Quote of the Day (May 6, 2011)

"Liberals, Trolling the Internet to Give themselves a False Sense of Smartness"
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Mildish, Eminently, at Elephant in the Room:

“With the invention of the internet we can now be connected 24/7. There is Facebook and the Twitter that allow us to chat with our friends, keep up with our favorite celebs and even join discussions and talk to people with similar interests. It is these discussion boards where the liberal trolls prowl. They search high and low for a fight on conservative discussion boards. They usually start the conversation by saying something extremely intelligent and original like Sarah Palin is stupid and Rush Limbaugh sucks. Then they wait for conservatives to respond to their comments. Once you respond and back up your responses with facts, these patchy faced kids call you stupid and disappear into the abyss of the internet.... He will then emerge from his parent’s basement to cash his government checks.”

- JP

Larry Elder: Of Course Sarah Palin's 'Unfit'; She's a Republican

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In his latest Townhall.com column, Larry Elder makes the case that the left's "Sarah Palin is not ready for prime time" meme is difficult to take it seriously. It's all about liberals' uneven application of standards:

Barbara Walters gushed over John F. Kennedy Jr. and foresaw a political future for him. Never mind that the young man had flunked the New York bar exam -- twice.

"Dumb" former President George W. Bush, caricatured as a slacker in an Oliver Stone movie, made better grades in college than did Al Gore, his opponent in 2000. Gore dropped out of divinity school after earning five F's. Then he entered law school and dropped out. He won a Nobel Peace Prize for his anti-global warming crusade, and his documentary won an Academy Award, but Gore got a D in science at Harvard. Bush also scored higher on his verbal SAT than did Rhodes scholar and "brainy" presidential candidate Bill Bradley.

"Dumb" former President Ronald Reagan majored in economics. But the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, who ran for the presidency, got expelled from Harvard for hiring someone to take a Spanish test.

"Dumb" Republican former President Gerald Ford was ridiculed as a bumbling doofus by Chevy Chase on "Saturday Night Live." Democratic former President Lyndon Baines Johnson famously quipped that Ford, who played football for the University of Michigan, "spent too much time playing football without a helmet." But Ford graduated from Yale Law School, the same school that produced Bill and Hillary Clinton.

The worldly and literate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who ran for president in 2004, didn't exactly kill on his military aptitude test. He got half the questions right and half the questions wrong -- dead average. He explained his poor showing by insisting, "I must have been drinking the night before."

Vice President Joe Biden's 1988 quest for the presidency evaporated when he plagiarized a speech by a British politician. When someone questioned his academic credentials at a campaign stop, the offended Biden claimed that he had a full academic scholarship at law school and graduated in the top half of his class. In fact, he had a need-based half-scholarship and graduated near the bottom -- 76th out of 85.

Biden, in his political career, has stacked up enough gaffes for a dozen politicians...

[More]

If she decides to run, says Elder, Gov. Palin will face the same tough challenges as other candidates, with one major exception: "She'll not benefit from the selective standard that liberals apply when evaluating 'their own.'"

- JP

Quote of the Day (October 31, 2010)

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Common Sense Journal:

"I’m all for respecting people with whom you disagree, but it’s almost always the leftists/Marxisists/'progressives'/Democrats who are smearing the opposition instead of addressing their arguments, whether it’s (unbelievably) Democrats/liberals making fun of a poor innocent child who has Down syndrome and whose mother is Sarah Palin, or Democrats attacking conservative women who run for office with sick and sexist 'jokes' which aren’t funny."

- JP

'Smart' liberals get snared in Sarah Palin's '1773' trap (Updated)

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At the time she said it, it occurred to us that our Sarah might be setting a little trap for for fact-challenged leftists. Sure, she was delivering a speech at a Tea Party event, to a Tea Party crowd and talking about the Tea Party. Still, The Arctic Fox just knew that the ignorant and spiteful left would not be able to resist taking cheap shots at her. And she just knew that very few of them would bother to look up the year of the original Boston Tea Party:

Sarah Palin at Monday's Tea Party rally in Reno, Nevada, told attendees, "Don't be thinking that we've got victory for America in the bag yet...We can't party like it's 1773."

Clearly not understanding that was the year of the famed Boston Tea Party, history challenged media members, including PBS's Gwen Ifill and Daily Kos's Markos Moulitsas, mocked Palin via their twitter accounts...

[...]

Of course, all these geniuses needed to do was a simple Google search of "historical events of 1773." The first response would have helped them identify that the Boston Tea Party happened on December 16th of that year.

I guess it's easier for arrogant members of the Left to just ridicule rather than research.

Hey, research requires actual effort, like putting down the bong and turning on the computer and stuff. We're willing to bet that when Sarah's dad taught her how to fish, hunt and trap, little did he realize that some day it would have a political payoff.

Update: Gov. Palin retweets Michelle Malkin: "Own up, dear"

"Gwen Ifill, et al... Really? Silly. RT @michellemalkin: 'Stand down,' says @pbsgwen re. her Palin bashing. Own up, dear. http://is.gd/g8AYb"

How sweet that tweet!

- JP

Political Ferocity of Conservative Women – We Are All In

- by VotingFemale
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...shedding some light on the significance of the Maureen Dowd hit piece on Conservative Women:

It is not that Dowd is especially significant… she isn’t. It isn’t that Megan McCain is especially significant… she isn’t. It isn't that N.O.(L.)W. (National Organization of [Liberal] Women) is especially significant… they aren't.

It is about a Left-Wing combined effort to intimidate and personally attack “Conservative Women” to shut us the hell up. And, like attacks on the Tea Party itself… it elevates the narrative to a national level.

A partial list of Left-Wing strikes yesterday itemized by Legal Insurrection:

• Meghan McCain: Christine O'Donnell 'Seen as Nutjob' - Uh, Meghan, that's a lot better than how you are seen.


• Barney Frank's Boyfriend Heckles Sean Beilat - Man-up, Barney, and do your own heckling.


• Frank Rich wrote an angry column complaining about all the angry rightwingers.


• MoDo wrote a sophomoric column about all the sophomoric conservative chicks (who also are angry).

We are not going to back down and we are not going to shut up… and the Left had darn well learn a lesson and right quick… we will leverage this left-wing attack mode on us as a political force and bend it to our own purposes. And, it has already started…

The left is attacking us personally and they will draw back a politically gnawed-off stump. We are not intimidated. We are growing in numbers by the second. Maureen Dowd, N.O.W., tools like Megan McCain, the slimeball Democrat Party operatives and their lamestream media attack dogs are on notice.

We don't come to merely fight... we come to win.

From, M2, a conservative female commenter on my blog this morning:

"VF, as you well know, the current Republicans (mostly of the male gender) are not ballsy enough to call out exactly what the Dems do. Some are just stuck in the Beltway etiquette, where Dems speak in propaganda, and Repubs speak as though they actually should “respect” those Marxist talking points.Women like Michele Bachmann are real and to the point."

"That’s why Dowd has been ordered by her Marxist Over-Lords to fashion a propaganistic Alinsky hit-piece on the women running for office. Because they are effective and not afraid to say what is apparent to all of us."

-VF

Voting Female, Texas born and raised, blogs from New England.

Quote of the Day (October 3, 2010)

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Darko Festin:

"When debating issues, conservative language is generally characterized by a reasoned line of thought, based on logic, historical precedent, and/or well established facts. Liberal language, when debating issues, is characterized by labeling the opposition and [deflection]... by demonizing the person making the argument. It’s often said that conservatives win in the arena of ideas because liberal ideas don’t hold up to intellectual scrutiny. To date, I have not heard one liberal offer me a reasoned argument for their animosity toward Sarah Palin. Why is she so hated by the left? Here’s what I hear. 'She’s stupid. She’s a whacko fundamentalist Christian that doesn’t believe in evolution. She says she can see Russia from her front porch.' Excuse me, but I’m having a hard time finding any measure of intellectual honesty in those comments... George Washington, along with a lot of other distinguished people in our history were Christian fundamentalists."

- JP

Liberals encouraging violence against Gov. Palin and her family after restraining order

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Commenters are encouraging violence against Sarah Palin, her husband and children on two liberal websites. At one leftist sewer site, a commenter suggests to the man with a shotgun who threatened Gov. Palin and was slapped with a restraining order this week to use an AR-15 instead, "If you're going after the breeding pair and the whole litter."

M. Joseph Sheppard comments on these leftist maggots at Recovering Liberal.

- JP

Sheppard: Gov. Palin Donates $3,500 Of Her Own Money To Teen Charity

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At Recovering Liberal, M. Joseph Sheppard comments on how Sarah Palin is, by her actions, speaking truth to the left's Big Lie and latest meme that she is a "grifter" or something:

Just when they think they are on a roll with this bizarre rant about how Palin (and Beck) were fleecing the dupes in Anchorage at their 9/11 meeting, Palin and Beck's team announces that Palin would not take a cent from the event and Beck is donating his fee to his "Wounded Warriors" charity. Darn it.

And, adding further salt to the wound or further extinguisher to the flame, Palin, the guest speaker [Sunday] at a sold-out fundraiser for Teen Challenge... not only signed a shirt which was auctioned off immediately for $3,500 and then (does this women have no shame?) she went and matched the auction fund with a further $3,500 of her own money!

The left's pathetic lie that Gov. Palin, who has repeatedly demonstrated that she has a servant's heart, is "only in it for the money" is made more disingenuous by the fact that conservatives are by far more generous to charity with their money than "progressives":



How can you tell when a nutroots leftist blogger or liberal media puppet is lying? That's an easy one. It's when they are using their keyboards.

- JP

Don Feder: Sarah Palin is the hateful left’s obsession

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Hatred is ingrained in the liberal psyche, says political/communications consultant and former Boston Herald writer Don Feder in an opinion piece for GrasstopsUSA:

As the Bush era wound down, Sarah Palin became the left’s new obsession.

For liberals, Palin was the Prom Queen from Hell. The former Alaska governor is a delightful combination of everything they (dare I say it?) hate – middle class, evangelical Christian, pro-life, anti-tax, in favor of drilling – and a hunter to boot.

It wasn’t enough for liberals to hate her ideas and savage her performance as governor; they went after her pregnant teen-aged daughter and even mocked her Downs Syndrome son. How’s that for compassion?

The unremitting ugliness reached its crescendo with Sandra Bernhard. The alleged comedian called Palin a “turncoat b**ch” and an “Uncle woman who jumps in this sh** and points her finger at other women.”

In what sounded more like a fantasy than a forecast, Bernhard warned that if Palin visited New York City in the 2008 campaign, she would be “gang-raped by my big, black brothers.”

In response to criticism from those who hadn’t gotten the memo that gang-rape is now funny when the victim is a Republican woman, Bernhard responded that the comment was “part of a much larger, nuanced, and yes, provocative (that’s what I do) piece from my show about racism (like stereotyping black men as rapists?), freedom, women’s rights and the extreme views of Governor Sarah Palin who doesn’t believe that other women should have the right to choose” – all of which makes humor about her sexual degradation perfectly acceptable.

Hatred is ingrained in the liberal psyche – hatred for the middle class, hatred for believers, hatred for their country and – ultimately – hatred for humanity (themselves included) – which is why Islam appeals to them so strongly. Got death wish?

You can read this Feder op-ed in full here.

- JP

The Cap Times: You can bet that Palin is coming to Wisconsin

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John Nichols, associate editor of The Capital Times, which bills itself as "Your Progressive Voice," predicts in the Madison-based web newspaper that Gov. Palin will campaign in Wisconsin this fall:

Bet on a late September or October stop in Wausau or Rhinelander or Ashland for 7th Congressional District candidate Sean Duffy, the former TV reality show star who caught her fancy early in the 2010 campaign season.

And she may make more stops in the state.

That’s something that Republicans and Democrats should figure into their campaign calculus because, like it or not, the 2008 Republican nominee for vice president is making herself a definitional player — perhaps the definitional player — in the current campaign.

[...]

She provided the publicity, fundraising oomph and political push for newcomer Joe Miller’s audacious challenge to incumbent Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

[...]

The former GOP vice presidential candidate’s star, which was already showing, is going to shine a good deal more brightly. And her favored candidates, not just in Alaska but around the country, are going to be more determined than ever to get her campaigning on their behalf.

This is something Wisconsin Democrats, if they are smart, need to consider with regard to the 7th District race, where she has already engaged, and potentially with regard to other contests where she might engage. (If gun-toting, Bible-quoting Rebecca Kleefisch, the closest contender Wisconsin has to a Palin, is nominated for lieutenant governor, bet on a heightened level of involvement by the Alaskan, who promises to back “mama grizzlies” wherever she finds them.)

[...]

She’s going to be a force to be reckoned with this fall, bringing political star power not just to the usual Republican suspects but to a lot of candidates who, like Alaska’s Joe Miller, had been counted out by political insiders. Democrats ought not fool themselves about the Palin factor. Indeed, if they underestimate this emerging reality, they will do so at their political peril.

Nichols' last sentence is an echo of remarks we've seen from other liberals who recognize the potency of Palin Power. But though a few on the left will heed the warnings, most will continue to mock her, attack her personally, and dismiss both her style and her substance. The left just can't help themselves because for most libs, arrogance is a fatal character trait. And so they will unwittingly help Sarah Palin work her political magic.

h/t: roy y

- JP

Quote of the Day (August 23, 2010)

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Carl Cannon at Politics Daily:

"A thin new volume arrived over the transom this week, an offering from Jacob Weisberg called Palinisms: The Accidental Wit and Wisdom of Sarah Palin. There are a few nuggets here, but it would seem from this little paperback that Sarah Palin is not the dimwit liberals make her out to be... It also implicitly raises the question of where the comparable volume is for Joe Biden, the gaffe-prone pol who actually holds the job Sarah Palin sought in 2008."

- JP

New Father Pfleger Reality TV Show: Blessing The Mayor's Office

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-By Warner Todd Huston

Those chickens have come home to roost… or at least they will during the upcoming mayoral election in the Windy City if the new reality TV show being shopped by Chicago’s incendiary Father Michael Pfleger is concerned.

Chicago’s gadfly Father Pfleger, close friend of Minister Louis Farrakhan, outspoken anti-gun crusader, sanctuary city supporter, and liberation theologist is the Southside religious leader who once openly wished for the death of a local businessman and also once said, “America is the greatest sin against God.” Pfleger has been the subject of many “reviews” by the Catholic Church and was once suspended after attacking Hillary Clinton as a “white person” who felt privileged because of her race.

New show producer, Bud Billikin of Chicago's South Side Productions, Inc., has announced that the new show will follow the Father Pfleger as he embarks on the adventure of a lifetime, a run for Mayor of Chicago.

On Friday Pfleger is expected to announce his run against long-time Democrat strongman Richard Daley whose father, a Mayor before him, was famed for having “helped” JFK win the White House in 1960.

"We expect quite a show," Billikin told reporters. "The good Father has all sorts of great catch phrases to make his run interesting and what a speaker! Once these two get head-to-head in a debate the Father is sure to make Mayor Daley look like the bumbling, inarticulate fool he is."

Upon news of this new reality show, major networks all across the dial have become intrigued by this epic battle between the Activist Catholic Father and his African American community and the long-time Mayor of Chicago with his Democrat machine dominated by white, Irish Democrats…

Oh, but wait… none of this would ever happen, would it? No such Father Pfleger show would ever end up getting a green light. No one in TV would ever want to embarrass the Democrats like this, would they?

Too bad the same can't be said for a Republican. At least we can say that when considering the probable motives behind this idiotic new "reality" TV show that is supposed to feature the dim-witted Levi Johnston, famed for being a media-propped thorn in Governor Sarah Palin's side, running for Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Palin's home town.

Imagine if an idea like one I started this story with were true? Wouldn't the left rise up in unison to destroy whomever suggested such an idiotic TV show starring the likes of a Father Pfleger? Wouldn’t the embarrassment for the left be too much for them to bear? Or what if a "reality" TV show following Paula Jones, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, or Monica Lewinski were planned? Heck, what if there was proposed a 60 Minutes documentary on "the birth certificate" all meant to lead readers to wonder what the real truth was? In fact, not a soul in Hollywood would ever even dream of offering such shows as these. They'd never even be considered for a second.

Yet the producer for this vapid Levi Johnston whose 15 minutes has been up for years already is claiming that there's "a ton of interest" in this insipid show following the empty-headed Levi Johnston.

So why might that be? Might it be that Hollywood and the Old Media establishment will do anything to stick a pin in Sarah's possible run for the White House? Or if not trying to kill her possible campaign, at least trying at every turn possible to discredit it ahead of time?

It's just some food for thought, isn't it?

-WTH

Warner Todd Huston is editor of Publius' Forum and a contributor to Texas for Sarah Palin as well as Big Government, Right Wing News, Red County and a number of other websites.

About the Left's New Palin-Confronting 'Drama Teacher'

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-By Warner Todd Huston

Earlier today the left sent up cheers for an Alaska "teacher" that is seen on video attacking Governor Palin as "the worst Governor ever" as the sign she was putting up read.

When Gov. Palin interacted with her, the woman told Palin she was a "teacher."

Looks like the woman, Kathleen Gustafson, is a liar. As we find on GatewayPundit, she isn't a teacher but a theater tech. Even more absurdly, the woman belongs to a band that features drag queens as its attraction!

Another blogger whose blog is named Mac'sMind did some digging and the only Kathleen Gustafson he could find connected to the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District works in the theater dept. as a tech.

So, once again, the left's hero turns out to be a whack-job and a liar. Are we surprised?

Here's that confrontation with Gov. Palin:



**UPDATE**

It is beginning to look like the original researcher of this woman's background misunderstood what the woman's role was in the schools. In my day "theater tech" was just a stage hand and it appears that the original poster also thought the same thing. But apparently the modern name for a drama teacher is now "theater tech." So it looks like this woman is, indeed, a drama teacher.

-WTH

Warner Todd Huston is editor of Publius' Forum and a contributor to Texas for Sarah Palin as well as Big Government, Right Wing News, Red County and a number of other websites.

Another Worried Liberal Fears the Power of Palin

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Yesterday it was Arianna Huffington. Today it's Marla Miller. Leftists are increasingly admitting, though it pains them greatly, the obvious: Sarah Palin is a very powerful woman...

At the time of her nomination, everyone told me I was nuts to be worried. However, no amount of encouraging words would soothe for this reason: we live in a tabloid news-loving culture and Sarah Palin had ‘Tabloid Queen’ written all over her.

Almost two years later we now know that whether she quits jobs or makes stuff up, women love her and not just Right wing zealot women, either. Pro-choice women have climbed aboard the Palin train.

[...]

They love their Mama Grizzly.

So how dumb is Sarah Palin? Probably not so. She was a Communications major who wanted to anchor the news but had five kids instead. If she has ‘brilliance’ it’s found in her instincts.

[...]

There is a group of women in this culture mad as hell. Men, mostly, are the reason why. Palin’s rhetoric speaks to them. Finally, someone is listening. They’re tired of taking what the sexist culture dishes out and now they don’t have to. They’ve got their Mama Grizzly looking out for them in a way that Hillary Clinton could not. As brilliant as our Secretary of State is, she did let a man publicly humiliate her for many years. And in the end, she did concede to a man even though her 18 million supporters begged her not to.

My guess is, the Mama Grizzlies and Cougar movements are here to stay. Women in this culture are hungry for heroes. In this era where tabloid news is now the mainstream, competition for the sexiest headlines is fierce. Like the Cougars, who now have the added status of a TV series, the Mama Grizzlies create provocative headlines because Palin knows how to masterfully manipulate tabloid news. That’s the brilliance of this Communications Major and mom of five.

Of course, Miller, Huffington and the rest are completely wrong about the reasons why Gov. Palin is so powerful, and even to bring themselves to concede to as much as they are willing to admit, they have to load their rants with the obligatory elitist slams, slurs and snark. But 'twas not so long ago, many of them were singing quite a different tune. Back then, it was all about how irrelevant Sarah Palin was and how she would slip back into the wilderness of Alaska and never be heard from again. Funny how that didn't work out for them.

Many of them also claimed that Gov. Palin was ignorant, stupid, dumb as a rock. Now, rather than admit how very wrong they were on that front, these leftists grudgingly concede that the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate has some smarts after all. But, hey, it's all just instincts, they say. There's no actual thinking involved on her part, they claim. All of that animal imagery, whether it be barracuda, arctic fox or grizzly bear, is entirely fitting because she's like the animals, acting on pure instinct, they insist. You see, for the leftists to admit that Sarah Palin is actually an intelligent, reasoning person would go against their strategy of dehumanizing her. And they really don't want to give that one up. To do so, they would have to challenge her on the actual issues, not on the straw men they love to send into battle against her.

For our part, we would prefer that the left just go on deceiving itself about Sarah Palin. After all, it is this self-deception which has allowed the governor to make fools as well as mincemeat out of her political opponents. As Eric Croft, an Alaska Democrat who tangled with the Mama Grizzly long before she stepped in front of crowd and cameras in Ohio nearly two years ago warned:

"The political landscape here is littered with people who have underestimated Sarah Palin."

Fortunately for those of use who want to get them out of power and stop the national bleeding, Croft's fellow Dems failed to hear his warning. That one of the things we love so much about the left. They don't listen.

Go Sarah!

- JP

WaPo leftist loon Susan Jacoby attacks Bristol Palin

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This is sure to make the Mama Grizzly sharpen her claws. Susan Jacoby, the atheist that the leftist Washington Post considers a proper contributor to its "On Faith" blog, has launched a personal attack on Sarah Palin's eldest daughter. Tim Graham reports via NewsBusters:

The "Spirited Atheist" of The Washington Post, Susan Jacoby, predictably trashed Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston as not only "poster children for the dumbing down of America" and as "most middle-class American parents' worst nightmare," but proof of what happens when religious people show off their contempt for book learning...

[...]

Women like Jacoby are truly angry that abortions didn't take place in the Palin family. They think it's shameless to have the baby, and stupid. The idea of promoting teenage abstinence to them is obviously, transparently, a scam, and the promotion of abstinence after a teenage pregnancy seems especially laughable.

But what grates most on conservative ears is the persistent contention that anyone who doesn't agree with atheist liberals must not read books.

Who does Jerkoby thinks buys all those conservative bestsellers like Liberty and Tyranny, Going Rogue and The Obama Diaries? Does she think we spend good money on them only to look at the photos on the covers?

"Liberal thinking" is an oxymoron. Liberal nastiness is a given.

- JP

More Quote of the Day Honorable Mention, Part 77

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"Refudiate the press corpse in all 57 states and the Austrian-speaking country of Europe" Edition...

Lori Ziganto at NewsReal Blog:

"It’s hard to have shame when you spend all your time on your knees as media lapdogs. The media was all too ready to promote anything at all to make that icky 'beauty queen' Sarah Palin look bad, like a bunch of jealous high school kids gossiping and spreading false rumors about the popular girl."

Edisto Joe at The Edisto Joe Outlook:

"Sarah Palin and untold amounts of others warned about this and most of America agreed that we did not want Obamacare. Her call for the press corps to do their job on the appointment of Dr. Berwick is already seen as a right wing whack job to discredit and out the good doctor for the socialist he is... Obama and the liberal left forced this on the country, lying through their teeth all along the way... The program is socialist in nature and its roots run through the liberal Congress all the way to the Oval Office. Sarah Palin was right and no matter how Obama spins it, he is wrong."

Dan Riehl at Riehl World View:

"Yes, who would think that the White House Press Secretary should be prepared to speak off the cuff on a pre-scheduled news show. Silly wabbits, that standard only holds true for people like Sarah Palin, when speaking with the likes of Katie Couric."

Louis Jacobson at The St. Petersburg Times:

"In a... Facebook post, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin posted excerpts from a speech she gave in Norfolk, Va., primarily on national security. At one point, she said, 'We spend three times more on entitlements and debt service than we do on defense.' We decided to check her math... Add together mandatory programs and the net interest, divide by the amount spent on security programs, and the ratio is 2.93 — very close to the "three times more" that Palin cites... we think it's reasonable for Palin to describe all security programs as 'defense' and all mandatory programs as 'entitlements.' In all, then, we rate her comment True."

Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters:

"Chris Matthews... called George W. Bush and Sarah Palin know-nothings... Maybe... EVERY MSNBC host should be required to publicly state which candidates they support in November so that those still foolish enough to watch this abomination will be cognizant of the biases at play."

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:

"Consider it an admission against interests. Michelle Cottle gets ahead of the curve, at least on the Left, in acknowledging what has been painfully obvious for months as Sarah Palin raises money and endorses candidates around the country: she’s darned good at what she does. And one of the things she does is cut the media out of the loop, making them mainly irrelevant to her activism and base-building... Even Chris Matthews acknowledged that implicitly when he said that the media would try to destroy her. If Palin wasn’t successful, they wouldn’t need to make it a project."

John Steigerwald at Just Watch The Game:

"Remember how much fun Saturday Night Live had making fun of something Sarah Palin didn’t say about Russia? I can’t decide if this nugget from Sheila Jackson Lee is worse than Joe Biden’s 'FDR went on TV' quote or not. I do know that if Sarah Palin had said something this stupid, it would have been all over the national news.

Matthew Balan at NewsBusters:

"It was only a matter of time before CNN's Jack Cafferty returned to bashing Sarah Palin... Cafferty hypothesized that the Republican's popularity was a good omen for the Democratic Party... The commentator might be a bit premature in his celebration, as a recent poll from Public Policy Polling found that Palin and Obama would each gain 46% in a hypothetical 2012 match-up, with the President losing to both Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee."

Stacy McCain at The Other McCain:

"Griffin, Dennis Zaki, Jeanne Devon — when it comes to sliming the Palins, the Atlantic Monthly has no discernible journalistic standards. Any 'source' is acceptable, so long as the source is anti-Palin."

James Poniewozik at TIME's Tuned In blog:

"Palin's 'refudiate' comment -- a controversy, almost too picayune to recap, over whether she misspoke... or whether she was engaging in Shakespearean coinage -- is a perfect example of how heavily the press covers her, and how well they are rewarded for doing it. Of course, it's also an example of how well Palin cultivates the media's obsession with her. Her response to most controversies -- don't steer away from a storm when you can tack into it instead -- plays them for maximum heat and exposure. If her response had simply been, 'So I said it -- what's the big deal?' it would have been an opportunity missed. When she instead responded that her usage was an example of the living language going back to Shakespeare, it was guaranteed both to enflame her critics (She thinks she's Shakespeare!) and delight her fans (she beat those know-it-alls at their own game!)."

Ian Lazaran at Conservatives 4 Palin:

"Obama's most memorable gaffes are actually insults of people who are different from him... Governor Palin rarely makes the Obama-style errors... No sensible person is offended that she said 'refudiate...' Unlike Obama's insults of special Olympians, white people, and rural Americans..."

Hippocritico at Big Journalism:

"Ben Smith not only found this Tweet worth mentioning, but worth mentioning in a headline where he linked to a blogger who accused Palin of 'joining forces' with the 'anti-Muslim Bigot Brigade.' I am simply pointing this glaring hypocrisy and bad judgment out for the benefit of Mr. Smith and his editors who will hopefully soon wake up to the fact that this kind of 'reporting' makes them look horribly dishonest – like left-wing ideologues disguised as journalists who have chosen sides. That can’t be who they are… right?"

McCain at Right Pundits:

"Yawn, the rest of us move on. But our liberal friends recent obsession with form over substance soon made itself known to all. They groaned. They laughed. They taunted... They did everything but refudiate her argument."

Dan Riehl at Riehl World View:

"You may recall ABC's Charlie Gibson asking Sarah Palin about the Bush doctrine, all of which Gibson clearly didn't know. If he had, he would have understood that her puzzled reaction to the phrasing of his question, no better than a set-up, was perfectly understandable. As evidenced by his question, Gibson wrongly believed the entire Bush Doctrine was about preemptive war. Informed followers of related news knew much better than that. Consequently, that's two major television networks now with leading personalities and their respective staffs whose grasp of the news of the day amounts to little more than ignorance... They think they are actually doing research by scanning headlines in the New York Times and the Washington Post. Thanks to new media, especially blogs, America is discovering that the news is much more than that. And the news outlets of our major television networks have not kept up."

Jenn Q. Public at NewsReal Blog:

"Sarah Palin is a tireless supporter of Israel... Pat Buchanan’s name is nearly synonymous with Nazi apologia... Anyone else having trouble seeing the similarity between Palin and Buchanan? There’s no comparison. Eleanor Clift is simply playing the Left’s Mad Libs-style smear game"

- JP

In fit of hypocrisy, elitist left all 'wee-weed up' over 'refudiate' (Updated)

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The left is "All Wee Weed Up" over Sarah Palin's use of the word "refudiate."



"Refudiate" was not made up by Sarah Palin. It was listed in the Urban Dictionary at least as early as June 27:

Urban Dictionary: Refudiate
27 Jun 2010 ... Portmanteau of "refuse" and "repudiate" to make clear you mean "refuse" as in to refuse to accept; especially : to reject as unauthorized or ...
www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Refudiate

"Wee-weed up," however, had not (to our knowledge) passed human lips until former half-Senator Barack Obama coined the phrase in August of 2009.

Update: Research, research, reasearch! Rich Crowther discovered an instance of the word in use in 1980.

- JP

Is 'How low can the left go?' a rhetorical question?

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From Bluegrass Pundit:

How low will the left go in order to insult Sarah Palin? There doesn't seem to be any limit. Lefties at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences have nominated the "Family Guy" song mocking Sarah Palin's down's syndrome child for an Emmy.

More...

- JP

How much does the deranged left hate Sarah Palin?

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The editors of Townhall Magazine have compiled a list, in PDF form, of "The 100 Americans The Left Hates Most." Sarah Palin is ranked a solid second, behind Glenn Beck and ahead of Rush Limbaugh, George W. Bush and Ann Coulter:

Long after her 2008 run to be vice president ended, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is continuing to make political waves. As a favorite of grassroots conservative tea partiers, Palin has used her star power to bring attention to various underdog candidates and issues facing voters this fall.

As a conservative working woman and dedicated mom, Palin’s anti-feminist brand of feminism has redefined the scope of "women’s issues" and shed light on blatant liberal hypocrisy.

Though try as they might to silence her—with attacks on everything from her outspoken criticism of the current administration to her bra size—Palin is a light that will not be snubbed out. Much to the chagrin of the liberal elites and leftist reformists, Palin’s down-to-earth independence, patriotic spirit and no-nonsense, can-do attitude will only continue to propel her popularity.

File this under "Badge of Honor." You can view the full list here.

- JP

A.W.R. Hawkins: Liberals Hate Palin Because She’s Beautiful

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Human Events columnist A.W.R. Hawkins offers his perspective on why liberals hate Gov. Palin:

Liberals have never liked former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. They don’t like that she didn’t go to an Ivy League school, that she doesn’t follow the usual protocol of not speaking until a liberal says it’s okay to do so, and that she chose to carry her Down Syndrome baby to term instead of aborting it. (That last one really drives them crazy.)

They dislike her political support for smaller government, tax cuts, and a strong military. They are outraged by her ongoing push for drilling in ANWR, her participation in hunting sports, and the fact that she’s a card-carrying, Life Member of the NRA.

But all these reasons are trumped by the fact that they despise her beauty. It pushes them over the edge to know that she doesn’t just shoot an assault rifle, but makes an assault rifle look good when shooting it.

[...]

The coverage of Palin’s trip to this year’s Belmont Stakes proved the hatred for her beauty all over again as media outlets like the Boston Herald seized on the fact that she wore jeans, a “form-fitting T-shirt,” and a baseball cap to the track. The T-shirt alone caused bitter bloggers to ponder whether the former governor had had some type of cosmetic surgery performed. (To them, it’s just not fair that she looks so good all the time.)

So when a Keith Olbermann-type moron refers to Palin as an “idiot” again, or a Chris Matthews-type repeats his belief that she’s “frightening,” we just need to remember that the left criticizes that which they fear. We also have to keep in mind the fact that all the names they throw at Palin are really code words for “Dang, that woman looks good.”

Hawkins, who earned his doctorate in U.S. Military History from Texas Tech, will be a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center this summer. Read his opinion piece unedited here.

h/t: roy y

- JP