Scarborough's attack on Gov. Palin just part of the plan

More opening salvos in the Vichy GOP's war on Sarah
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Vichy Republican, former Congressman and MSDNC talk show host Joe Scarborough launched a full-scale attack on Sarah Palin Tuesday. The two-pronged assault by the man Don Imus has described as "a disgusting, backstabbing phony," was waged in a Politico opinion piece and on MSDNC's poorly-rated "Morning Joe" program.

At least Palin supporters can't claim that they were "blindsided." Politico predicted that this was coming in an October 31 article written by Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei titled "Next for GOP leaders: Stopping Sarah Palin." The GOP establishment's campaign against the party's 2008 vice presidential candidate was described in the piece as an "urgent task that they will begin in earnest as soon as the elections are over." By "in earnest," Allen and Vandehei meant to say beyond the usual anti-Palin smears made by pretend "conservatives" such as Kathleen Parker, David Frum and Peggy Noonan. Those sort of attacks have been seen since Gov. Palin was named as John McCain's running mate in late August of 2008.

Indeed, we have seen similar attacks on the first woman to be both Alaska's governor and the GOP's vice presidential candidate coming from new quarters. Probing maneuvers by Karl Rove testing Gov. Palin's perimeter began in mid-September and were ramped up by "Bush's Brain" just two days before the Allen-Vendehei article was published by Politico, when Rove questioned her "gravitas" and declared the "Sarah Palin's Alaska" series on TLC to be "unpresidential."

The next skirmish in the coordinated RINO attack on Gov. Palin came from the unlikeliest of guerrilla fighters in the person of Barbara Bush, whose diss was both sexist and condescending, as Mama Frizzy preceded her opinion that Sarah Palin "should stay in Alaska" with a back-handed compliment about the beauty of the woman she was attacking.

The assaults on Gov. Palin by Rove and Bush were both based on style, not substance, as was pointed out at Wake up Black America:

The reason why anti Sarah Palin snipes can't debate me and her supporters on the issue of Sarah Palin's qualifications to be president is because the arguments that go in her favor are all based on facts, where as the negatives are based on opinions, gossip, smears and lies. Palin has earned the right to run for the GOP nomination. She in essence saved the GOP from it's certain death as a national party. While she has been going after Obama, Pelosi, Reid and others on their failed polices, other potential 2012 GOP candidates have been silently standing by watching trying to keep their powder dry.

The attacks by Scarborough are similar to the ones made by Rove and Mother Bush in this regard. Let's examine Scarborough's points from his Politico hit piece one by one:

"What man or mouse with a fully functioning human brain and a résumé as thin as Palin’s would flirt with a presidential run? It makes the political biography of Barack Obama look more like Winston Churchill’s..."

This is a bald-faced lie. Sarah Palin was a city councilwoman for two terms (4 years), a mayor for three terms (6 years), chair of a state oil and gas commission for a year and chair of an interstate (38 states) oil and gas commission for a year. As governor of Alaska, three of her administration’s major proposed pieces of legislation passed in her first year in office -- an overhaul of the state’s ethics laws, a competitive process to construct a natural gas pipeline and a restructuring of Alaska’s oil valuation formula. As governor, she also used her veto powers to cut budgetary spending and called a halt to the “bridge to nowhere” that would have cost taxpayers an additional $400 million dollars. Comparisons of her resume to that of Barack Obama are here and here, lest anyone question whose is "thin." It is important to note that her resume includes considerable government executive experience, while Obama's has none. In the private sector, she is also a small businesswoman, co-owner of the family's salmon fishing operation with her husband Todd for years. So Sarah Palin's resume not only puts Barack Obama's to shame, but Joe Scarborough's as well.

In the past month alone, she has mocked Ronald Reagan’s credentials, dismissed George H.W. and Barbara Bush as arrogant “blue bloods” and blamed George W. Bush for wrecking the economy.

Sarah Palin most certainly did not mock President Reagan or his credentials. She merely pointed out that others had dissed Reagan as "only an actor" in response to Rove characterizing her television show as "unpresidential." Gov. Palin's remarks about the Bushes were also made in response to an unprovoked attack on her, one made by Barbara Bush herself.

Borrowing again from old left-wing attacks that Democrats used against GOP presidents, Palin channeled Ann Richards by bashing Bush and his wife as “blue bloods” who had wrecked America.

Exposing his own hypocrisy, Scarborough borrows from Democrat attacks on Sarah Palin in this piece. No less than three times Scarborough uses "half-term governor," one which comes right from the top of the list of DNC talking points. His characterizations of her as "maniacal" and "dopey" come right out of the left wing's anti-Palin playbook. Sarah Palin was correct that George H.W. Bush's abandonment of Reagan principles doomed him to be a one-term president who opened up the door for 8 years of Bill Clinton in the Oval Office.

"Maybe poor George Herbert Walker Bush was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Indeed, he was so pampered growing up that on his 18th birthday, the young high school graduate enlisted in the armed forces. This spoiled teenager somehow managed to be the youngest pilot in the Navy when he received his wings, flying 58 combat missions over the Pacific during World War II. On Sept. 2, 1944, “Blue Blood” Bush almost lost his life after being shot down by Japanese anti-aircraft fire."

What does the elder Bush's commendable war record have to do with this argument? It doesn't change the fact that his ineptitude on fiscal matters prevented his reelection and allowed the Democrats to gain control of the executive branch for 8 years. Sure, he did the right thing in Kuwait, and he's a nice guy, but this doesn't change the facts of history. Congressman Charlie Rangel served honorably in the Korean War, yet those admirable credentials did not prevent him from making bad decisions which led to censure by his peers on the House ethics committee. Scarborough's diversionary tactic is transparent and weak.

Who wouldn’t agree that finishing third in the Miss Alaska beauty contest is every bit as treacherous as risking your life in military combat? Maybe the beauty contestant who would one day be a reality star and former governor didn’t win the Distinguished Flying Cross, but the half-termer was selected as Miss Congeniality by her fellow contestants.

It's no surprise that Scarborough would throw in some sexism in his attack on Gov. Palin. The Vichy GOP has been in bed with the liberal Democrats for so long now that their attacks on good conservatives sound just like those made by their fellow travelers in the donkey party. Look, Sarah is so much more than a former beauty contestant. She only entered beauty contests to try to help pay her way through college, and for that she is vilified? She has, in fact, been a Blue Star Mom and Commander of her State's National Guard and Air Guard. As both a governor and a citizen, Sarah Palin has been nothing but supportive of our troops and veterans. That Scarborough has to reach all the way back to the Second World War to defend George H. W. Bush only demonstrates the weakness of his argument.

Another claim repeatedly made by Scarborough on MSDNC and aped by his Democrat co-host is that every Republican leader or talk radio host with whom he's spoken shares his criticism of Palin but is afraid to say so on the air. He must not talk to many conservative talk show hosts, then. We will bet real money he doesn't talk to Mark Levin, who just last month condemned Moaning Joe for previous attacks on Gov. Palin:

I see Palin campaigning all over the country for candidates. I see her raising funds for them. I see her attending Tea Party events, Republican events, you name it. She's in the fight. She has put her neck on the line and has exposed her family to outrageous ridicule. And she has done great things that have advanced conservatism and Republican Party hopes next week.

Conversely, Joe Scarborough has done nothing. He sits at his table on MSNBC arrogantly denouncing conservatives, pandering to liberals, and repeating stupid talking points someone uttered days earlier. He has no ideas and, worse, he drags down those who do. Has he campaigned for anyone? Yet he passes judgment on someone who has. Has he raised funds for anyone? Has he used his "celebrity" (such as it is) in constructive ways?

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Go Sarah. Get lost Joe.

We also doubt he's had many conversations with the king of talk radio, Rush Limbaugh. The two have had a long-running feud, during the course of which Rush said:

Moderates want kumbaya, moderates want everybody to just hug and kiss and get along. It's all a myth.... People fall for these tricks that are designed to shut us up, that are designed to get us to stand down, to be nice and gentle because the Republican Party, you have to understand, Rush, is hated and despised because everybody knows it's full of racists, sexists, bigots, and homophobes, and that's a cliche, and it just bothers me that smart people like Scarborough fall for this because he's allowing himself to be neutered, and that's what made him upset today, I called him a neutered, chickified moderate. [Emphasis ours.]

No, Scarborough didn't find corroborators in the lies he's telling about Gov. Palin in the persons of either Limbaugh or Levin, so one has to wonder which lower-echelon Republican talk show hosts Moaning Joe is talking to. It must be the ones whose ratings are as pitiful as Scarborough's are. Oh, wait, nobody's ratings are that pitiful, at least not anybody of consequence.

Make no mistake, the attacks on Sarah Palin by first Rove, then Mrs. Bush and most recently Joe Scarborough were carefully planned and coordinated. These are only the opening salvos in the Republican Party establishment's war on Sarah Palin. Chief among her many sins in their eyes is that she encouraged and supported the grass roots movement against the good old back room boys, and for this she must be destroyed politically. Ironically, while she has been busy taking the fight to Barack Obama and the liberal Democrats, the same Republicans who should have joined her in that battle have been busy planning and waging political warfare against her instead. One thing you can be sure of, more attacks have already been mapped out by the GOP elites, and we will be witnessing them in the coming weeks.

In conclusion, Scarborough got one, and only one, point right. If establishment Republicans want to criticize Gov. Palin, let them do so not in a cowardly and anonymous manner. Let them grow a spine and put their names behind their disrespect. Of course, Gov. Palin was the first person to make that suggestion, so Scarborough is simply echoing the woman he wants to destroy on that particular point.

- JP