Is Sarah Palin Ready for the Big Stage?

Camilia Paglia takes on that question from a reader:

Good question! And very timely after Palin's shock resignation as governor of Alaska this past Fourth of July weekend. I assume that family priorities -- personal as well as financial -- had become all-consuming. Given her success with finalizing the massive Alaska pipeline project, I think Palin should have stuck it out, but of course she is master of her own fate. What certainly was blameworthy was the chaotic and rushed statement itself. Something so politically consequential needed more careful composition and rehearsal. Why provide more fodder for the vultures and harpies of the Northeastern media?

Unfortunately, it's pretty obvious that Palin still lacks that cadre of trusted pros who are the invisible elves behind every successful national politician -- the assistants who gather and vet material and who filter proposals and plan logistics. In a way, this is part of her virtues -- her complete freedom from routine micromanagement and business as usual. She does her own thing with seat-of-the-pants gusto. It's why she remains hugely popular with the Republican grass-roots base -- as I know from listening to talk radio. Callers coming fresh from her rallies are always heady with infectious enthusiasm.

Of course you'd never know that from reading hit jobs like Todd Purdum's sepulchral piece on Palin in the current Vanity Fair. Scurrying around Alaska with his notepad, Purdum still managed to find comically little to indict her with. Anyone with a gripe is given the floor; fans are shut out. This exercise in faux objectivity is exposed at key points such as Purdum's failure to identify the actual instigator of Palin's extravagant clothing bills (a crazed, credit-card-abusing stylist appointed by the McCain campaign) and his prissy characterization of Palin's performance at the vice-presidential debate as merely "adequate." Hey, wake up -- Palin cleaned Biden's clock! By the end, Biden was sighing and itching to split.

Whether Palin has a national future or not will depend on her willingness to hit the books at some point and absorb more information about international history and politics than she has needed to know in her role as governor. She also needs a shrewder, cooler take on the mainstream media, with its preening bullies, cackling witches, twisted cynics and pompous windbags. The Northeastern media establishment is in decline, and everyone knows it. Palin should not have gotten into a slanging match with David Letterman or anyone else who has been obsessively defaming her or her family. Let surrogates do that stuff.

The vicious double standard is pretty obvious. Only the tabloids, for example, ran the photos of a piss-drunk Chelsea Clinton, panties exposed, falling into her car outside London clubs a few years ago. If Chelsea had been the scion of Republican bigwigs, those tacky scenes would have been trumpeted from pillar to post in the U.S. as signals of parental failures or turmoil in clan Clinton. As a Democrat, I detest the partisan machinations that have become standard in Northeastern news management and that are detectable in editorial decisions at major metropolitan newspapers nationwide. It's why I, like a host of others, have shifted my news gathering to the Web.

It's pretty rare to hear that quality of analysis from a Democrat. Well reasoned, and absolutely right on the money. Palin would be wise to pay attention.

In between Michael Jackson coverage yesterday CNN managed to slip in 4 or 5 minutes of real news, including a brief discussion about Palin with Mary Matalin and former Clinton aide Paul Begala. All Begala could do is spit, fume and try to think of how many ways he could call Palin deranged. There was nothing thoughtful about his analysis, and I guess that's why he fits in so neatly at CNN.

Palin can be a force in the GOP, and could even be a president candidate of the future.

But not 2012.

She's nowhere near where she needs to be to be ready to take on an incumbent president, no matter how badly he's performed. People initially counted Reagan out against Carter, but Reagan showed he was ready for the job. Palin has work to do to get to that point.

But she can do it if she wants to.