Palin, Beck Rail Against “System”

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin portrayed herself as a reluctant warrior for freedom on Tuesday during an hour-long interview with Fox News host Glenn Beck.

Despite having just signed a multi-year deal with Fox that will require her to spend time in New York, Palin said she would “be perfectly happy to go back to Wasilla, Alaska, with my five children and grandson and raise a happy, healthy family and love the great outdoors and do the things we do in Alaska.”

But, Palin said that she continues to seek the public spotlight because she believes “that in some capacity I can help this great nation.”

“I’m going to be willing to sacrifice and change some things and my lifestyle in order to serve,” she said. “It doesn’t have to mean, though, top dog. That doesn't have to entail having any kind of title.”

Palin and Beck touched on everything from her relationship with God, to the founding fathers, to immigration, to the tattoo her son Track has on his arm of the Statue of Liberty. But unlike in the interview Palin gave to Fox host Bill O’Reilly the night before, Beck did not run the former governor through a series of questions on the news of the day or her views on issues.

Instead, the two spent much of the hour in a New York studio with a view out of the window of the Statue of Liberty in a broad, sometimes vague, conversation. They touched on their perspectives on leadership and the founders, and offering unspecified charges of corruption and extremism from the White House and condemnations of the “system.”

“There are a whole lot of people in the White House who want to prove you can’t survive and succeed being out of the system,” Palin said. “The system is broken. The system creates disenchantment with the people looking at the political system saying we don't like that. That's not a representative form of government that our country was founded upon. We want to change it and see people succeed. Not just survive but succeed being outside the system.”

Beck stressed the connections between himself and Palin throughout the interview, telling her early on that “you and I both were, I think, the number one and number two Halloween costumes of the year.”

“Did you know that?” he asked. “We both have been nailed on ‘Saturday Night Live’ as being stupid. We are also both just recently voted on the most admired list of people in the world. We both have been on the cover of major magazines in the last year. We’re both probably top five most hated people in America.”

Palin mostly went along with Beck’s routine, although when he ventured into his patented adoration for the founding fathers, Palin did not completely play along.

“Who is your favorite founder?” Beck asked Palin.

“All of them because they came collectively together with so much diversity,” Palin responded.

“Bull crap,” Beck shot back. “Who is your favorite?”

“So much diverse opinion and diversity in terms of belief, but collectively they came together,” she answered, “and they were led by, of course, George Washington, so he’s got to rise to the top.”

Palin explained that Washington is her favorite because he “was a statesman.”

“He returned power to the people. Then he went back to Mount Vernon and he went back to his farm,” she said, soon before launching into her explanation that she’d prefer to return to Wasilla. “He was almost reluctant to serve as president, too.”

“That is who you need to find to serve in government, in a bureaucracy,” Palin said. “Those who you know will serve for the right reasons because they’re reluctant to get out there and seek a limelight and seek the power. They’re doing it for people. That was George Washington.”

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