Sarah Palin to Barbara Walters: I Could Beat Obama

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Gov. Palin has said in two high-profile interviews this week that she is seriously considering becoming a candidate for the White House. She replied, "I am," to reporter Robert Draper's question asking if she was considering a 2012 run.

"I'm engaged in the internal deliberations candidly, and having that discussion with my family, because my family is the most important consideration here."

Draper interviewed the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate for a New York Times Magazine cover story to be printed Sunday.

Gov. Palin also told ABC's Barbara Walters that she is seriously weighing a run, and she believes she could beat President Obama in 2012:

"I'm looking at the lay of the land now, and ... trying to figure that out, if it's a good thing for the country, for the discourse, for my family, if it's a good thing," Palin said in an interview scheduled to air in full Dec. 9 on ABC as part of Walters' "10 Most Fascinating People" of 2010.

Asked Walters: "If you ran for president, could you beat Barack Obama?"

"I believe so," Palin said.

The full Sarah Palin interview will air Dec. 9 at 9PM CST on "Barbara Walters' 10 Most Fascinating People" special.

- JP

What was GMA weekend host insinuating?

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What was a lamestream media morning show moron insinuating with her lead-in to a segment on how Sarah Palin is standing by a candidate she endorsed in the midst of unsupported allegations against the candidate? Was the mediot dissing the candidate, Gov. Palin, or both? Was she implying that there may be something to the allegations of adultery made against Nikki Haley, who is running for the GOP nomination for governor of South Carolina? Or by expressing shock that Sarah Palin, a champion of family values, would come to Haley's defense, was the lamestreamer insinuating that the governor herself is guilty of something salacious?

Bianna Golodryga, co-host of ABC's Good Morning America weekend edition, was obviously attempting to cast dispersion on Nikki Haley, Sarah Palin, or both women Sunday morning with her loaded tease of an upcoming segment. NewsBuster Mark Finkelstein reports and comments:

BIANNA GOLODRYGA: "If this political year has taught us anything, it's to expect the unexpected. Take the South Carolina governor's race for example. Allegations of extramarital affairs are flying against the leading GOP candidate there. And Sarah Palin of all people has rushed to her defense."

"Of all people"? So Golodryga is ostensibly surprised by Palin's support of Haley. Why? Haley has categorically denied the allegations. By professing shock that family-values Palin would come to Haley's defense, it certainly sounds as if Bianna is implying there's substance to the accusations. If Golodryga's got proof, other than the allegations of men with possible political axes to grind, she should produce it. Otherwise, Golodryga should lay off the invidious insinuations.

If Golodryga was not implying something about Nikki Haley, then she was clearly implying something about Gov. Palin. Her use of the innuendo here manages to smear both conservative women, which was probably the point all along. ABC is a smear machine. This is how our corrupt media operates -- with lies, distortion and innuendo. When Sarah Palin says you can't trust the lamestream media, she's right as rain.

Update: Golodryga, as it turns out, is White House OMB Director Peter Orszag’s fiancee, and she appears to already be playing for Team Obama. So her not-so-subtle little dig, it seems, was aimed at Gov. Palin.

h/t: Travis McGee

- JP

Pray for Bristol Palin

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According to ABC News tipsheet The Note, Bristol Palin will appear with the stupid, mostly leftist harpies who host ABC's "The View" Wednesday.

Combine stupidity, ignorance and nastiness and you have View host Joy Behar. She's famous for saying of the term used to describe the Friday following Thanksgiving, which is the beginning of the traditional Christmas shopping season, "Isn't it a little racist to call it Black Friday?" Whoopi Goldberg had to school Behar that, no, it is not even a little raaaacist to say that.

But that was a case of the blind leading the blind, as Goldberg is no Mensa candidate herself. Nor is she the pinnacle of moral insight. Whoopi demonstrated the ethical bankruptcy of Hollywood by defending confessed child molester Roman Polanski, saying what he did to a 13 year old girl "wasn't rape rape."

For anyone who ever doubted the courage of the teen mom who is Sarah Palin's eldest daughter, Bristol's willingness to walk into that den of iniquity should lay them aside. Doubtless she had little choice in the matter, as her role as an ambassador for The Candie's Foundation likely requires her to go where they say.

Still, we will pray for her, and hope that you will do so also. No praying for Tripp to burp up his strained beets all over Joy Behar and Whoopie Goldberg on the set of The View, however. That would be a sin.

- JP

Joe Biden: 'I like Sarah Palin'

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On the WSJ Washington Wire blog, Susan Davis writes that Vice President Joe Biden appeared on ABC's "The View" Thursday, and as it usually does on that show, the top of Sarah Palin came up:

Biden was also pressed for his thoughts on his 2008 vice presidential rival, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. “If you meet her, she is a charming person,” he said. “I say this and people look at me like I’m kidding, I like her.”

The show’s conservative, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, asked Biden if he thought Palin posed a threat in 2012, Biden replied: “The governor says she’s not running. I don’t know what she’s going to do. I’m sure whoever the Republican nominee is, it will be a very contested race.”

Of course Sarah Palin has never said that she's not running. On the contrary, she has hinted that she may be very interested in makeing a run. Joe reminds us very much of what Ronald Reagan said in his landmark "A Time for Choosing" speech:

"Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so."

Still, it was very gracious of the veep to say that he liked Gov. Palin, and he was right on the money about how charming she is.

We think that at far as liberals go, Joe Biden isn't such a bad guy, even though he's wrong on a good many issues. He's old school and doesn't seem to drink as much Haterade as the current crop of leftist extremists who are in control of his party and the federal government.

- JP

Sarah Palin boosts 20/20 viewership to 7.9 million

From the Orlando Sentinel:

The combo of "Shrek the Third" and Sarah Palin (she was on "20/20") gave ABC a boost Friday night, according to preliminary ratings released this afternoon.

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At 10, ABC's "20/20" drew 7.9 million and edged CBS' "Numb3rs" (7.8 million). Jay Leno amused 4.8 million for NBC.

h/t: Greg

- JP

Sarah Palin: TEA Party Movement Is "Beautiful"

In her interview with ABC's Barbara Walters, Sarah Palin said the same thing she told Oprah Winfrey -- that a 1012 run for president isn't on her radar screen. But then, as the Orlando Sentinel's "TV Guy" Hal Boedeker reports, she added...

[But] when you consider some of the ordinary turning into extraordinary events that have happened in my life, I am not one to predict what will happen in a few years," Palin said.

"My ambition if you will, my desire, is to help our country in whatever role that may be, and I cannot predict what that will be, what doors would be open in the year 2012," she said.

Will she play a major role? "If people will have me, I will," she said.

The former governor also said the position Team McCain took on the bailout was a mistake and praised the TEA Party movement:

"That very first bailout, yes. Now we have learned, too, it didn't fulfill the promises that were made by Congress, and by the White House, that bailing out these businesses that were 'too big to fail,' " Palin said. "That did not put our economy back on the right track. So we learn from our mistakes. The tea party movement, beautiful. It energizes our country. More power to these people who are showing up there."

The 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate also criticized President Obama's statements on health care reform:

Palin notes that the words "death panels" are not found "in any of those thousands of pages of different variations of the health-care bill." Yet Palin adds that the president is "incorrect, and he is disingenuous."

- JP

Gingrich Defends Palin on 'Death Panels'

-By Warner Todd Huston

Obviously ABC's George Stephanapoulos tried to get former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich to trash Sarah Palin, but the wily former Speaker wasn't having any of that noise.

After Stephanapoulos read Governor Palin's comments about the "evil" of a government system that would tell its patients to die instead of helping them live, Speaker Gingrich reminds us all that Obama is asking us to "trust the government" on communal standards which will set up a system where bureaucrats decide what healthcare we are "allowed" to have. The former Speaker also reminds us that these standards are a dangerous road down which to travel and that euthanasia is a likely outcome of bureaucrats deciding who is worth getting healthcare and who isn't.

Visit ABC News to see the video.

Gingrich is right and so is Palin on this issue. Do we really want to hand this government, the one that cannot even govern a "cash for clunkers" program correctly, to make decisions on who is allowed to live and who will have to die?

I know I don't. No matter who is in charge in Washington, I don't want my government deciding who is worthy enough to be allowed to get healthcare.

Update (by JP): Michelle Malkin: "Death panels? What death panels? Oh, those death panels." See also Mark Tapscott: "A tale of two professors and Sarah Palin on Obama's 'death panels.'"

- WTH