Channeled Rage

Even though I was in the middle of an intense ICC 10 raid last night, I still managed to watch Sarah Palin's speech to the Iowa GOP and Sen. Lisa Murkowski's announcement of a write-in campaign. One of them lifted me up, and one of them made be so angry that we took out two bosses I'd never been able to defeat before.

Sarah Palin's speech started out fast-paced. I think she was a little nervous because she'd drawn record numbers to the dinner and it was being carried by C-Span and Fox News. But she slowed down halfway into the speech, making a clear case for the cause of conservatism and the need to win in 2010 (candidly talking about ducking 2012 questions, natch!). She called for unity in the GOP, reminding us all that the primaries were over and we needed to back our candidates.

After her speech, interestingly, her mike was kept hot as she walked off the platform to the back hallway to make her exit. Even though you couldn't see what was going on, Palin was mobbed by media and well-wishers. She handled both gracefully, posing for pictures, signing items, and accepted a tape someone gave her, all while fielding questions from the media she'd just ripped a gaping hole in for not exercising their military-protected right wisely. Palin came off well, demonstrating fantastically Reagan's "happy warriors" of conservatism.

I wish I could say the same for Lisa Murkowski. After the "independents" (more on one of those later) came out and asked her to run, she went on for 20 minutes in a pathetic ego-fest. She threw her family aside, saying it would have been easy to bow out and spend time with them, but she looked in her heart and decided to run anyway. She invoked the ghost of Ted Stevens, essentially saying that Ted would want her to run. She condescended to the voters, saying she was going to educate them on how to spell her name after her family has spent decades in the Alaskan spotlight. She outright lied, saying Alaskans need a "senior Senator" to bring home the federal dollars (which is somehow not pork, by the way), when it's unlikely she'll keep her position in leadership and ranking member on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. She admitted that she was breaking her own pledge that she would abide by the primary results, but supposedly that was because Joe Miller ran a "smear campaign." In other words, his shoestring budget did the unthinkable and told the truth.

But that's not what made me channel my rage into Festergut and Rotface. It was one of the people who preceded Murkowski and implored her to run. I'd like to address her below:

Dear Katie,

I'm not even sure if this is your name or not, because when I asked the people who were watching this rally with me to double-check, they told me that your name is Katie and you hadn't specified a last name. If you did this to retain anonymity, you should have realized that as a person contacted by Murkowski's campaign to speak on national television, you opened yourself up to public scrutiny.

You began by stating that you were a military spouse without identifying the branch or unit your husband served in. You said that you had come to Alaska in 1996 and you now considered Alaska home. First of all, in order to be a "military family" that had stayed in one place for 14 years, your husband would have had to get out of active duty and enlist in the Alaska National Guard. Alaska is considered an overseas assignment, and to even get back-to-back 4-year tours there would be rare, much less a 14-year assignment. The National Guard being what it is, in general, spouses specify that their significant other is in the National Guard. In fact, almost every military spouse I've met proudly identifies what branch their spouse serves in. (Go Air Force!) So, this leads me to believe that your husband did not re-enlist, retired, or, heaven forbid, was kicked out. This means you are no longer a "military family." You may think of yourself as such, but the label no longer applies. It does not lend any credibility to your endorsement of Lisa Murkowski's quixotic write-in campaign when your self-identification is in question.

Then you proceeded to say that you spoke for all military families in endorsing Murkowski. The military does not endorse candidates, and cannot ever been seen as doing so. They have regulations making it very clear that military members are not to run for office or publicly use their military status to endorse a candidate. If a military spouse endorses a candidate, they must make it very, very clear that they are doing so as a personal decision.

You do not speak for me. Where do you get the authority to speak for all military families? What organization do you head that has the backing of the families of over two million military members? I take offense at anyone saying that they are speaking for all military families, especially when they're endorsing a power-hungry lying vindictive politician like Lisa Murkowski. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Your husband did not serve so you could use his service to promote a career politician. Your husband served so that you could state your endorsement of this spoiled brat as an American.

Sincerely,

An Air Force Wife