The REAL Eureka moment is four months away

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At The Daily Mush, blogger Jim Hlavac comments on the Media-Leftist Complex in its feeding frenzy over a "Eureka" moment:

Well, the president of our 57 states who can’t find our borders is safe. Whew. I was worried there for a moment when it appeared that Sarah Palin did make a booboo. She said that Ronald Reagan, the only president I ever liked during my lifetime, went to “California’s Eureka College” and not Illinois’ Eureka College. This was breathlessly reported by Liz Goodwin of Yahoo News! Oh my. A “goof” as the headline puts it, “mars” her speech.

[...]

So brilliant are the press & TV, and politicos of the Democratic persuasion that they do not gaffe, or goof, or mar, but rather it is always that they were misheard by opponents out to destroy America, or their comments were taken out of context and so torn asunder from their clarity. Yeah, right.

But do they tout and taunt Joe Biden’s plagiarism? Nah. Or his “smart ass” comment... which is a goof, no?

[...]

And Obama’s economic illiteracy, so ample demonstrated in these past two years? Nope, it shall not be mentioned, it’s a commandment or something. 57 States? I doubt it. In fact, apparently Obama speaks so wonderfully teleprompters have been known to just follow his perfection.

Still, if the press and TV couldn’t even recall that the dearly departed Senator Robert Byrd of West Virgina got his start in politics in the lynch mobs of the Klan, and rose quickly up the ladder of hate to swing the noose over the tree of liberty I would imagine that they could not see “goofs” and “mars” in this current administration.

[...]

John Edwards perfidy? No press could find it. Al Gore’s Clintonesque behavior of late? Not a smidge of investigation to see if there might be flab with the flame. Indeed, nothing seems to quake lose the blinders of the press when it comes to the Democrats. But woe betide a single goof by a Republican. And Palin? Why, she’s to be grilled like St. Lawrence until the flames of public opinion smother her bright eyes.

Hlavac predicts that Gov. Palin will survive this, just as she has survived 700 continuous days of attacks on all things Sarah. And since she refuses to allow them to destroy her, the onslaught only serves to make the Mama Bear stronger. Meanwhile the country is going to hades in Obama's handbasket, but the left and its corrupt media hope no one will notice if they keep screaming, "Sarah Palin, shiny object." This Wyle-E-Coyote approach is, of course, doomed to failure, as neither the left nor its trained media circus are held in much regard by at least 75 percent of Americans these days. And Sarah Palin can still see November 2nd from her house. That's when the real "Eureka" moment happens.

See also: this post by Adrienne Ross and this one by Gary P. Jackson.

- JP

'Boobgate' was never about breasts

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The big news this weekend is that Sarah Palin, in her appearance on Greta Van Susteren's "On The Record" program Friday night, put an end to "Boobgate" -- the flap driven by the false rumors that she had undergone breast enhancement surgery. These rumors had bubbled up from the blogosphere into the mass media. But most everyone is missing the point. "Boobgate" was never about breasts. It was simply a diversion, one of the oldest tricks in the political playbook.

The real news last week was that Sarah Palin, via Facebook and a couple of appearances on cable television, had backed President Obama into a corner over the Gulf Oil Disaster. First, she pointed out that the administration is culpable for its own part in the tragedy playing off the southeastern Gulf coast because the Interior Department granted BP an exemption from a detailed environmental impact analysis. Three reviews by Interior's MMS fatefully concluded that a massive oil spill was unlikely. So for all the president's demonization of BP, it was his own administration that served as enablers for the giant oil company's malfeasance. Not to excuse BP in an any manner. It cut costs and corners to the point where it was literally playing with fire, and the consequences speak for themselves.

Gov. Palin did an excellent job of explaining how, as governor of Alaska, her administration had to ride herd on BP and hold its feet to the fire to force it to drill responsibly. In doing so, she drew a clear contrast between her effective stewardship of Alaska's energy resources and Obama's reckless and dangerous failure to manage resources responsibly in the Gulf, as his administration matched BP short cut for short cut. She was demonstrating not only her effective record as a manager, but her considerable knowledge on energy matters. Gov. Palin was demonstrating yet again that she is no lightweight, but rather a serious and proven leader who had valuable executive experience where it counts.

Further, she pointed out that the president had let two months go by without even lifting a finger to talk to BP's CEO Tony Hayward. Talking about kicking backside is just talk unless you call someone to the carpet to confront him. Obama's lame excuse that Hayward would just tell him what he wanted to hear anyway rang hollow, even to the president's vest pocket media. So now he was put in the position of being forced to publicly stage a meeting with Hayward after Sarah Palin had criticized him for failing to do so early on in the disaster. There was no way to save face. What could those charged with protecting the president's public image do?

A diversion was clearly called for. Knowing the rabid appetite of the leftosphere, infotainment sites and mass media for juicy morsels about Gov. Palin, the silly rumor that she had acquired breast implants was fed to the pack, and the more they devoured it, the more raw meat was produced to keep the feeding frenzy going. All of a sudden there was nothing else being talked about by the nutroots left but a woman's bust. It is important to remember here that Obama had been drawing heavy criticism over his ineffective handling of the Gulf disaster from some sources on the left -- including Salon, Rolling Stone, and others -- that had traditionally been among his staunchest defenders. Their voices of protest against the very man they had previously elevated to godhood were all but drowned out in the tsunami of trivia regarding Sarah Palin's chest.

This is how Spillgate was morphed into Boobgate, at least for a short time. By the time Gov. Palin went on Greta Van Susteren's program to take the hot air out of the rumor balloon, it was well past the Friday deadline for grafting legs onto news stories. Boobgate had served its purpose. It got a lot of people to take their eyes off of the ball for the better part of a week. More importantly, is dampened the momentum of the negative fallout from Obama's incompetence. It was the tourniquet which slowed the rate of bleeding of the president's image through the week long enough for his triage team to catch a weekend break to cook up another red herring to continue to divert attention away from the complicity and incompetence of Barack H. Obama.

So as Boobgate fades from the national train of thought, it turns out that the only actual "boobs" involved were the rubes who fell for the scam. Diversion may be one of the oldest political tricks in the book, but it works like a charm nearly every time.

- JP

Before It's News: Mark Levin Outs Joe McGinniss

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Wednesday night on his syndicated radio talk show, reports Before It's News, Mark Levin took the "extraordinary step on Palin's behalf" of not only calling Palin stalker Joe McGinniss "a coward," but the lawyer and Former Reagan Administration advisor went even further and did "something startling" - he announced Joe McGinniss' email address and urged his listeners to "politely & civilly" let Peeping Joe know what they think of his tactics:

Levin pointed out that Liberal Activists are becoming more brazen about upsetting business people and conservatives by going to their homes. Witness SEIU scaring the family of Bank of America Executive Greg Baer recently (upsetting his child). Levin's move is quite interesting. Liberal groups have stalked and provoked their opponents for years. Yet Levin feels it's time to turn the tables on their behavior. I mean, if McGinniss wants to know everything about Palin don't we deserve to know all about him.

Levin is right. It's past time to turn the tables on the lamestream media and serve notice that its hyperpartisan treatment of conservatives and incessant shilling for liberals will no longer be accepted as "journalism." Let them know that you're mad as hell and you're not going to take it anymore.

- JP

Evidence? We don' need no steenking evidence!

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NewsBuster Tim Graham recalls how the national media beat itself up during the Clinton presidency "for being too quick to acknowledge when women suggested they'd had affairs or been harassed by Clinton." In retrospect the press admitted that it would need to be cautious about reporting an alleged cheating scandal without knowing the details or having compelling evidence. So why, Graham wants to know, is the media repeating unsubstantiated adultery allegations against a woman made by a blogger with a documented history of domestic violence?

Because she's a Republican? In Mark Sanford's South Carolina? Sarah Palin-endorsed South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley has seen an unsubstantiated adultery charge spread by the Associated Press, The Washington Post, Newsday, and CNN, whose Wolf Blitzer ran to the evidence-free story on The Situation Room Monday.

Blitzer gave his lead-in to correspondent Lisa Sylvester, who mentioned, in her report:

Will Folks, who says he is a Haley supporter [!], says he decided to come forward after rival campaigns began leaking the story to the media. Folks, who resigned from the state government in 2005, before admitting a domestic violence charge, says he isn't saying anymore.

If, as Folks maintains, rival campaigns were leaking details to the media, why had no media outlet reported on the alleged affair before Folks made his accusations on his blog? The question apparently never crossed the minds of either Blitzer or Sylvester to ask. Graham comments:

Earth to CNN: it is not impressive "news judgment" to conclude "there's something in the South Carolina water" and spread this story without proof. Surely CNN wouldn't have started telling adultery stories about other Arkansas politicians on the principle "if Clinton does it, they must all do it." But then CNN compounded the offense, by psychologizing Haley as an offender:

Temple University professor Frank Farley says politics, by its nature, draws a Type T personality -- T for thrill seeker. They're natural leaders, charismatic, but there is a down side.

PROF. FRANK FARLEY: The T negative, unfortunately, is where they take risks in destructive ways, either self-destructive ways or in ways that are destructive of other people. And it's like you sometimes -- it sometimes overflows in a sense. You know, you may be this big T personality out there, a leader, changing the world, but you also have a little bit of that negative potential.

A week after the Monica Lewinsky story broke, CNN aired a self-flagellating special titled "Investigating the President: Media Madness?"

Jeff Greenfield began: "More than 200 years after the Founding Fathers risked their lives to found a nation built on the idea of freedom, after crafting the Bill of Rights, whose very first guarantee is the right of a free press to inform and educate the people, millions of those people are asking the press one question fraught with significance: What the hell are you people doing trying to find out what kind of sex the President of the United States might or might not be having?"

They didn't offer the same regrets for Nikki Haley.

CNN cannot seem to understand why the first all-news network is floundering. That it chose to run with a blogger's unproven charges -- in particular when that blogger was reported by the largest newspaper in his state to "shrug off accusations that he is paid to publish certain stories" might be a big clue for CNN as to why it is in a state of free fall.

- JP