Brianus Berkleianus: First Annual Sarah Palin Day

In a post last Monday, I discussed the efforts of C4P reader and friend, Brianus Berkleianus, to promote the celebration of the anniversary of Governor Palin’s auspicious debut on the national political stage. Today, the actual anniversary of that momentous day, Brianus left an impassioned and heartfelt comment in the open thread. Sarah Palin Day would not be, well, Sarah Palin Day without input from Brianus. It was, after all, his idea. And now, with his permission, I am posting his comments below in total:

FIRST ANNUAL SARAH PALIN DAY (and Happy Twenty-First Anniversary, Todd and Sarah!)

Dear Friends of Sarah,

At the stroke of midnight, I made a $29 contribution to SarahPac, in honor of the day, 29 August, 2008, that REAL hope was born for America. I know that many of us have contributed greater sums to Sarah in the past; still, I invite all my friends at C4P to make a $29 contribution to her PAC on this glorious 29th. Here follows a brief attempt to capture, in the supple nets of our English tongue, some of what I feel about Sarah from Alaska, and what I remember from those fateful hours last year. My experiences were somewhat different from those of the privileged souls who shared the night of the 28th/29th on Adam Brickley's great site. I only discovered Adam's site after the 29th! God bless you all! (and I shall be celebrating the day with a goodly bottle of merlot: red wine for our Red-State Lady!)

Let us all consider where we stood as a nation on 28 August, 2008. Barack Hussein Obama had just delivered his acceptance address in Denver to the adoring accolades of a sycophantic and, yes, traitorous national media. The sounder, saner part of America, with open eyes, was well aware that, lurking behind the screen and smoke of the "anointed one's" pompous rhetorical flourish, stood a program, nay an entire philosophy, that was the antithesis of what the United States of America stands for. But, what could we do? Did John McCain stand any chance of derailing the thundering juggernaut of Obama's DC express? Hardly!!

We knew, with our minds and in our guts, that we opposed, nay more, loathed everything Obama represented and advocated. However, his success seemed both preordained and inevitable. This is, indeed, what our enemies intended. In a perfect Orwellian convolution of language and concepts, the mantra of "hope" that was the standard and banner of Obama's campaign was calculated, with lethal precision, to, in fact, engender hopelessness and despair in that part of the American people who still "clung bitterly" to our Constitution and our traditions. So the dark night of 28 August passed into the cold and seemingly cheerless dawn of that fateful day for our country, 29 August, 2008.

At about 5:30am Pacific Time, as I recall, Fox News posted the announcement that Senator McCain had chosen the Governor of Alaska, the Honorable Sarah Palin, as his vice-presidential running mate. I know that a true thrill, not the puerile tickling that has made a certain Christopher Matthews notorious for all time, but a true thrill, ran up, not my leg, but into my mind and spirit and soul when I heard the news. In the midst of the profound, inky darkness of the past many months, a little scintilla and spark of hope, of courage, of light was struck.

A few hours later, John McCain made his selection official in Dayton, Ohio, a name and town that will always evoke and stir in me sentiments of grace and gratitude. Then Sarah walked in. Even before she uttered a word, even before I got a clear view of her incomparable, diaphanous eyes, mirrors of and witnesses to her soul's depth and power, that confident, fearless, straight, beautiful stride of hers, as she and her daughter Piper proceeded into the arena of battle to the stirring strains of the "Rudy" theme, awoke in my breast sentiments of hope, of devotion, of courage...of love.

Then she began to speak. I knew in that hour, in those moments, that God, in His mercy, had given us a champion, an incarnation of everything that was opposed to the dank, dark world of Barack Obama and his pitiful followers. Up to these moments, we had all known what our ideals were what we stood for. But those ideals and aspirations had remained locked and frozen in the true and certain, but still cold, concepts of our philosophy. Champions we had had in the past, like the Founders, like Lincoln, like Reagan. But they, great men all, were gone to the Valhalla of heroes. A living, breathing leader we had not...until those moments!!

I think all of us sensed, from the first instants of Sarah's Dayton speech, that the real battle lines had been drawn: it was Our Sarah vs. Obama. Yes, the campaign buttons and bumper stickers read, "McCain-Palin"; yes, McCain, not Sarah, debated Obama; yes, Sarah debated, not the "messiah," but the woeful, risible Joe Biden. Still, we all perceived where the heart of the war was...as did our deadly, merciless foes. Well they knew that they must crush and extinguish this bright and lovely flame before the American people could come to know her...and to love her.

So, for the following 120 hours they threw everything they had in their arsenal of lies and of hatred at her. Desperately they tried to prevent her from addressing the American people. By God's grace, by McCain's steadiness, by Sarah's unflinching, unfailing courage, they did not succeed. Sarah sallied forth at the RNC...and this unknown, seemingly novice politician from the North Country delivered one of the greatest political speeches in the annals of our nation. As one political pundit said to Todd Palin that evening, "America fell in love with your wife tonight."

In the days that followed, Sarah's splendid oration served to drag the stumbling McCain into his only lead in the polls. We all know what followed: the Gibson and Couric interviews, not Sarah's finest moments, but made, by a hostile and mendacious media, to seem far worse than they really were; the almost criminal misuse of Sarah's talents by the McCain campaign; the financial meltdown, Tina Fey, etc.

Yes, we lost the battle in the short run. Sarah, with a beautiful, eloquent silence (a silence imposed on her, as a final insult, by the McCain handlers) conceded defeat on that doleful evening of 4 November, 2008. However, I am convinced; I know that the campaign to save America, which began on Sarah Palin Day, will be carried to glorious triumph. We shall win the war...with her!

Let me finish by recalling a few words, beautiful, I believe, in their simple splendor, which were uttered by one of the few real TV journalists left in America, the honorable Brit Hume, on the night of Sarah's RNC speech. As our Lady of the North ventured forth into the cauldron and arena of conflict that night, Hume, who after the speech would laud Sarah's remarkable courage and poise, said, "And now here comes Sarah Palin."

My friends, these words, and the memory of the great, fearless, gentle heart of this lion of a little lady from the "Arctoan" State, will live always on the parchment and roll of my reminiscences.

"And now here comes Sarah Palin."

Against the whole weight and force and might of the American left, nay the International Left (dare I say, the Comintern), on 3 September, 2008, she came, she spoke, she conquered.

"And now here comes Sarah Palin."

With truth as her buckler and shield, she has survived all of the filthy attempts of the lying, godless hosts of the left to portray her as someone she is not. The verily royal battle flag and standard of Our Sarah is "still there," even after a night, yea many, many nights of relentless bombardment. See, we behold it and descry it in the "dawn's early light"!!!

"And now here comes Sarah Palin."

Brave, beautiful, Sarah!!!--From your friends at C4P, if you should happen to see this, we love you, we believe in you, we stand ready to follow you, whatever you decide to do, with full hearts and mighty hands to victory...victory for our beloved country. Happy Anniversary, and God bless you and your family always!!

Brianus Berkleianus/ Brian Champlin of Berkeley California

Thank you Brianus. Thank you for your eloquence and your passion.