The history of WF Buckley and his conservative proteges is a fascinating one, and much of it precedes my time. Joseph Sobran was my favorite syndicated columnist back in the day, but he flaked out by denying the Holocaust and was fired by National Review in the 1990's. He was also the first conservative to make a really arresting, non-Republican argument that came to my attention. He asked, at the outset of Gulf War I, how much would you *personally* sacrifice to liberate Kuwait? Maybe twenty bucks? Certainly not life and limb. And, if not, why sacrifice someone else's life and limb, even as a volunteer? Hmmm. That got me thinking.

As far as George Will, Peggy Noonan, and the rest of Palin's critics are concerned, I really couldn't care less.

Here is what I think is happening, big picture, to conservatism. First, the end of the Cold War ended right/left ideology in foreign policy. Today it's all about competence.(Unfortunately, Bush/Rumsfeld didn't have much).

Domestically, we allowed the old people to take more than they deserved under various programs, because the AARP could out-vote the young. We didn't pay for it up front because it was easier for incumbents to borrow. For all kinds of reasons, we also developed a society which became increasingly dependent on government, and is way too far in debt on a personal basis. That over-leveraged group now seeks to "tax the rich" not only to pay for it all, but to hand out rebates (the Obama plan) to boot.

Why would any *true* conservative survey the scene above, and get mad at . . . Sarah Palin? It's ridiculous.

One final word, about the economic mess. What we are seeing here is a lot like a late 19th century unregulated commodoties market. People used to go boom and bust through incredible swings in the ag markets. We're seeing something similar right now, as housing market fluctuations and churnings in the mortgage markets ripple through the economy.

You could say ah, Sarah is hopelessly *unsophisticated* because she simply calls for more small government and pro-business policies, as if they would solve our problems. Actually, yes. Re-regulation can soften the blows of the next boom and bust, but to continue the ag analogy, government does not put seed in the ground or grow it. The private sector does that. And more taxing and regulation will actually cause less growth - however *smoothed* out it may be. So, I can live with new regulations on Wall Street, but the smartest economic thinker on the campaign trail right now is Sarah Palin. Because she understands - and maybe it's only intuitively, not because she's a deep reader :) - that the business of America is still business. Was a conservative who said that, wasn't it? :)

Hey, I'm not trying to engage you very often because I know how you feel about my posts.

But briefly, I researched the rape kit story tonight and found an Anchorage paper quoting the Palin campaign as saying she never has, and never did, support a policy of charging the rape victims. Evidently, there was such a policy in Wasilla by the police department, so Palin is stating I guess that she was not aware of it. Incidentally, the story I read tonight (from Sept. 2008) was consistent with my recollection of what I read when the story first broke - no direct connection to Palin, and thus kind of tough to analyze in terms of what it means.

Now, insofar as this has emerged in today's discussion as the central piece in the case against Sarah, I think I can fairly ask what evidence exists to contravene her statement above. Are people just assuming that she *must* have known what the cops were doing? Is there additional basis for such an assumption?

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As far as the rally is concerned, I just thought I would mention it since we're all here talking about Sarah again. I don't think it resembled a Nazi affair at all. I mentioned in some other posts the Limbaugh/Hannity tactic of goosing people constantly with fear of voter fraud, and other bugaboos. There was none of that in Palin's presentation. It was a very straightforward, Calvin Coolidge, less is more approach to taxing and spending, along with a nod to pro-life sentiment with a couple of references to the culture of life in connection with special needs children.

I'm only commenting on the crowd because it adds some color to the post and I am working out my covert envy of professional journalists who get to describe such things for a living. The crowd's health and skinniness does have a political implication, though. These Palin folks are simply people who are not waiting around for the government to gauge somebody and give them a rebate check. It's a self esteem thing. I'm sure if you drove down the highway to one of Indiana's riverboat casinos, you would find some overweight, sickly smokers who can't wait to get that rebate check and play some more slots. After, of course, they cast their vote for Obama.