Elevating Sarah

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Marc Ambinder's Friday column has generated some blogosphere buzz. Basically, Ambinder believes that the Obama Administration should play the Palin Card so that the usual suspects will go all Alinsky on her. But wait, we thought they were doing that already. Oh, he must mean that they should go all Alinsky on her openly, instead of quasi-surreptitiously, as they have been doing since August, 2008. But we digress... Ambinder says the Obamunists should not worry that the White House, by focusing on Gov. Palin, will elevate her to even greater national prominence than she already enjoys.

Two bloggers who have posted their takes on Ambinder's take are Doctor Zero and MacRanger.

First the good doctor:

I hope the White House takes Ambinder’s advice, because it would be suicidal. His crack about Palin’s 'reveling in the culture wars' betrays his ignorance. He is confused by the details of her biography, and the sincere affection she earns from her admirers. His Palin Card is drawn from the wrong suit. She’s the Queen of Diamonds, not the Queen of Hearts. Her most impressive statements over the last two years have been on matters of economics, policy, and politics. She has shredded the Administration over health care, the Gulf oil spill, and unrestrained government spending. She’s endorsed dozens of primary candidates, with something like a 70% success rate. Her most notable clashes with 'culture' have involved asking it to stop making rape jokes about her daughters.

[...]

Obama would be making a deadly mistake by calling out Sarah Palin for a political cage match. Let me put this bluntly: virtually no one in America gives a damn what Barack Obama says about anything at this point. What could be more predictable, and less interesting, than Obama’s opinion on any given subject? Who wants to contemplate the economic wisdom of a guy who looted the Treasury for a trillion dollars, with less benefit than we could have achieved by stuffing hundred dollar bills into random cereal boxes? Who’s excited to hear about the next plan to convert taxpayer dollars into Democrat campaign funds? Who’s hungry for another hour of tedious excuses about permanently broken markets and the titanic dead hand of George W. Bush? Who wants a lecture on ethical business practices from the titular head of the party that gave us Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters? What use is another hollow foreign-policy speech from a man who sees no global adversary to rival the menace of Arizona? Even Obama’s supporters don’t hear anything he says any more. There’s nothing left to hear.

Palin, on the other hand, commands attention. Lots of it comes from people who dislike her, of course, but she definitely gets people talking. Many of her detractors have a surprising ability to quote her verbatim, stretching back for weeks. Obama’s critics need Google searches to remember what he said yesterday. They can only recall that it was boring, and expensive.

(More)

And from Macsmind:

Yes [everyone knows who Sarah Palin is] and it’s why the popularity is increasing. Why this is happening is a matter of object confusion for liberals like Ambinder. To them Sarah should have been dead and buried back in 2008. Certainly after she left the governorship. But after writing a book that flew off the shelves, still commanding crowds and even out endorsing Barack Obama with more successes than his failures, it’s undeniable. Like the Hulk, you keep attacking she’ll get stronger.

But another thing that liberals miss about Sarah is that she IS the voice, the national glue of the Tea Party movement. Somebody had to step forward and she did. She actually birthed the movement in 2008 from her run with McCain. In fact it all provided the most convenient of opportunities to lead this country back to the right, both politically and spiritually.

[...]

Sarah talks of America’s greatness and potential. Liberals have spent their quarter talking down America and apologizing for her. Americans don’t believe that – the vast majority don’t and they’re sick and tired of that message.

Ambinder whines that the “Fox-Rush Nexus” would respond to criticism by Barack Obama, but so would America, who now are beginning to view her in higher esteem than he. It would be utter foolishness by Obama to take that advice.

(More)

Our own take is that we never considered Ambinder to be the sharpest harpoon on the ship, and his latest column proves that. Doc and Mac have given his chronometer a thorough cleaning.

- JP

Doctor Zero zeroes in on Team Romney for its Palin smears (Updated)

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Responses to the sneak attack on Sarah Palin by Romney operatives are coming from all quarters of the Palinosphere. The latest to weigh in is Doctor Zero from Hot Air's Green Room:

Even as the starting bell rings for the first round of the Republican presidential free-for-all, we’ve got a couple of anonymous Mitt Romney advisors coming off the top rope, aiming elbow smashes at Sarah Palin’s back. They said she’s “not a serious human being” and “if she’s standing up there in a debate, and the answers are more than 15 seconds long, she’s in trouble.”

This childish and incoherent nonsense does a lot more damage to Mitt Romney than Sarah Palin. What, exactly, are the criteria for being considered a “serious human being?” Should she just give up her half-hearted attempts at humanity and drop dead? I would think raising a Downs-syndrome child would earn her a certain degree of automatic credit for seriousness. It’s certainly not the kind of thing a frivolous human being would do. Romney should begin his campaign by firing anyone who maintains a Daily Kos diary.

The crack about fifteen-second debate answers is slightly more coherent, but utterly ridiculous. Anybody who can rock a sitting Presidential administration with Facebook posts has nothing to prove to the faceless minions of a voiceless bystander to the ObamaCare drama.

The contenders for the GOP nomination will need to take some shots at each other, but they need to do it without questioning the very humanity of prospective candidates who haven’t even declared yet. In case the Romney machine hasn’t noticed, Palin is popular with the Tea Party folks, who will be producing much of the grassroots energy during the 2012 election. Slouching into agreement with the laziest media caricatures of Big Mama Grizzly is not going to impress them.

Let me offer Romney, and the other GOP contenders hoping to climb into the steel cage with him and Palin, what we’re looking for in a serious candidate...

Read the rest of Doctor Zero's commentary here.

Related: On Hot Air's main page, Ed Morrissey observes:

"Sounds as though Palin and her team are not afraid of playing a little hardball within the party, or at least not afraid of fighting fire with fire. The shot from the Romney camp does seem to indicate some control issues. After all, while candidates will certainly jockey for position in 2010, it’s far too early to be taking public shots at each other. The question of being a 'team player' is rather important in the midterms. Both Romney and Palin have done a good job in raising money and supporting candidates for Congress — and that’s exactly where the focus should remain."

"If it doesn’t, Palin and her team just showed that they can respond in kind — and that pols with glass houses shouldn’t busy themselves with throwing stones."

Updates...

Mitt Romney tries to do some damage control via Twitter:

TIME says unnamed advisors disparaged @SarahPalinUSA. Anonymous numbskulls. She’s proven her smarts; they’ve disproven theirs.
about 1 hour ago via web

Mitt Romney

But Tammy is not amused:

I updated my Romney Gutter post "in fairness" to Chauncey Romney & His Team of Anonymous Numbskulls http://is.gd/duwiy @MittRomney
15 minutes ago via web

Maybe HotAir's @edmorrissey post struck a @MittRomney nerve. Palin aide: Romney squad “immature,” out of control http://is.gd/duuyv
43 minutes ago via web

[...]

@RomneyCentral Oh, absolutely I'll be posting on this--with commentary on Mitten's "Who? Me?" pass-the-buck immaturity.
about 1 hour ago via web in reply to RomneyCentral

@RomneyCentral Grow up. He can demand to know who did it. If Mittens can't control *advisers* he can't control the Free World
about 1 hour ago via web in reply to RomneyCentral

One more thing @MittRomney, I guess if you have adviser 'numbskulls' (2!) who have proven their 'lack of smarts' we'll see some firings?
about 1 hour ago via web

And one other thing @MittRomney, you will be held responsible for what your proxies say and do about Palin. No more free shots.
about 1 hour ago via web

Hey, @MittRomney, your "anonymous numbskulls" response is silly and immature. Man-up, take responsibility and *apologize* to Palin
about 1 hour ago via web

Or, @MittRomney, your advisers are only "anonymous" to us and not to you, which I think far more likely
about 2 hours ago via web

Gee, @MittRomney, so your lack of control of your camp is so severe employees feel comfortable making comments like that to Time?
about 2 hours ago via web

Really @mittromney? "Numbskulls"? Romney responds to his camp attacking @SarahPalinUSA. http://is.gd/duqXO #tbrs #tcot #teaparty
about 2 hours ago via web

- JP

Doctor Zero on the two Republican Parties

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From Hot Air's Green Room, the good Doctor sees two Republican parties. The old one is dying, long live the new:

There are two Republican parties, and both had a candidate on the 2008 presidential ticket. John McCain was the candidate of the thin-blooded aristocracy, tired men who dislike certain elements of their nominal constituency far more intensely than their political opposition. They have no strenuous objection to the premises of the Left, as could be seen from McCain’s swift acceptance of the freedom-has-failed spin pushed by the Democrats during the 2008 financial crisis. Many of them believe opposition to the Left’s emotional narrative is electoral suicide. This also makes them reluctant to criticize Democrat candidates in harsh terms… which they have no reluctance to deploy against conservative primary opponents. They might speak up against its worst excesses, but they have no serious argument with the basic concept of Big Government – remember “National Greatness Conservatism?” They offer themselves as wiser, perhaps slightly more frugal drivers of the vast federal sandworm. They invest great effort in cultivating relationships with the dinosaur media, which they perceive as an irresistible force dominating American politics. They always look honestly surprised when these relationships disintegrate at crucial moments during national campaigns.

The other Republican party is young and vital. On the 2008 ticket, its banner was carried by Sarah Palin. It’s the yeoman wing of the party, composed of people with middle-class backgrounds and real-world business experience. These people are appalled at the bloated mess in Washington, and the smaller but equally fatal tumors infecting many state capitols. They see a government speeding toward systemic collapse, its doom spelled out in the simple math of unsustainable entitlements and economy-crushing taxation. They’re in love with the American people, a sincere passion that rings from every speech Palin delivers. Their idealism and energy leads them to stumble occasionally, and some veteran political operatives of the old Republican gentry are eager to give them a firm shove from behind. They correctly view the dinosaur media as an implacable opponent, and sometimes waste energy complaining about it… but the evolution of Palin’s media presence demonstrates they are learning to control the media, instead of fighting it.

The yeoman wing of the Republican Party had a very good night on Tuesday...

Read the rest of Doctor Zero's latest op-ed here.

- JP

Doctor Zero: Sarah Palin is the heart and soul of the Right.

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Doctor Zero, from Hot Air's Green Room:

The election of 2012 will be a savage battle, and all the arrows coming at Palin will be dipped in poison. The Republican electorate would like to see some x-rays of the fire in her belly before they get behind her.

Some of the softness in Palin’s support is probably sympathetic. She’s doing great work for the conservative cause as a private citizen, and enjoying an incredibly successful career. Her quest for the White House would be a roller coaster leading into a meat grinder. There’s a quivering lunatic in a tattered lab coat hanging around the loading platform, mumbling something about discovering the real mother of her son. Is she ready to strap her family into that ride again? Would anyone blame her for deciding not to?

Personally, I hope she does.

[...]

I’ve said before that a large government is, by definition, more emotional than rational. The problem is that dismantling such a government will require passion. The project must rest upon a sound, logical foundation, but there is simply no way to succeed without engaging Big Government on its own emotional terms.

The path to American renewal will be extremely difficult to follow. The morale of our citizens will be a serious concern. Regardless of how awful a president Barack Obama has been, the media will present his defeat in 2012 as a tragedy, bordering on a national sin. They’ll push that meme harder as his failures pile up. We need leadership that combines good cheer, fiery determination, and intelligent mastery of the issues.

Mitt Romney is cut from polished wood, and Newt Gingrich is origami folded from a thousand position papers, blotted with ugly scozzafava stains that may never come out. At this moment in time, Sarah Palin is the heart and soul of the Right. I can understand why many Republican voters might be reluctant to go into the next election with their hearts on their sleeves, but that’s the only way to win… and achieve the mandate necessary to do what needs to be done.

These are, of course, only the excerpts. Read the Doctor's commentary unabridged here.

- JP

Doctor Zero: Sarah Palin is Obama by proxy

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In a Green Room commentary for Hot Air, Doctor Zero looks beyond the obvious to find a reason behind the intensity of liberal rage projected at Sarah Palin:

Palin’s admirers often marvel at how the charges leveled against her are far more applicable to the current President. People who voted for an undistinguished junior senator from Illinois with few accomplishments are quick to assault Palin’s “lack of experience.” The same folks who instruct us that Barack Obama is a physical paragon, and Michelle Obama is the most beautiful woman in the world – a goddess who causes fashion models to slink from her path in shame – belittle Palin for her good looks. Defenders of the most fabulously corrupt administration in modern history mumble about the murky details of obscure “scandals” manufactured by Alaskan bloggers. They turn away from the sad spectacle of a manifestly incompetent President to sneer that a woman who alters the course of legislative battles with blog posts is some kind of an idiot.

They dismiss Going Rogue as “ghost written” while ignoring the specter of Bill Ayers plodding through Obama’s books, a sputtering bomb clutched in its skeletal fingers. A few lines scribbled on Palin’s palm glow more brightly in their imaginations than terabytes of data flowing across the screen of Obama’s teleprompter. They accuse Palin of being a “divisive” and “polarizing” figure, while Obama launches Taxi Driver rants against evil insurance companies, cops acting stupidly, tonsil-stealing doctors, and everyone else who crosses his path.

[...]

It’s very important for liberals to deflect those suspicions onto a designated, culturally approved target. Sarah Palin is a convenient hate fetish for increasingly nervous and confused Left, because she embodies the qualities of the red-state America they loathe… and serves as a voodoo doll for uncomfortable criticisms of Obama, which they project onto her. As events continue to demonstrate those criticisms were far more important than any of the superficial or imaginary reasons they voted for him, they’ll jab pins into that voodoo doll with increasing fury, even though the object of their anger now spends her days working for a news network none of them would be caught dead watching.

The pitfall of an insular, heavily biased media culture is that it doesn’t process negative feedback well. Those of us who never joined the Obama cult can only frown at the chunks of bile strewn through discourse that should have nothing to do with politics, and laugh when people who voted Joe Biden into office sputter about what a lousy vice-president Sarah Palin would have made.

A thought-provoking diagnosis by the good Doctor, and you can read it all here.

- JP

Quote of the Day (February 9, 2010)

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Doctor Zero:

If you seek madness, look for it in the President’s delusional State of the Union speech, or the people who indulge his belief that another three or four trillion piled onto a $14 trillion national debt will get us at least halfway to utopia. If you want to taste hatred, sample the venom directed at Sarah Palin, the only person currently capable of building a bridge between the energy of the Tea Party, and the established resources of the GOP. If you would like stupidity illustrated, witness the spectacle of the Democrats passing off their oily mass of backroom deals and political payoffs as a rational plan for improving health care.

- JP

Doctor Zero: Targeting the Tea Party

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Excerpts from another fine Doctor Zero op-ed at Hot Air's Green Room:

"Not all of the Tea Party’s enemies are on the Left. Some of them are nominally conservative elitists like David Brooks..."

[...]

"The Tea Party convention made a bold choice in selecting Sarah Palin as the keynote speaker for their convention. It was also very considerate of them – since the same people hate Palin and the Tea Parties, for the same reasons, their enemies can reduce their carbon footprint by carpooling to Nashville."

"It has been suggested that Palin might not have been the most strategic choice for a keynote speaker, since she’s not running for any office in 2010. I think she’s perfect, because the Tea Party is looking for a representative, not a leader. They want a champion they can send into the field, carrying their banner. Some have criticized the Tea Parties as populist in nature, but populism is defined by pandering, rather than persuasion… and a movement that asks the author of America’s best-selling political book to escort it into the American spotlight is definitely interested in persuasion."

To the good Doctor's commentary we would add that not all of the Tea Party enemies on the Right are Brooks-style elitists. There are some otherwise reliable conservatives who are questioning the motives and motivations of some in the Tea Party movement. Many of those are also taking shots at Sarah Palin because she refuses to be an enabler of CPAC, which we suggest should change its name to MittPAC for truth-in-packaging purposes.

Some of the criticism has been directed at the National Tea Party Convention and its organizers, Tea Party Nation. Sarah Palin is the keynote speaker, but Michele Bachmann, Marsha Blackburn and a number of others will also speak. Tickets for the event don't come cheaply at about $560, but this is a three-day event with breakout sessions, panel discussions and the like. It was not designed for the average mom and pop Tea Party goer, but rather for those who organize Tea Party events at the local, county and state levels. Local Tea Party groups can pass the hat or have some fund-raising events of their own to send delegates to the convention.

Still, we were among those who complained that most Sarah Palin supporters would not be able to afford to attend. The organizers responded by offering a somewhat lower-priced ticked for the banquet only. While still not cheap at about $360, that makes the banquet not that much different from a $350-a-plate county GOP fundraiser, except that Sarah Palin is the kind superstar attraction you don't usually get at the county GOP dinner.

Some on the Right have suggested that the convention is simply a ploy for TPN staff to enrich themselves. Take a look at the sponsors page on the convention website and decide for yourself if The Eagle Forum, Smart Girl Politics and the other sponsors would allow their names to be used to support a scam. We don't think so.

We find it to be a loathsome turn of events when some people attack the Tea Party movement for no reason other than the fact that Sarah Palin has decided not to attend CPAC. Look at all that Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement have done for the cause of conservatism, and then ask yourself what CPAC has done for the cause lately, except to take a lot of the "conservative" out of it.

- JP

Quote of the Day (November 18, 2009)

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Doctor Zero:

"The lunatic environmentalist movement, which is poised to push the American economy into a full-bore depression with its cap-and-trade bill, is headed by a man who admitted on national television that he thinks the Earth’s core is hotter than the surface of a white dwarf star. The same elite that despises Sarah Palin as an ignorant chillbilly spent the last twenty years telling us this man is a genius."

- JP

The Green Room's Doctor Zeroes In On Pompous David Frum

In the Green Room at Hot Air, Doctor Zero, scalpel in hand, shows that he knows how to use it to slice and dice Vichy Republican David Frum:

Writing on his website, which used to be called “New Majority” until he got tired of people laughing at him, David Frum published an essay called “The Palin Fantasy” over the weekend. Even as the House of Representatives was preparing to pass the most blatantly unconstitutional assault on America’s freedom in Congressional history, Frum found something really outrageous to write about: Matthew Continetti’s admiring essay on Sarah Palin’s populist appeal. It’s a good thing Frum has his priorities in order. We wouldn’t want Palin to get into office and drop a few trillion dollars of unsustainable debt on us.

[...]

Another of Palin’s qualifications is her relationship with her supporters. Contrary to the usual lazy dismissal, they’re not brimming with the kind of blind faith that put Barack Obama in office. Of course they like her. I’d be tempted to say every major politician is well-liked by their supporters, but I haven’t been able to forget about John Kerry yet. I’ve read a lot of blog posts and comments from enthusiastic Palin supporters, and they generally don’t strike me as hypnotized by the glory of her inevitable victory. They like what she says, they like her personally, and they take every opportunity to encourage her to run for office. Dismissing the ability to inspire such respect and affection as a liability is remarkably wrong-headed.

[...]

Palin’s qualifications are not merely academic. She’s been a lonely pair of boots on the ground, in conflicts where most of her presumptive rivals have been content to either sit on the sidelines or follow her lead. She’s demonstrated a willingness to take risks, and stand her ground under fire. Those are qualities Republican voters will be looking for, if they want a President who can do more than just negotiate lower monthly payments on the lethally overdrawn American Distress card.

The mocking dismissal of Palin as a pity fetish for her faithful worshipers has it exactly backward. Many of her strident critics enjoy using her as a voodoo doll to insult her supporters. They’re the real targets of accommodating “moderates” hoping to be chosen as valets to a permanent socialist ruling class. They’re the reason David Frum perches on his dreary web site, furiously scribbling equations that prove they don’t exist. Behind the endless nattering about Sarah Palin’s qualifications for President is the assertion that her supporters aren’t qualified to vote.

There you have the previews. Now go and read the full op-ed here.

- JP