Leading Leftist Magazine Does A Sarah Palin Rethink

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At The Nation, the leading leftist magazine's Washington correspondent John Nichols argues that Sarah Palin will have to be taken seriously. Of course to get to Nichols' backhanded praise, the reader who eschews drinking the "progressive" Kool-Aid has to wade though the usual leftist smears and distortions.

The author states, for example, that he "has reported on her ethically-challenged tenure as Alaska’s governor," but never bothers to mention that every ethics charge made against her was politically motivated. Indeed, of the twenty-something bogus claims and lawsuits filed against Gov. Palin, most all were dismissed as frivolous, lacking not only evidence, but any real substance. What remained were a couple of minor molehills rather than mountains which were settled and explicitly cleared the governor of any wrongdoing.

Nichols also labels Sarah Palin "a quitter" while ignoring that Barack Obama quit his job as a U.S. Senator to run for president, even after promising in 2004, "I can unequivocally say I will not be running for national office in four years, and my entire focus is making sure that I'm the best possible senator on behalf of the people of Illinois." The "best possible senator" then quit after just half a term to run for president.

But once he tells the obligatory leftist lies and makes the usual distortions, Nichols moves on:

But Palin’s endorsements in Republican primaries – her most significant political initiative since resigning her post in Alaska last year – have been more adventurous and more successful than her critics (and some of her allies) choose to imagine.

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Now, an even bigger test is about to play out in Georgia, where Palin has endorsed former Secretary of State Karen Handel in Tuesday’s crowded GOP primary for governor. Here is evidence of Palin Power...

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If Branstad wins in Iowa, Palin will have a friendly governor in the first caucus state of the 2012 Republican presidential race. And if Fiorina wins, she will have an important ally in the state that will send the largest delegation to the party’s convention.

If she brings a solid base out of the south – with help from the likes of Haley in South Carolina and Handel in Georgia – it will be a lot harder to write Palin off.

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The safer bet until recently was that Palin would opt out of the 2012 race, in order to keep making money and, perhaps, to position herself for a future run. But, like Ronald Reagan heading into the 1976 and 1980 Republican presidential primaries, she is beginning to establish a network of connections – and evidence of political savvy and influence – that make it harder and harder to dismiss her as a real prospect.

Juxtaposed against the gang-that-couldn’t-shoot-straight nature of the rest of the Republican 2012 pack, Palin is emerging as her party’s most potent prospect. A favorable result from Georgia will merely add to the argument that it is time to accept that Palin is becoming the definitional player in the GOP – much as another conservative outrider, and former governor, named Reagan was in the late 1970s.

We have written about the media's new Palin narrative here and here, citing evidence of it at liberal lamestream outlets TIME and The New York Times. Now the narrative seems to be spreading to more overtly leftist publications, as this piece in The Nation indicates. It's a fascinating phenomenon to observe, as the media, while continuing to take potshots at Sarah Palin, concedes that which we have been saying for two years now: she deserves to be taken seriously.

- JP