic background, even while touting the virtues of political correctness when it comes to Newsweek's inexplicable decision to put a sexy picture of her wearing shorts on its cover. On the other hand, the negativity against her is also puzzling. She has no political podium at the moment. She is making oodles of boodle giving speeches and hawking a book with factual errors, but that's certainly also been done often enough by many others. Even ardent conservatives say her base is too small ever to give her the presidency should she seek it.

Nonetheless, her naysayers get visceral. It seems to me there are several reasons for the reaction to Palin. She is a beautiful populist at a time when government seems to have failed us. We yearn for somebody new, preferably a maverick, to come in from the cold and fix things in Washington. And she is adept at voicing our anger at how badly so many institutions are serving us right now.

But there is a great deal of disappointment with Palin. She seemed to come from nowhere last year, with her beauty-pageant good looks and ing style and John McCain's trust. But she flamed out badly when given a once-in-a-lifetiine opportunity. Many who were ready to support her, including women excited about her gender, still resent her inadequacies and propensity for attacking without regard for truth. When the going got tough, she quit the governor's job in Alaska.

In her book, she blames everybody else for the 2008 defeat. Intellectually, she was not ready for prime time, and she still isn't. But she won't admit it. We have seen this past year that being president is an even more overwhelming job than we thought. She is not qualified to be president, but instead of trying to rectify that by preparing and developing gravitas and well-thought-out policies, she complains about past treatment.

She speaks in catchy sound bites but doesn't seem to care about serious policy and won't do the hard work of mastering it. What she is doing, and doing brillianily, is being a celebrity and making money. And, let's be honest: If she weren't attractive and pleasant as well as providing quips that delight journalists, and if there were other exciting Republicans in view, she would be largely yesterday. Palin's story is an only-in- America talc. We admire beauty and youth and celebrity and insouciance.

But all those fade, and then we forget. In the end, we admire competence and substance and hard work and perseverance. Scripps Howard colunmisi Ann McFeatters has covered the White House and national politics since 1986. Send e-tnail to Vehicle fuel efficiency up slightly in 2008 WASHINGTON (AP) The fleet of new cars and trucks sold to U.S. consumers averaged 21 miles per gallon in the 2008 model year, a modest increase over the previous year, the Environmental Protection Agency reported Friday.

New vehicle fuel efficiency improved 2 percent in 2008 from 20.6 mpg for the 2007 model year. The government projected it will improve slightly to 21.1 HpnaipMHHHMi mpg in the 2009 model year. The EPA figures are based on real- world estimates for city and highway mileage found on window Slickers at dealer showrooms instead of mileage values developed through laboratory testing. Honda Motor Co. led the industry in 2008 with 23.9 mpg, followed by Hyundai Motor Co.

and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp. with 23.7 mpg, and Toyota Motor Corp. with 22.8 mpg. Volkswagen AG's fleet averaged 22.3 mpg, followed by Nissan Motor Co. with 21.9 and BMW AG with 21.2.

General Motors Co. led U.S. automakers with 19.7 mpg, followed by Ford Motor Co. with 19.4 and Chrysler Group LLC with 19.3. The EPA projects Ford will increase its fuel efficiency by more than 1 mpg in the 2009 model year and overtake GM.

Earthweek: A Diary of the Planet By Steve Newman Postwar Deformities Doctors in tiie Iraqi city of Faliujaii are calling attention to a spike in birth deformities, which are up to 15 times higher than before the American invasion in 2003. The city was also the site of a fierce campaign to oust militants two years later. Some doctors say that depleted uranium used in artillery is the likely cause. A group of British and Iraqi medical experts alerted the U.N. last month of the upswing in birth deformities.

They saidthat 24 percent of children born at'the city's general hospital in September died within seven days. Three-quarters of them had deformities such as two heads, no head, a single eye or missing limbs. During August 2002, only one of 530 children born there died, and only one had deformities. The group urges that toxic materials used by occupying forces be cleaned up, including the depleted uranium and white phosphorus. Ozone Hole Alert Authorities in the southern Chilean outpost of Punta Arenas issued a five-day alert for dangerously high levels of UV solar radiation passing through the Antarctic ozone hole.

The Ozone Laboratory at the University of Magallanes said that the progressively higher sun angles as summer approaches and a peak in ozone depletion passing over the southern tip of South America would combine to create the danger. People were advised to limit exposure to the sun, use sunscreen and wear protective sunglasses while outdoors. The stratospheric ozone hole over Antarctica has recently developed an elongated shape, allowing its edges to pass over populated areas of southern Chile and Argentina as it spins and undulates. Crash Landings Wildlife experts on New 71 Zealand's South Island fit St scratched their heads when they heard reports of migratory birds crashing onto roads and smashing into buildings. Park Ranger Mike Morrissey on the Kaikoura Coa.st, near Christchurch, said it was soon discovered that the Hutton's shearwaters were being confused by bright lights.

"It varies a lot. We've had up to 50 odd in one night," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Experts say thepiice- rural area is being developed with new buildings and more bright lights, causing confusion for the birds. When roads becoine wet and lights shine on them, the birds mis- lake the pavement for a pond or bay. Morrissey says most of the birds are fortunately only stunned or knocked out by the crash landings.

But they need a steep cliff or watery surface to take off. Residents are being urged to take the stunned birds to the coast and launch them over the water. Tropical Cyclones Cyclone Anja became the season's first named stomi in the western Indian Ocean and quickly intensified to Category 4 force. But it weakened even more quickly as it encountered cooler waters to the south. Outer bands of Anja brought gales and heavy rainfall to Rodrigues Island, about 100 miles to the west of the storm's center.

Earthquakes A moderate tremor centered near the coast of western India's rashtra state caused residents to flee buildings as walls cracked, many as 39 hoines suffered heavy damage as the shaking was felt as far awav as Mumbai. Earth movements were also fell in central New Zealand, Albania, northern Chile, Costa Rica, western British Columbia and Southern California's Mqjave Desert. Drought Migration The worst drought in Somalia in a decade and other hardships have killed large numbers of livestock and forced a mass migration of fanners into llic area around the port of Berbera. The drought was followed by rains that caused deaths due to disease and flooding. The refugees join a large population of urban poor that lost their iuiimals years ago and took refjige in relatively peaceful Somaliland, a breakaway section of Somalia.

Simian Justice Police in the Indian state of Orissa iire responding to complaints of domestic violence that have been filed by concerned villagers on behalf of a female monkey and her newborn. Asian News International reports that residents near Bhubaneshwar coinplained to authorities that the male monkey, called Raja, had been consistently trying to attack the female monkey, Jhumri, and its child, Astaranga. Police say the aggressive primate had already allegedly killed one infant of its species and was now taking aim on Astaranga. The authorities say that if captured. Raja will be prosecuted under three sections of the Indian Penal Code that deal with kidnapping, abduction for slavery and criminal intimidation by anonymous communication.

There was no mention of what sentence Raja could face if convicted. Itislrihtitfil hy: (Jniver.sal Uclick Eanli limirimm'nt Service The Thanksgiving lady and the Philadelphia connection hiladelphia has more than its share of holiday connections: The Fourth of July, Flag Day and Mother's Day were all born in the City of Brotherly Love. How about Thanksgiving? What? Impossible! What connection does the quintessential New England holiday of Pilgrims, turkeys and pumpkin pie have with Philly, other than perhaps the fact that Gimbels created the first Thanksgiving Day parade here in 1920, four years before Macy's? The answer is more than you think, and all because of the tireless efforts of an extraordinary woman whose name ought to be much more famous than it is. Sarah Josepha Hale was arguably the most influential American woman of the 19th century. As the editor of the Philadelphia- based publication, Godcy's Ladies Book, Mrs.

Hale was that era's ultimate arbiter of taste, style and etiquette the Victorian version of Oprah Winfrey, Martha Stewart and Rachel Ray all rolled into one. Born in New Hampshire in 1788, Sarah Josepha Hale ended up becoming a person of consequence out of necessity. She found herself widowed with five children in 1822. With the financial help of her late husband's Freemason lodge brothers, she was able to self-publish a book of poems called "The Genius of Oblivion," and, later, a collection of verse Poems for Our Children that included one called "Mary Had a Litde Lamb." She also wrote a novel called "Northwood: A Tale of New England," in which one of the characters laments: "We have too few holidays. Thanksgiving, like the Daniel Deagler Guest Columnist Sarah Fourth of July, should be considered a national festival and observed by all our people as an exponent of our Republican institutions." The success of these literary endeavors inspired the Rev.

John Blake to offer Mrs. Hale the editorship (she preferred the term of his Boston-based Ladies Magazine, a job she held from 1828 to 1836. Louis A. Godey, a rival publisher in Philadelphia who had his own magazine, Godey's Ladies Book, coveted SJH the way George Steinbrenncr now covets Cliff Lee and ended up buying the Boston Ladies Book, first renaming it American Ladies Magazine but quickly merging it into his own monthly. Godey allowed Mrs.

Hale to edit the combined magazine from Boston until her son graduated Hale from Haivard. She then moved to Philadelphia. It is not what Sarah Josepha Hale found in Philadelphia that inspired her life's great quest, but what she didn't find. She didn't find Thanksgiving. New Englanders loved their Thanksgiving, and for good reason.

When Sarah wrote, "We have too few holidays," she wasn't kidding. Puritan New Englanders of her era had exacdy three: Washington's Birthday, the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving." They certainly didn't celebrate Christmas, which they considered to be a abominadon. The holiday that became Thanksgiving evolved in New England in the late 17th century as a sort of acceptable Puritan substitute for Christmas, combining elements of that hoUday family celebration, big dinner with customs remembered from the old English auiutiin festival Harvest Home, as well as generous dollops of the Pilgrim cookout with the Wampanoag Indians at Plymouth in 1621 blended with the separate, prayerful "thanksgiving" called for by Gov Bradford in 1623. Thanksgiving had already existed in New England in much the same form for about 150 years by the time Sarah used a iwo-prong attack to promote a nationally observed holiday First, she utilized the power of her magazine. The November issue of Godey's, year in year out, was filled with stories, recipes, engravings, illustrations, poems, decorating ideas and advice on how to plan for the perfect Thanksgiving.

Sarah created in American women a desire they didn't know they had. Second, she embarked on a 17- year letter-writing campaign to U.S. governors and five American presidents. She finally succeeded with Abraham Lincoln in 1863, when their interests intersected. National unity was very much on the president's mind in 1863, the year of Gettysburg, and a national annual day of thanksgiving that Lincoln called for was a means to that end.

In addition to giving us Thanksgiving and "iWary Had a Little Lamb," Sarah Josepha Hale was a prim.e mover in the building of the Bunker Hill Monument in Boston and in the preservation of George Washington's Mount Vernon estate. She died at her home in Philadelphia in 1879 at the age of 90 and is buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery on Ridge Avenue. This week, maybe we could save a little thanks for the incredible lady who gave us Thanksgiving. Daniel Deagler is a resident of Plumstead Township..