Quote of the Day (July 31, 2011)

Sarah Palin and the Hobbits
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Bernie Quigley, at Quigley in Exile:

“Primaries. That is a dangerous idea. And I guess the ‘little people’ Palin is referring to are those Hobbits. So I guess that should make her Galadriel, Lady of the Woods.”

- JP

Bernie Quigley: The Sarah Palin Manifesto

Shades of Lech Walesa
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Bernie Quigley, in a post at The Hill's Pundits Blog, writes that Gov. Palin's address to the Wisconsin Tea Party in Madison Saturday was more than just a speech:

When Sarah Palin went to speak at the Republican convention two years back, a hurricane came in and shut it down. But I suppose it was just a coincidence that hundreds of tornadoes swept across the South when she gave her Wisconsin speech last week.

[...]

Palin used the phrase “GOP establishment” in her April 15 speech in Wisconsin, and incidentally, she has also redesigned her website, SarahPAC.com, to look more presidential. What with all the excitement with The Donald and tornadoes where they have never gone before, it might have gone unnoticed. The MSM, which she has promised not to goad again, breathes a sigh of relief that the storm has passed and Donald Trump is more fun to play with anyway because he lives in New York and is no real threat. But her speech was more than a speech: It was a manifesto.

[...]

The words “courage” and “solidarity” occurred throughout and the speech, which in my impression seemed cleverly modeled on one by Lech Walesa given in the rise of the Polish anti-communist Solidarity movement in 1980, which took even leftist New York City by storm.

The MSM thinks now she will not run for president. What part of “going rogue” don’t they understand?

[More]

- JP

Quigley: Sarah Palin’s America and Scott Brown’s Boston

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Here's an excerpt from the latest by Bernie Quigley:

It is tribute to Sarah Palin’s folkloric status that a Washington Post article today refers to a South Dakota politician, Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, with “wholesome, conservative values” as “the Democratic Party’s own mama grizzly, straight out of the heartland.” Herseth Sandlin’s Republican opponent, state Rep. Kristi Noem, is being called at home “the next Sarah Palin.” But this is the way they used to talk shortly after Bob Dylan awakened his world. They were always finding the “next Bob Dylan” but there was none. They did however follow his lead. Today, only Sarah Palin and the Oracle Octopus of Oberhausen share the status of original folk hero. Recently, the Post has been catching up with the world of Sarah Palin. They even have an interactive “Palin Endorsement Tracker” featuring a picture of Palin and Nikki Haley, the Republican candidate for governor in South Carolina who skyrocketed in the polls when Palin endorsed her.

The conflict we face today is city vs. country, just as we did in 1829 when Andrew Jackson, the most folkloric of all American folk heroes, shook up the Beltway establishment. They would follow his lead too. The country always wins in a vast agricultural nation like ours and it will win this time. But it is putting New York and Boston in the most awkward situations, because at times like this, the first will be last: It’s in the Bible. Jackson not only ran against the Beltway Establishment, he ran against the whole colonial era. But the era had ended anyway as they always do and Jackson simply came next. That’s where we are now. The Kennedy Era has ended. Something different is coming next and Sarah Palin brings it.

Read the rest here.

- JP

Bernie Quigley: Sarah Palin and Andrew Jackson

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Bernie Quigley wrote Wednesday about Gov. Palin, and he has a Friday follow-up piece at The Hill's Pundits Blog titled Sarah Palin and Andrew Jackson:

Sarah Palin is an archetypal figure who challenges the existing establishment...

[...]

In effect, she has been building her own political establishment. With a clever strategist on hand, Jenny Sanford, who should be running Palin’s program, Haley, a Tea Party original, now advances her ideas to a new regional and national level of marketing. Thanks to Sarah Palin.

The second point worth reviewing is the recent Republican primary in Texas when Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, George H.W. Bush and Karen Hughes on behalf of George W. Bush all lined up behind Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas).

Texas Gov. Rick Perry had the support of Sarah Palin. What was interesting about this race is that Hutchison never had a chance. So why did such a group of respected establishment conservatives line up behind her? Because they weren’t so much opposing Perry as they were Palin. This was the definitive moment to which politics had been building forward momentum since the NY 23 race with Doug Hoffman in the fall, and it brought substance to a newborn political direction.

[...]

The change that is rising now with Palin, Ron Paul and the Tea Party certainly contains Jeffersonian elements about placing limits on the federal government, but, culturally, it also resembles the rise of Andrew Jackson and the free people of the western regions demanding their place and coming into the country politically. The icons of the colonial period felt the same shock and awe that the entrenched interests and Beltway people do today.

Coincidentally, an old college buddy whom we haven't heard from in months sent an email over the weekend. He's an expat American in Australia who has made a parallel rightward journey with us over the years, and he's taken quite an interest in Sarah Palin. In our exchange of e-mails, he mentioned that he thinks that Gov. Palin is a Jacksonian, and he sent us this essay by Walter Russell Mead, one of the country's leading students of American foreign policy. It's a long and scholarly piece, but if you're as into politics and history as we are, you should find it well worth the read. It certainly gives context to Quigley's point that the governor may be a Jacksonian in the cultural sense, but there are definitely some Jeffersonian influences in her Reaganesque modern federalist leanings.

- JP

Bernie Quigley: Sarah Palin arrives. May I call her Sarah?

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Here are some excerpts from Bernie Quigley's latest Palin post at The Hill's Pundits Blog:

Sarah Palin has arrived. But beneath it all — beneath almost two years of slander and disgrace on the part of the mainstream press — was a real fear. And for good reason, because Sarah Palin is a political genius.

While her detractors were in college reading Derrida and Michel Foucault, she was playing basketball. It made her a relentless competitor. It made her a great strategist. While the others were modifying the existing establishment to fit their own needs, she was building her own house with her own hands. And now she is building her own political establishment.

Supporters, like Dick Morris, say questions will arise about her quitting her job as governor of Alaska. But it was a bold, brilliant and necessary strategy. She wouldn’t have had a chance against such a hostile press and political establishment otherwise. Since then she has led the way at NY-23 — Rick Perry and Tim Pawlenty followed. Since then she faced off against mainstream party people George H.W. Bush, Karl Rove, Karen Hughes on behalf of “W,” Dick Cheney and others who supported Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) in a Texas primary.

She supported Rick Perry, and Perry won in a landslide. It was a definitive moment. Since then she has assumed all of the creative qualities of the Tea Party movement and left the rest behind. Without her it would have been a wandering horde of disgruntled rednecks and peckerwoods. But most telling, when Mitt Romney went South to support Nikki Haley in South Carolina’s governor’s primary this past spring, it barely made a bump. When Palin went, Haley jumped double digits...

Read the full Quigley posting here.

- JP

Quigley: Arnold and the Palin Paradigm

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At The Hill's Pundit's Blog, Bernie Quigley opines that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger "may have saved the state" by advocating and promoting Proposition 14, the just-passed ballot initiative which will do away with traditional party primaries in 2011 in favor of open primaries which will send the top two vote-getters -- regardless of party affiliation -- to a general election showdown:

"Proposition 14 may be a harbinger, but the big winner in this week’s primary was Sarah Palin. As the Wall Street Journal reported, three candidates she supported prevailed in their contested primaries. Since she took the initiative to support Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman in NY 23 last October, the winning cycle has followed her initiative. The Texas primary in March established the Palin Paradigm. The Republican establishment, featuring Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Bush I and Bush II and others lined up to push Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison to beat incumbent Rick Perry. Perry had Palin on his side and beat the establishment in a landslide. Palin has successfully and single-handedly incorporated Tea Party initiatives with entrepreneurial spirit of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. To look at this as pushing conservatism to the right is to use the old 1930s paradigm and miss what is happening. The Palin Paradigm is Jacksonian. It represents the rise of a free, western view in opposition to the aging, bipartisan Eastern establishment. Palin is spirit force to this 'new west' direction but Arnold can be seen as champion."

We have no opinion on Prop. 14, and we do not share Quigley's high opinion of Da Governator's politics (though we think his movies are swell escape vehicles). But we do tend to agree with Bernie's observations about Gov. Palin.

- JP

Bernie Quigley - Rand Paul and the winged monkeys: Palin 5, Republican Establishment 0

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Here are excerpts from Bernie Quigley's latest Pundit’s Blog column for The Hill:

Just as the winged monkeys descended from the huge UFO that hovers over Washington to slander and disgrace Sarah Palin when John McCain selected her for VP, MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow insinuates that Tea Party activist Rand Paul is a racist and an extremist in his first TV interview.

Maddow brings the classic old-school trade device of mnemonic slander to her interviews, the same tool used most effectively to reinforce institutionalized racism in the South for 100 years. In an earlier report, for example, she presented as a representative figure of the Tea Party a politician who had solicited a prostitute. She also associated the Tea Party with white extremists, including the fascist group Storm Front, secessionist groups and armed militia, adding that she “wouldn’t accuse the Tea Party of that, but... ”

[...]

We are today at a generational shift and will see the passing of Clinton liberals and Krauthammer/Kristol conservatives going off the cliff together like Sherlock Homes and Professor Moriarty. As the Tea Party event in Nashville a few months ago, featuring Palin as head speaker, suggested a political folk revival in the American heartland, Rand Paul is the rough-hewn folk hero rising from that event. And no question, Palin is the Grizzly Momma of this group, the majority of whom are women.

[...]

Kristol and Krauthammer can no longer sit back with a smirk and depend on the winged monkeys of the MSM to demolish the opposition for them. In NY-23, in Massachusetts, in Virginia, in the Texas primary and now in Kentucky we have seen the lineup of Cheney, Gingrich, Rove, Bush I and Bush II (by proxy) line up against Palin. The score so far: Palin 5, Republican Establishment 0.

Read Quigley's full post here. More from The Cypress Times:

Defending Rand Paul is a man who knows him well from being the #2 head of the GOP in Kentucky, attorney Marcus Carey. Marcus, who predicted the mass media would turn on Paul after the primaries... at Blue Grass Bulletin, insists that Paul is a patriot, and a statesman, saying, “Rand Paul is a bright individual who wants to switch from ‘dumbing down’ the electorate to having intelligent discussions about constitutional issues and is willing to take this approach in order to be a game changer.”

Marcus Carey, who has witnessed Rand Paul’s actions and character for many years in Kentucky politics, says Rand has taken the high road, instead of continuing the typical political path of ‘dumbing down of the electorate and that he is elevating political discourse discussions to those of principled constitutional principles and welcoming all American citizens to participate in their government of and by and for the people.

A new Rasmussen Reports poll of Likely Voters in Kentucky, show Paul earning 59% of the vote, while Conway picks up 34%. So the mass media has their work cut out for them!

And on the Laura Ingraham Show today, Paul clarified remarks he made on Maddow's MSNBC (Moonbat Sycophantic Neosocialist Barack Channel) show last night:



- JP

Bernie Quigley: The Three Sisters Awaken

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In a post at The Hill's Pundits Blog, Bernie Quigley has adopted the Three Sisters of Norse and Old English legends as metaphors for Jenny Sanford, Sarah Palin and Nikki Haley. The latter sister had Mitt Romney's support, but did not attract national attention until Sarah Palin endorsed her:

Nikki Haley represents a rising political tide in conservatism in America and she was an early favorite of the Tea Party movement. As this movement is being vilified in the MSM, it is finding common sense in Rand Paul in Kentucky and solid and formidable structure and determination in Tim Bridgewater in Utah. Haley brings to it disciple and a knack for organization, and with Palin and Sanford in tow it may be suggested, that primal strength of character of that the Three Sisters archetype suggest.

[...]

Inevitably, misfortune falls to a state when it is revealed that a sitting governor like Mark Sanford reads lusty romances like The Thorn Birds. Fate is sure to ensue, as it has. But in the way of the Trickster, the world is then given Jenny Sanford who many in South Carolina regard as the organizational backbone and powerhouse behind her husband’s political success.

Mrs. Sanford endorsed Haley’s candidacy for governor in November, saying, “[W]hen I’m asked my wish for South Carolina’s future, my wish is for a leader of state government like Nikki Haley. She’s principled, conservative, tough, and smart.”

After November, these three women need to take this show on the road.

And what a roadshow it would be -- the goddesses Fate, Time and Destiny, like modern Valkyries riding across America. We will leave it to our gentle readers to determine which sister represents her legendary analogue while perhaps listening to the opening of Act III of Die Walküre, but in the meantime, they can read the full Quigley piece here.

- JP

Pilgrim, are you a Bush Republican or a Perry Republican?

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Bernie Quigley has an interesting take on the realignment going on the GOP right now. Think Palin passion, Perry proficiency and Pataki perspective. Pataki? As in George Pataki, former governor of New York? Bernie's serious. Read on:

There can be seen now two schools of Republicans: Bush Republicans and Perry Republicans. This took form in Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s recent primary race when Dick Cheney, George H.W. Bush, Karl Rove and Karen Hughes (W’s proxy) lined up behind Kay Bailey Hutchison and Sarah Palin lined up behind Rick Perry. Perry won in a landslide. But the sides had already been drawn up for and against in Doug Hoffman’s Conservative Party challenge in NY-23. It was the moment of the significant turning. Palin and Perry were there, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty showed up after the brush was cut, while Newt Gingrich and the party regulars lined up behind the traditional Republican. But George Pataki, former governor of New York, was there first. The Bush clan is now sidling up to Tea Party types; Cheney to Rubio in Florida, Mitt Romney to Nikki Haley in South Carolina. But George Pataki was there first. think Palin passion, Perry proficiency and Pataki perspective. Pataki? As in George Pataki, former governor of New York? Bernie's serious. Read on:

He told The Hill that he won’t rule out a presidential race in 2012. He’d be a great addition to a line that would hopefully include Perry, Palin and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. That would leave Mitt Romney holding the coat for the Bush people. But all of these others add substance and character to what is the sea change known as the Tea Party. It is heartland-based, and the American century ahead will find its strengths and prosperity in the American heartland.

The fledgling spirit of the Tea Partiers, like Tamino, may need three words for guidance on its journey to maturity. Those words might be: passion, perspective and packaging. Palin provides passion and Perry the comprehensive abilities of a well-run and healthy state manager. But Pataki provides perspective. His recent six-stop tour, Revere America, geared to repealing ObamaCare, adds class and character to this grassroots movement.

Read the full Quigley at The Hill's Pundits Blog.

- JP

Bernie Quigley: Sarah and Rick vs. the Vichy Republicans

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Excerpts from Bernie Quigley's latest, posted on The Hill's Pundit's Blog:

The New York Times’ venomous and possibly deranged Frank Rich, who associated Sarah Palin with terrorism in his Sunday column this week, borrows from his previous archrival George Will in the claim that the White She Devil is a critter from hell and anyway, she will never be elected.

[...]

But what is most telling comes up in Texas in the middle, where the Romney team, including Cheney, H.R. Bush, Boy George’s proxy Karen Hughes and Karl Rove, has lined up to take out Perry in his primary race against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. White She Devil supports Perry.

Interesting that key liberal opinion makers Rich and Letterman seek and find traditional enemies Romney and Will to face down that force of nature which is Sarah Palin.

[...]

Call these now the Vichy Republicans.

Perry’s victory... will be overwhelming, with Gov. Palin’s endorsement, and Perry and Palin will bring a new face to American politics.

Is the unabridged original post here worth the read? You betcha!

- JP

GOP needs to shut Schmidt up or it will lose

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Bernie Quigley has a warning for the Republican Party establishment:

The Republicans need to learn one thing before February. If they keep sending out their longtime apparatchik Steve Schmidt as designated Single Combat Warrior against Sarah Palin, they will lose.

His recent comments on “60 Minutes” about Palin’s statement that her selection as John McCain’s VP was part of “God’s plan” was — nudge, nudge — pneumonic scorn that, in the context of the other reports edited by CNN’s Anderson Cooper, quite obviously intended to caricature Palin’s simple and sincere expression of Christian faith to an “upscale” secular audience.

It does, in turn, caricature the same simple (in the Tolstoyan sense) Christian faith of the tens and hundreds of millions of Americans in the heartland with similar devotion. This comment couldn’t have been more poorly timed, as other Christian conservatives rose to defend Brit Hume’s recent advice to Tiger Woods even on the op-ed pages of The New York Times.

Excellent advice. If the GOP is smart, it will heed it. The only problem is the party establishment has shown precious few signs recently that it is smart.

Read Quigley's excellent op-ed in its entirety here.

- JP

Research 2000: Palin will be the 2012 GOP Nominee

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At The Hill's Pundits Blog, Bernie Quigley looks ahead and sees four rising stars outshining all the others. They are the GOP's Sarah Palin, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, plus the Democrats' William Daley.

Concerning Sarah Palin, Quigley has this to say:

She was seen from the very beginning as a rising star — a cultural awakener similar to Andrew Jackson — bringing a whole new cultural paradigm to the political process; a new heartland spirit of individualism and self reliance as per Emerson and Barry Goldwater. The widespread, deep and immediate hysteria in the MSM was a sure indication that she was a threat to the old temple and would be a vital new force in the rising century. This week the non-partisan Research 2000, which conducts research and focus groups, states simply, “Palin will be the 2012 GOP Nominee.”

Quigley's complete op-ed is here.

- JP

Head And Heart: Quigley Weighs In

We have already commented (here) on Matt Lewis' recent Politics Daily opinion piece on the head-and-heart battle for leadership of the GOP which could likely end up being a showdown between Mittt Romney and Sarah Palin.

Bernie Quigley weighs in with an op-ed on The Hill's Pundits Blog:

"Sarah Palin will appear on the 'Oprah' show on Nov. 16, a day before the publication of her book, Going Rogue: An American Life. This is significant because Oprah is a threshold. Appearing on her show is a 'rite of entry' for anyone and everything opening to the mainstream of American culture. And standing in line at the grocery store yesterday, I couldn’t help but notice that David Letterman, looking plaintive and adrift, had made the tabloids. This, a 'rite of exit.' Mainstream is coming out of Palin Denial."

Comparing the titles of Romney's and Sarah's books, Quigley opines:

Romney’s title [No Apology: The Case for American Greatness] suggests a full endorsement of the Bush II paradigm without a moment’s introspection. It looks to the past to continue the past. It would be what he is good at, but I think it is off the mark and most Americans are getting beyond it and ready for a new turning. Going Rogue, however, suggests a new direction, a new adventure, something just ahead there in the great unknown. It is a very good title and speaks in essence to the frontier spirit of those who venture beyond the Hudson River or the Beltway. Rugged individualism; going alone — Emerson and Goldwater — is suggested. It opens to the future. As was said here at the very first, Palin and family suggest a new era ahead; a new century which awakens the free spirit of the American heartland much as Andrew Jackson did in the mid-1800s.

The full Bernie Quigley post, as it appears on The Hill's blog, is cross-posted at Quigley, his personal website.

- JP

Quigley brands Sarah Palin a 'renegade'

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The media loves to define those it reports on. That's how John McCain got his rep as a "maverick" and Newt Gingrich, at least in his Speaker days, a "bomb-thrower." Now Bernie Quigley, posting on The Hill's Pundit's Blog, presumes to label Sarah Palin as a "renegade":

Gingrich, Rick Perry, Carly Fiorina and others seeking office should take note: If  Sarah Palin goes to a baseball game with Rudy Giuliani, it remains in the press for two weeks. When Sarah Palin talks, or does virtually anything, people watch and listen. They listen even to her silence, waiting beneath the window for an appearance.

Renegades have a "numinous" quality of the mind which haltingly seeks form. That is why they learn to paint or draw, make music or write. It is the same for original leaders in politics. This is where new eras start. There will not be a better way of insinuating new ideas into the discussion today than by letting them be carried first into the air by Palin. But they need to be followed up on by the eloquent and analytical: Gingrich, Fiorina, Perry, Romney and McCain.

McCain? Eloquent and analytical? We wonder if Quigley is referring to John or that "other" McCain? We heard a lot of John McCain on the stump last year, and aside from a couple of stem winders, "eloquent" is hardly the first adjective which comes to mind. Here endeth the digression. Quigley concludes:

History always begins its cycles with renegades. There is no longer any question in my mind that if a new political day is to go forward in our country it will start with Sarah Palin, Citizen and Renegade.

Not too sure if Renegade (he's capitalized it now) fits. Sarah Palin doesn't look at all like Lorenzo Lamas.

- JP