Trib Lib asks, "Will success spoil Sarah Palin?"

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After a year and a half of non-stop from-the-gutter slurs on Sarah Palin, her character and her family, liberals have opened up a new avenue of attack. Not that they intend to abandon their old ways of sliming Sarah. They're just adding a "thoughtful liberal" approach, not unlike the "good cop, bad cop" gambit used by some police departments. Expect to see an increasing number of "thoughtful liberal, deranged liberal" assaults on the former governor of Alaska.

Charles M. Madigan -- who describes himself as "liberal leaning" -- demonstrates the "thoughtful liberal" approach with his op-ed in the Sunday edition of the Chicago Tribune:

She was a very conservative, very compelling and very comfortable option for a lot of people who felt disconnected from politics. You're not going to find many of them lunching at the University Club. You might find lots of them at laundromats in small towns any Monday of the year. They keep the hot roast beef sandwich option alive at family-owned restaurants everywhere.

It's great sport to mock them, and probably wrong to do that.

"Probably" wrong? Even thoughful liberals can't seem to get that Moral Compass they purchased from the Acme catalog to work...

Here's the Palin problem for them.

I suspect most of them could not scrape up $100,000 (the price she was paid, it was reported nearly everywhere, for her speech to the National Tea Party Convention) if their lives depended on it.

How will they feel about Palin when they realize she has become a wealthy woman whose comforts insulate her from their concerns? Her book has undoubtedly yielded a fortune. She is one of the Fox TV talkers, and nobody does that for nothing.

So basically, the "thoughtful liberal" attempt to try to undermine Sarah Palin's support among the everyday Americans she connects with so well is to first try to establish some credibility with Palin supporters by cluck-clucking, "Yes, even though my political philosophy is diametrically opposed to yours, you can trust me because I'm a 'thoughtful liberal' -- not a deranged one like all those MSNBC talkers. But you can't trust Sarah Palin anymore because she's making real money now and has become an elitist herself."

We've already seen unhinged progressives try to lay the groundwork for this maneuver. The literary editor of the New Republic gave it a go recently, but his straw man arguments were shot down at Ace of Spades HQ. And we've seen plenty of evidence that success hasn't changed Sarah Palin. She's still the real deal, as has been testified to by Skip Coryell and others. Also, at the Daytona 500 earlier this month, it was plain for all to see that money and success haven't changed Sarah Palin one bit:

After the [drivers] meeting ended, her handlers tried to shuttle her out of the room quickly, but Palin couldn't help herself and wanted to talk with anybody who wanted to come and say hi.

Liberals, you see, whether they be of the thoughtful or the unhinged variety, can't resist engaging in class warfare. Must have been all that Marx and Engels they read in college.

Madigan's closing argument has a hole in it so big that you could drive Sarah's big blue Going Rogue tour bus right through it and not scrape the sides:

It will be very hard to explain in a campaign that you walked away from the Alaska governor's office halfway through your term so you could become wealthy by monetizing your popularity with a book, a Fox TV commentary job and a career on the speaking circuit.

Unless, of course, you never intended to seek office again at all and were primarily just interested in taking care of business.

Now we know liberals don't like to do any actual research, but it's no secret that Gov. Palin was facing legal bills of well over half a million dollars, and that was one of the main reasons for her decision to resign.

Bottom line: When liberals try to destroy Sarah Palin, whether it be by the unhinged approach or the "thoughtful" one, they cannot bring themselves to tell the truth. Liberals must really think Palin supporters are stupid to try such a Wyle E. Coyote deception. They should save their time and effort because we're Sheepdogs, and we're not going to fall for it. A coyote is a coyote, even when it tries to disguise itself as a lamb. The stench is the same.

- JP

Politico: Palin "grateful" for book's early success

With her forthcoming book already the top seller at both Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com, Politico's Andy Barr was told by "a Palin source" that the former governor "is very grateful" for the strong early sales:

"This book has taken off like a rocket," the source said.

Another source, this one in the publishing business, told Politico:

"[I] cannot remember a non-fiction book taking off like this in the pre-order market. It became number one only a couple of hours after nothing more than a date announcement. It is truly unprecedented."

Sarah's supporters seem to be the only ones who aren't surprised by the response to her book...



Another quote from Barr's article:

"Much of the 400-page book is based on journals Palin kept during her vice-presidential run."

Some former McCain campaign aides should be afraid... very afraid. 

- JP

Ben Brown: Sarah Palin has been a successful governor

Juneau attorney Ben Brown, in an Alaska Observer op-ed, says that Sarah Palin has been a success in her time in the governor's office. Brown counters the naysaying from the usual anti-Palin suspects by pointing out some of her accomplishments:

Palin came to office with some specific goals, some of which she has accomplished outright, others which she has advanced appreciably along the spectrum from inception to completion. The Petroleum Profits Tax revisions were passed in time to help Alaskans reap unprecedented financial gains from our most marketable natural resource, and also in the wake of an ethics scandal that caused some Alaskans to doubt the fundamental integrity of state government.

The debate about the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act resulted in legislation that has advanced the progress about this mega-project to a point I at times wondered if I'd ever see in my lifetime. Exxon has now signed on to work with TransCanada, and BP and ConocoPhillips are displaying vocal, tangible plans to get the gas to market. Palin has submitted reasonable, fiscally-prudent capital and operating budgets to the Legislature, which have been scrutinized and ultimately passed largely in the form she proposed.

Palin has not always been as supportive of Juneau's role as Alaska's capital city as her predecessors, but she has clearly done some good things for us. She has unwaveringly supported the Kensington Gold Mine, which is now closer than ever to opening and bolstering our economy at a most crucial point in time.

Brown says criticism of Gov. Palin is unfounded because she is leaving the state in Sean Parnell's good and capable hands. Though he doesn't know what Sarah Palin intends to do next, Brown says that he knows that she is "a formidable force."

That bodes well for her continued success.

- JP