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Sarah Palin has weathered attacks by "Bush's Brain." Now "Bush's Mouth" has gone after her too. After being attacked by Karl Rove, now Gov. Palin is under fire from Dubya's former speechwriter Michael Gerson. Using the Washington Post, a vehicle which has already accumulated "Cash for Clunkers" mileage running down the 2008 vice presidential candidate, Vichy Republican Gerson takes the old jalopy out for another sputtering spin.
Doug Brady at Conservatives for Palin pegs the hit piece as "a disjointed mix of establishment talking points, untruths, and a rather obvious contradiction which eludes the author utterly":
So, as with other spectator Republicans who had absolutely nothing to do with Tuesday's election result, Gersen wants to assign "blame" to Governor Palin for Tuesday's historic Republican sweep. In Gersen's mind, apparently, it's Governor Palin's fault that the enormous victory wasn't bigger than it was.
[...]
The ruling class in both parties... see Governor Palin and the entire Tea Party movement as an existential threat to their way of doing business. That they should, because their party is coming to an end, and the political earthquake which took place on Tuesday is just the beginning.
Read Doug's full post. He does a fine job of debunking Gerson's bulls... er,
bunk.
It's not just the younger Bush's minions, but the former president himself who is dissing Gov. Palin, if a report in the left wing NY Daily News is to be believed.
Citing an anonymous GOP source (What other kind is there for the Palin-hostile lamestream media?), the story alleges that George W. thought John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate "makes Bush think less of McCain as a man."
We won't believe this until we hear Bush say it himself for three reasons. First, given that the bad blood between them never got much of a chance to cool, it's difficult to imagine Bush being able to think any less of McCain than he already did before Gov. Palin was named to the ticket. Second, consider the source. Oh, wait. You can't, because it doesn't have a name. Third, because said source remains anonymous, it could very well be Rove, Gerson or some other good old boy from the former administration just making it up.
But what if the story is true, and what the Daily News spews is really GWB's thinking? In the opinion of
Aaron Goldstein, it could actually be a plus for Mama Bear:
Now for all anyone knows the anonymous GOP source has an axe to grind against Palin and using the former President to justify his or her animus.
If on the other hand Bush isn't fond of Palin that actually might help her. There are a lot of Tea Party activists who are less than enamored with Bush's economic and fiscal policies. There are also a lot of people outside the Tea Party movement who don't think much of Bush's presidency. If they perceive that Bush doesn't like Palin then they might be inclined to give Palin a second look.
We've always liked George Bush as a person, even though we disagreed strongly with him on his spending, failure to secure the border and and proclivity to grow the federal leviathan. But he always seemed to us to be an honorable man, not the sort to badmouth a fellow Christian of strong faith like Sarah Palin. If it turns out we were wrong, then we misjudged him, and we'll own up to it. If the NYDN story is shown to be less than truthful, as have recent Palin-bashing pieces in Politico and other publications, then it's just about par for the drive-by golf course.
On a final note, the usual suspect websites are all over this Bush story. Isn't it curious how the left, which hates George W. and has maintained for a decade that nothing he says or believes has any merit, is suddenly promoting this NYDN piece as if it is somehow supposed to be some kind of evidence which condemns Sarah Palin? Just sayin'...
- JP
