Why is Palin raising McCain?

Some people have an extraordinary ability to resist both facts and the lessons of hard experience. What else could explain their stubborn insistence that Sarah Palin can simply be trusted to lead and speak for the grassroots uprising against socialism. This weekend she is in Arizona trying to use her supposed "rock-star" conservative status to rescue John McCain from the wrath of people he has consistently betrayed. On border security, illegal immigration, amnesty for illegals, bankrupt bank bailouts, unfair trade agreements, conservative judicial appointments, the defense of marriage and the unalienable right to life McCain is clearly positioning himself to be the Arlen Specter of the West. He's also the author of campaign finance regulations clearly aimed at freeing incumbents of every stripe from the threat of effective grassroots challenges to their tenure. When he's up for re-election he mouths conservative lyrics. But once that ritual is over with, he marches to the beat of a different and decidedly self-serving drum.

Grassroots people riled at the ongoing destruction of the American way of life may be tempted to put their hope in Sarah Palin. But it makes sense to assume that they're doing it so that she'll be in a better position to save the nation from bankruptcy and the constitution from destruction. It hardly makes sense to think they want her to save one of the most powerful and effective Republican double agents in the ongoing elite subversion of the constitutional republic. Of course, she's only doing it out of respect for the man whose choice of a running mate in the last presidential election gave her the chance to shine in the national limelight. Gratitude is, after all, one of the becoming graces.

One would think, though, that her gratitude to McCain would be outweighed by gratitude to the grassroots folks drawn to her despite his camp's backstabbing attempts to demean her throughout the 2008 campaign; and the prolife and moral conservatives drawn to her despite the inconsistencies in her record on the great issues of moral principle; and the defenders of U.S. sovereignty drawn to her despite her McCain-like support for laxity and a ready path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Her gratitude to them could have impelled her to stay out of the way of their wholly justified efforts to take back the seat of power McCain has abused while serving in their name. Instead she does exactly what one would expect her to do if the whole saga of her rise to prominence were just another effort of the RINO GOP leadership to divert the anger and energy of committed grassroots conservatives behind a leader who will obligingly use the influence that results to benefit the kind of people who made them angry in the first place.

All this would be just another chance to learn from hard experience, but this time the whole fate of the republic is being weighed in the balance. Many people now agree that the 2010 elections are probably the last fair chance to stymie the elite subversion of liberty for which the Obama faction is just the cutting edge. If that's true, the RINO strategy of diversion has to work just one more time. Rather than giving in to blind enthusiasm for any of the leaders who have been served up by the business as usual workings of the existing political process, wouldn't it be wiser to examine their actions with greater than usual wariness. Rather than blame people who counsel caution, and offer analyses that prod us to think things through, wouldn't it be wiser to do so, while there's still time to avoid the pitfall and to seek a true rallying point for what's shaping up to be the decisive stand for our liberty, our sovereignty and our posterity?