This is NOT a photo-op

How many politicians do you know who actually do the work? For whom putting on the gear is NOT a photo-op. Sarah Palin, one in a million. Roger Simon, Politico:

Today, it is hard to see who the next guy in line is, but the party mandarins, the pooh-bahs, are agreed on one thing: Sarah Palin ain’t it.

She is a dumb hick, a nobody from nowhere. She hunts moose with a chainsaw from the back of a snowmobile or something. Just listen to her resignation speech. It was not slick or polished or written by somebody else. She appeared to deliver it off the top of her head as if she were a real person. What a doofus!

Doesn’t she know that the highest form of political communication today is to exactly regurgitate a speech written for you by a speechwriter who has crafted, vetted and polled every phrase, line and word?But listen to Palin. Listen to how “rambling” and “disjointed” she is. Once upon a time in American politics, this was known as being “plain-spoken,” but that time has gone. An entire industry of political consultants has grown up to make sure politicians are never plain-spoken.

Give 'em hell, Sarah!

More. From the Time interview:

What do you think is particularly wrong with what Obama is doing now?
President Obama is growing government outrageously, and it's immoral and it's uneconomic, his plan that he tries to sell America. His plan to "put America on the right track" economically, incurring the debt that our nation is incurring, trillions of dollars that we're passing on to our kids, expecting them to pay off for us, is immoral and doesn't even make economic sense. So his growth of government agenda needs to be ratcheted back, and it's going to take good people who have the guts to stand up to him, stand up to him and debate policy, not personalities, not partisan politics, but policy to effect the change that we need there. And allow free enterprise and the industrious Americans who run our small businesses and want to raise a family, allowing our families to grow and prosper and thrive, Americans who still believe in those ideals to get in there and effect change. I want to work for people who believe in that.

Another view, from Purdum's colleague at VF, Michael Wolff--Palin as a long distance runner, not a train wreck. Fox interview.