Glib dismissals of Gov. Palin's executive record are unfair and unpersuasive: A further response to Paul Mirengoff

A couple of days after John McCain's surprise nomination of Sarah Palin, I wrote a post entitled A plea for patience with sour, conventional conservative pundits who are still getting their minds around the Palin pick. In it, I argued that since Gov. Palin was an unconventional choice, and someone largely unknown to many conservatives, we ought to not rush to condemn those from our own side who expressed reservations. I did plead, however, for them to keep an open mind, and for them to learn about Gov. Palin.

But I'm terribly disappointed in my blogospheric friend Paul Mirengoff at Power Line, who it seems to me has done neither of those things during the intervening week.

Yesterday I took Paul gently to task for insulting both Gov. Palin, whom he compared to an "empty vessel," and the conservatives who are enthused by her, who he accused of anointing Gov. Palin as a "messiah" in the same way that the Democrats have anointed Obama.

Since then, Mr. Mirengoff has delivered another slam. As is generally true of his posts, it's well written. But it is not well-argued. His concluding paragraphs:

It's very difficult to find someone with both extensive executive experience and a background in foreign policy/national security. People like the current vice president don't grow on trees. But we expect one or the other from a nominee for president. Palin lacks either.

That's why those who defend Palin's qualifications typically end up moving to more defensible terrain — the argument that her credentials compare favorably to Obama's. This may constitute an additional reason to vote for McCain, but it's not a defense of McCain's selection of Palin.

For the ten thousandth time, governors almost uniformly have light foreign policy/national security experience. That's equally true of, for example, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. It was true of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. But this argument ignores John McCain's foreign policy/national security experience, and the fact that he's at the top of the ticket, and the fact that he is likely to assemble a group of advisors who share his own values and experience, who would continue to be available to Gov. Palin if she were suddenly thrust into the presidency.

As for executive experience, Mr. Mirengoff gives us a bare conclusion. No argument. No evidence. Just insult. And that's unworthy and unbecoming of a thinker and writer of his demonstrated skill.

I am certainly among those who've pointed out how well Gov. Palin's executive experience and credentials compare favorably to Sen. Obama's. But I've also discussed — at length, starting in June, in most of my 44 prior posts about her  — Gov. Palin's record of accomplishments, beginning as a city councilman and mayor, and then as chair of the Alaska Oil & Gas Conservation Commission, and most recently as Governor of Alaska. At least judging by what he's written in Power Line, by contrast, Mr. Mirengoff hasn't given her performance in any of those jobs any close attention. To the contrary, from everything we can see, he appears to have swallowed — hook, line, and sinker — the memes peddled by Gov. Palin's opponents, partisan and panicked elitists who've trivialized both those jobs and Gov. Palin's performance in them.

Mr. Mirengoff discounts to almost zero Gov. Palin's proven success as a reformer:

We are told that she was a courageous whistle-blower. But whistling-blowing isn’t evidence of leadership skill, administrative ability, or familiarity with vital policy issues. We are told that Palin challenged an incumbent governor and called him out for his corruption. But mounting an insurgent’s campaign for governor isn’t evidence of fitness for the presidency either.

That's unfair, and it badly misses an important point. When politicians are running — as the McCain-Palin ticket clearly is — as reformers, the past success or failure of the ticket's members in actually accomplishing reform is damned sure relevant. In an election in which both sides are stressing change, but only one has even arguably delivered it in the past, that past record may become decisive. When the record includes, as Gov. Palin's does, not only electoral success (throwing the bastards out), but also success once in office (fixing what the bastards screwed up), then one's experience as a reformer becomes genuinely noteworthy.

If Mr. Mirengoff is even aware of Gov. Palin's record as a fiscal conservative — aggressively using a line-item veto to slash hundreds of millions of dollars in pork, and making those vetoes stick even in a time of budget surpluses — he gives no evidence of that in his blogging. If he is aware of even the symbolic moves she's made — selling the previous governor's executive jet, reassigning the executive mansion chef, driving herself to work, all of which are gestures intended to impress on public and public servants alike that a new day has arrived — he gives no evidence of that in his blogging, either. Gov. Palin has deeds, not just words, to prove her fiscal conservatism, but she's also aware of the power of example as a foundation for genuine leadership.

If Mr. Mirengoff has any appreciation of the difficulty in leading a reluctant legislature — which comprises both a large number of Democrats (partisan opponents) and upset old-guard Republicans (allies of the good old boys whom she displaced) — again, his writing shows no evidence of that. Gov. Palin kept her campaign promise to restructure the state severance tax on oil and gas production (which, contrary to some reports, is not a "windfall profits tax") through an open-door process of negotiations and resulting legislation, instead of a close-door sweetheart deal — thereby restoring public confidence that those taxes have been fairly arrived at. Albeit on a state-wide stage instead of a national one, Gov. Palin's restructuring of this tax that is so critical to the entire state budget was no less impressive an accomplishment than the Reagan or Bush-43 tax cuts early in each of their first terms.

And Gov. Palin has also undertaken, and succeeded in mastering, the most important and most difficult governmental challenge in Alaska, one that has deadlocked Alaska's government for years: She led an open bidding process to get underway a desperately needed cross-state natural gas pipeline. Tens of billions of dollars are at stake, as are cheap and reliable energy for Alaska's own citizens and a major accomplishment in supplying Alaskan natural gas to the lower 48 states to reduce dependence on foreign supplies of fossil fuels. But Gov. Palin not only broke the preexisting deadlock, she broke the monopoly hold of ExxonMobil, ConocoPhilips, and BP on the state's energy industry. She once again forged a bipartisan consensus with the legislature — using every tool in a governor's arsenal, including special sessions — with the result that a contract has been negotiated and signed.

Finally spurred by effective competition, the disgruntled oil giants who previously ruled the roost are now exploring their own alternative pipeline that would not rely on even partial public funding.  There is no chance that would have happened in the business-as-usual atmosphere that Gov. Palin successfully reformed. But Mr. Mirengoff is either unaware or unappreciative of how Gov. Palin — without engaging in class warfare, without demonizing anyone, and indeed while freely admitting that oil executives are just "doing their jobs" as they seek to maximize their profits — has nevertheless broken her state free of the grasp of these corporate giants, and bestirred them into action that may ultimate work to both their and the public's benefit.

If Gov. Pawlenty, or any other state governor of either party and any length of tenure, has yet done as much as Gov. Palin has to address the national energy crisis, I'm certainly unaware of that.

Paul, my friend, until you have paid attention to her actual record — which requires something other than looking at the names of the jobs she's held and counting the months she's held those jobs — you're embarrassing yourself by displaying your ignorance. You're doing reckless damage to the McCain-Palin ticket. And you're short-changing a governor of short tenure but disproportionate accomplishments.

If Gov. Palin were at the very beginning of her term, then one might disregard her approval ratings as being not very meaningful, as reflective of her campaign skills instead of her governing skills. But she's not at the beginning of her term, she's midway through it — and she still has those sky-high ratings. Is everyone in Alaska who's thrilled with Gov. Palin's performance just stupid? Or do they perhaps know things that Paul Mirengoff hasn't yet bothered to look into, or short-sightedly discounts?

Paul, I implore you to re-think. Not just to argue back at me in another post, because I'm sure you're a plenty-capable advocate, and my rebuke in this post might sting a lesser man into a reflexive counterattack. But look, or look again, at her actual accomplishments, starting with her terms as mayor and then moving forward to the present. And then give us your better-informed opinion of Gov. Palin's record as an executive. If you conclude that all the voters who've elected and re-elected her have somehow been duped, you can explain how and why. Perhaps then you'll end up persuading me.

Or perhaps we'll find ourselves in agreement after all.