"Anytime you approach a task with fear you are at least a double loser. First, you color the work with fear and increase the chances of failure. Confidence and composure trump fear every time. Second, you guarantee that you won't enjoy the experience. Whether you succeed or fail, wouldn't you like to remember the experience as one you enjoyed, not one you suffered through?....[R]emember Rule #1. Don't let fear undermine your chance to do that one thing you've wanted to do. Rule #1 touches every other rule. Take a second and smile. Enjoy the trip."
     From "Rules of Thumb," by Alan M. Webber

Pro-Life Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin

When pro-life Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin announced she would be leaving office later this month--with over a year remaining on her first term--the operative word of the moment for commentators was "shocked." The operative word after that first hour was vituperation. And it's gone downhill from there.

Like you, I am not privy to Gov. Palin's plans. Like most of you, I admire Sen. McCain's 2008 running mate for a dozen different reasons. And like all of you, I am in awe of her courage, compassion, and sheer toughness.

Everybody has their pet theory why the Media Elite (and its comrades-in-arms the pro-abortion leadership of the Democratic Party) loathe Gov. Palin so.

Some say it's because she is the most charismatic Republican to come down the pike in a long, long time. Thus, the need to assassinate her character in order to weaken her.

Others say it's because Palin is a mortal threat to an all-consuming orthodoxy that brooks no dissent–-that is, who is allowed to be considered a genuine "female politician." The pro-abortion matrix comprised of the aging feminist apparatus and kindred souls in the Democratic Party and the "mainstream media" have decreed what kind of woman will be allowed to campaign for national office.

It most definitely does not include a woman who did not attend the "best schools," whose values are closer to the average American's than that of 99.9% of her critics, and surely not a woman who refused to abort her baby when she discovered he would have Down syndrome, let alone refused to hide her unmarried teenage daughter when she became pregnant.

The hypocrisy is so thick that even as commentators continue to sharpen their pick axes, occasionally they've grudgingly conceded that just maybe there had been just a touch of the "politics of personal destruction." You think?

As I mentioned to my wife this morning (for the umpteenth time), I know a lot of very, very tough people, the kind whose life experiences have been so demanding that I am overwhelmed just thinking about what they went through. But I honestly don't know that any of them could have withstood the kind of onslaught Palin and her family have been subjected to with their sanity intact.

When it comes to how the media treated (first) candidate Barack Obama and (now) President Obama, I will not belabor the obvious discrepancy. ...Okay, let me belabor it just a bit.

Bob Beckel ran Walter Mondale's galactically unsuccessful 1984 presidential campaign and is now a commentator on Fox News. He is no fan of Palin--far from it-- but admitted this morning that if comedian David Letterman had gone after a female Democratic candidate in the gutter-level manner he'd ridiculed the Palin family, he'd be looking for work.

But it goes beyond the unrelenting personal ugliness. The same jackals who went after Palin through the 2008 campaign have insisted that Palin played the "victim" card at her press conference. Only in the newsroom of America's media elite could anyone be that two-faced and not die of embarrassment.

You deride, mock, vilify, and demean not just Palin, but her husband, her children, and her grandchild, and then if Palin says "boo," she is "whining" and filled with "self-pity." You verbally tear her limb from limb and then announce that her "behavior" (leaving office) reflects badly on other "female politicians." Wouldn't a more objective source say it more clearly reflects badly on the wretched opinion-making set than it does on Palin?

These remarks wouldn't be complete if I did not at least mention that the word "petty" (not to mention double standard) just cannot do justice to the trivia the media uses to bash Palin. If I had a dollar for every time they made sport of Palin for not sounding verbally adroit--or for misspelling a word on Facebook--I could make a serious dent in our trillion dollar national debt.

At the time they are trouncing Palin, Obama cannot utter two coherent sentences in a row without a Teleprompter. He visited Austria and referred to the non-existent "Austrian language." Standing in front of the Mexican ambassador Obama referred to "Cinco de Cuatro" (which in Spanish means "four of five") when he meant the fifth of May ("Cinco de Mayo"). That's just for starters.

Obama is a non-stop gaffe machine whose verbal malfeasance makes you grimace and want to put your hands over your ears. But because he is "cool," Obama rarely, if ever, gets called on it--and never with the kind of viciousness that is S.O.P. for [mis]treating Palin. Kid gloves for Obama, sledgehammers for Palin.

I began this edition of TN&V with a quote from a thoughtful book by Alan M. Webber. It's, of course, easy for me to quote advice about not allowing fear (or discouragement) to get in the way of attaining what you want most. I'm not the one on the receiving end of this ceaseless stream of cruelty.

And for that matter, Gov. Palin has demonstrated that she is tougher than nails, and thus doesn't need such (unsolicited) advice from the likes of me. But there is it anyway.

I would just add that there are countless millions of Americans, like me, who admire you more than words can convey. In the words of the immortal Howard Cosell, your critics are firing spitballs at a battleship. You are a preeminent example of grace under fire.

Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com