I was intrigued by Sarah Palin's Wallstreet Journal editorial on Obama's healthcare plan--less for its arguments than for its tone and style. She isn't articulating any particularly new insights, but she what she succeeds in doing is nothing short of remarkable in the current political climate.

She herself alludes to it by quoting Obama.

President Barack Obama asked that Americans "talk with one another, and not over one another" as our health-care debate moves forward.

Obama of course, doesn't take his own rhetoric seriously--he speaks the fallacy, but doesn't commit it. Every action and utterance on this issue by the administration is designed to obfuscate, confuse and distract--ram the legislation through before anyone has time to read it, "retool" the message to make it appear to be something other than what it is--anything to prevent the American people from having a real debate about this issue.

I can't blame him really--this country, or any other, doesn't run on rational debate, but cultural instinct. The American culture rejects the leviathan approach to government and no amount of allegedly "rational" debate is going to change that. Just as with questions of race and religion, a generation has to pass away before a new paradigm can take hold. That presumes of course that our culture instincts are wrong, which I have good, rational reasons for believing that they aren't. I've lived in several countries other than this one, and American cultural instincts are distinctly correct in many if not most cases, and where I might quibble that they aren't, I would have to concede that it is probably not possible to change one aspect of the culture to get a specific result, without in turn affecting everything else.

but I digress...

Sarah Palin's super-power is her perfect pitch on the core elements of American culture, but just as Superman can fly AND has X-ray vision, Palin compliments her cultural harmony with an ability to talk about the issues in a clear, concise and remarkably relevant way.

Now look at one way Mr. Obama wants to eliminate inefficiency and waste: He's asked Congress to create an Independent Medicare Advisory Council—an unelected, largely unaccountable group of experts charged with containing Medicare costs. In an interview with the New York Times in April, the president suggested that such a group, working outside of "normal political channels," should guide decisions regarding that "huge driver of cost . . . the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives . . . ."

Given such statements, is it any wonder that many of the sick and elderly are concerned that the Democrats' proposals will ultimately lead to rationing of their health care by—dare I say it—death panels? Establishment voices dismissed that phrase, but it rang true for many Americans. Working through "normal political channels," they made themselves heard, and as a result Congress will likely reject a wrong-headed proposal to authorize end-of-life counseling in this cost-cutting context. But the fact remains that the Democrats' proposals would still empower unelected bureaucrats to make decisions affecting life or death health-care matters. Such government overreaching is what we've come to expect from this administration.

I don't know if she wrote this, and frankly I doubt she did, but it nevertheless reflects her style. This is ho hum when a pundit writes it, but for someone with serious political ambitions, its an incredibly frank statement of reality. That in turn makes it a very powerful statement because its going to get attention that the musings of the pundit class never will.

It will resonate with and boost the morale of the many Americans who agree with her, and force Obama's surrogates to respond. Since they can't respond with commensurate frankness, they find themselves every further back on their heels than they have been.

This quality in Gov. Palin, if its consistent, is--dare I say it?--Reaganesque in character. She has made a remarkable connection with voters, and if she keeps this up, she'll make a personal connection with a lot more of them.

Democrat hit teams are no fools--they recognize the danger Gov. Palin represents and are actively trying to recast her image--ironically as a typical liberal politician! These efforts will intensify. How she deals with this will largely determine her future.

Assuming that she doesn't fumble the ball, Gov. Palin is a potential world-beater. As much as I respect Mitt Romney's Olympian (pun intended) capabilities, he simply lacks the political talent embodied in Sarah Palin. She can learn to be a President, but I don't think Mitt can learn what Sarah knows in her bones.

How this shakes out, I can't say, but I hope they can work together.