Rush: The problem is Obama, not Palin

This anti-Palin vitriol from "the right" defies logic
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Rush Limbaugh commented Monday on the Palin-bashing by alleged "conservative" intellectuals:


h/t: The Daily Rushbo

- JP

Jeb Bush fan Myra Adams wants Gov. Palin to announce first

Beware the Vichy pundit!
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While many pundits have pointed out that Sarah Palin has the advantage of not having to announce her candidacy for president until late in the game, Myra Adams argues to the contrary at Pajamas Media:

If Palin is planning on running, she could create a total frenzy by being the first GOP candidate to officially announce. She would have nothing short of complete media domination for at least a day or two. Another advantage of announcing first is that after hers, all the other candidates’ official announcements would be anti-climactic — unless they made their own campaigns all about Palin herself.

Since Palin currently commands so much media attention, one could make the case that she is being somewhat unfair to the other prospective candidates who don’t know whether she will perform or cancel the show. Right now, it’s all center stage but no show. Mitt Romney, the current front-runner, has already given her a pre-show review by stating that Palin would be great in the primaries.

Palin could use the Power of Now to make her decision either way from a position of strength. Announcing now from center stage, instead of from deep within a crowded field, puts her more in control of both alternatives.

If Palin is to make a serious run for the White House she needs to be building a national organization now — one that can raise millions and win primaries in early states like New Hampshire and South Carolina. If she decides to make a late entry, it would be nearly impossible for her to be taken seriously as a candidate and to gain ground. Just ask Fred Thompson.
Time to Release Her Supporters

The tea party base enamored with Palin needs to know her 2012 plans so they can stop wasting their psychic energy fantasizing about her run. Then, if she decides not to run, there’s plenty of time to transfer enthusiasm to other candidates. These party activists will be desperately needed on other presidential campaigns and as boots on the ground for the GOP, even if they are still waving the Palin flag in their hearts.

There are some holes in Ms. Adams' arguments large enough to drive a bullet train through. First of all, Gov. Palin would "create a total frenzy" regardless of when she announces, no matter whether any of her potential rivals for the GOP presidential nomination have announced. If and when she throws her cap in the ring, she will have "nothing short of complete media domination," and not just for "a day or two."

Secondly, we couldn't disagree more with Ms. Adams' assertions that "one could make the case that she is being somewhat unfair to the other prospective candidates" by waiting to announce. What, we ask the author, does Gov. Palin owe her potential rivals? While she has been on the front lines leading the battle against the excesses of the Democrats, they have mostly been content to be silent and let her take most of the fire and the abuse. While she's been in the crosshairs of the left and its captive media, some of the other prospective GOP candidates have been taking their own potshots against her. She doesn't owe them a blessed thing.

Point number three: Ms. Adams' claim that the tea party base is "wasting their psychic energy fantasizing about her run" is simply ridiculous. We wonder where in the world she got that silly notion from? It sounds like something someone on the left or in the Vichy Republican establishment would say. In fact, the entire Adams op-ed has that GOP establishmentarian air about it. We find it interesting that the four potential Palin rivals Ms. Adams names by name are Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich, and Haley Barbour -- all establishment types.

Ms. Adams is not a disinterested observer. If you have any doubts about where she's coming from, read her opinion piece advocating a presidential run by Jeb Bush here and her anti-Palin propaganda here. Also, along with fellow Vichy Republican Mark McKinnon just last month, Ms. Adams predicted President Obama's reelection here. It's pretty clear that whatever side Myra Adams is on, it's certainly not Sarah Palin's or that of any other Reagan conservative.

- JP

Dr. William Dixon: What exactly is wrong with Palin as a candidate?

Press her detractors for facts
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Dr. William Dixon, who served as an Army surgeon and Lieutenant Colonel in the special forces, searches for reason in the left's unreasonable hatred of Gov Palin and the lack of esteem for her among some on the mostly RINO right. When pressed for facts, he says, many of them are woefully ignorant of the former governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate's record "of Palin’s background and remarkable accomplishments. Why is that?" he wonders:

All but three of our presidents in the last hundred years graduated from elite universities, often with law degrees. Truman did not attend college. Ike graduated from West Point, and Reagan graduated from Eureka College in Illinois. Those three are considered among the best of presidents by most. Reagan and Truman were thought stupid by some. Is it that Palin did not graduate from an elite university that causes some conservative pundits to reject her as unintelligent?

[...]

It seems unlikely that her performance as mayor of Wasilla, cutting taxes while expanding the town’s facilities so that it could grow, would be anything but a plus. Just so her role as a member of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. She outed two corrupt officials, one of whom was chairman of the state Republican Party.

Was she wrong in running for governor to oust a corrupt and wasteful officer of her own political party? Was it lack of wisdom which led her to sell the state plane, cut expenses of her office by 75 percent and pass a bipartisan ethics bill? Was she impolite in chasing away the oil company lobbyists so that she could start work on a stalled pipeline for natural gas? Not likely.

President Obama was elected because he appeared to be extraordinary. His academic pedigree and soaring rhetoric shielded from voters his appalling lack of real-world experience and complete lack of substantial accomplishments. His presidency is struggling.

By contrast, Sarah Palin, despite her talents and obvious achievements, seems very ordinary. Americans, believing the smears and punditry, will likely reject Palin without really getting to know her. Once again the nod will go to a member of the cultural elite, a group which has routinely failed to govern well.

[More]

Not if we refuse to let the left and its media hounds choose our candidates for us, Doc.

- JP

Jacobson: If 'She Can't Win,' Then Neither Can We

"Let them all enter the primaries and let them all be seriously considered"
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William Jacobson, the law professor who blogs at Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion, has been on the case of the PDS-afflicted on both the left and the right who have been pushing their "can't win" meme so hard lately. The naysayers with their axes to grind insist she doesn't even deserve to be seriously considered by GOP primary voters because the 2008 Republican vice presidential just can't win a general election.

They cite as evidence her poll numbers, but they don't want to talk about how far down in the polls (22 points) Ronald Reagan was to Jimmy Carter in January, 1979. They say she is "too divisive," but Reagan was characterized in the same manner. They say she's too hated by the left, but so was George W. Bush, yet that did not prevent him from winning a second term in 2004. Tim Pawlenty and a number of other prospective GOP presidential candidates have poll numbers much lower than those of Sarah Palin, but no one is claiming that any of them "can't win." As Prof. Jacobson observes, the meme has been used almost exclusively against Sarah Palin. But he points out that she is not the issue:

The issue is whether we will demoralize voters who would work hard to elect a Republican -- even a Republican not quite to their liking -- in the general election provided the primary process were viewed as fair and open.

We saw in the 2010 elections that Tea Party supporters are among the most loyal. Where Tea Party candidates lost primaries, Tea Party supporters rallied around the winner, or at least did not actively seek to undermine the winners. By contrast, the moment establishment candidates lost, there were active attempts in some races by establishment Republicans (and unfortunately, some of the conservative blogosphere) to undermine the candidates.

There is no better way to demoralize a key segment of the Republican Party, and damage our chances in November 2012, than to announce a year before the primaries even begin that Palin should not even enter the primary fray or should not be seriously considered because she cannot win a general election.

We do not need the Republican equivalents of 2008 Democratic PUMAs, people so embittered by the perceived unfairness of the primary process that they stayed home or switched sides in November. And that will be the result of attempts to shut Palin out of the process through the "can't win" strategy.

[...]

If "she can't win" is the means by which one of the candidates wins the Republican nomination, then we can't win either.

[More]

- JP

Quote of the Day (January 21, 2011)

The Left Fears Sarah Palin Like No Other GOP Candidate
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Doug Ross:

"If Palin were, as some on the right tell us, a 'joke' of a candidate, it hardly explains the desperation with which the professional propagandists -- ranging from John Podesta's Center for American Progress to Markos Moulitsas -- attack her."

- JP

IBD Editors: Palin's Vindication

The lesson: When Mama Grizzly roars, maybe the Beltway know-it-alls should listen.
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The editors at Investor's Business Daily recall how the GOP establishment and some conservatives among the punditocracy ridiculed Gov. Palin for endorsing and supporting such Tea Party challengers as Christine O'Donnell, Joe Miller and Sharron Angle. Yes, all three were less polished than their establishment opponents. A look at some recent voting on the hill, however, vindicates the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate and her 2010 choices:

Well, guess who just voted with the House of Representatives' lame-duck Democratic majority to ignore military concerns and repeal "don't ask, don't tell"? "Republican" Mike Castle did.

Guess who just voted for the Dream Act, which would have granted amnesty and instant eligibility for welfare and government education benefits to millions of illegal aliens, costing the taxpayers tens of billions of dollars? "Republican" Mike Castle did.

Charles Krauthammer, a national treasure among syndicated columnists and IBD regular, seriously questioned Palin's judgment in backing O'Donnell. "Castle voted against ObamaCare and the stimulus," Krauthammer noted in September. "Yes, he voted for cap-and-trade. That's batting .667."

But having lost both the Senate nomination and his House seat — won in November by Democratic former Lt. Gov. John Carney — the lame-duck session is lowering Castle's batting average.

It's clear that whatever eccentricities O'Donnell exhibited, none would have compelled her to vote for either of these appalling bills. Or for the half-baked New START nuclear disarmament treaty that the Obama administration is demanding the Senate blindly ratify without fully knowing what it would do, absurdly claiming that our national security lies in the balance.

[More]

- JP

Stuart Schwartz: Sarah Palin and the Haters of American Normal

Sarah Palin is quintessentially American. What gives her the right to be happy?
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It's open season on Sarah Palin, declared by the elite establishment on both the "Crazed left and sclerotic right" observes Stuart Schwartz at American Thinker. "Stop her now," is their battle cry, which is loudly trumpeted in the usual suspect media -- the New Republic, The Atlantic, New York Times and MSNBC MSPDS. Even on Fox News, Bushie Karl Rove is leading the RINO squadron in sortie after sortie on the GOP's 2008 vice presidential candidate, Schwartz remarks:

From left and right, insiders all, the anger is palpable at what James Lewis of American Thinker terms "American exceptionalism in the flesh -- and downright attractive flesh at that."

Why do they hate her? Lewis hits the nail on the head. Sarah Palin is quintessentially American. She is a throwback to the days of the founders, when citizens became politicians because the common good demanded service -- not because political office offered wealth, power, and a pool of Beltway interns ripe for sexual exploitation -- and followed their tenure with a return to private life. But we now live in the age of professional politicians, the self-proclaimed best and brightest who make decisions for an electorate too simple to understand "the facts or the truth." Or so says Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts politician who is to "haughty" what Paris Hilton is to "self-involved."

And so anger and angst bubble over, spilling out as the grandees realize Sarah Palin is just so darned...normal! Lewis describes her as a "beautiful, strong, intelligent, articulate, healthy-looking, truth-telling...gun-totin', sports-lovin', all-American woman." And that "sunny disposition" sets them off, for Sarah Palin is a fiery red poker plunged into the pasty white of the collective metrosexual gut. Elizabeth Wurzel, the best-selling author who blogs for the Atlantic, howls with pain at the realization that Palin is actually "the most visible working mother and female politician in America, that she is the best exemplar of a woman with an equal marriage, that she has put up with less crap from fewer men than those of us who" are the official feminists within the media and political elites.

[...]

But Sarah Palin is not Elizabeth Wurzel smart. Nor is she Karl Rove savvy, Keith Olbermann articulate, or Barack Obama cool. No, Sarah Palin is just plain normal. And not just any normal -- she is American normal, the kind of normal that wrenched a nation away from a calcified European aristocracy and established what Abraham Lincoln described as "a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." It is no coincidence that the United States is the single nation that, for the entirety of its existence, has had immigrants fighting to be included in a community structured upon individual "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," as our Declaration of Independence puts it. And now that normal is being challenged by those who want to control every aspect of American life.

[...]

Sarah Palin for president? The screams of the elites are in a crescendo, and it's not even 2011. The roar is deafening: She's not a Karl Rove or Nancy Pelosi, they cry, a John McCain or a Barack Obama, a Hillary Clinton or a Lindsey Graham. She's not Washington or New York or Manhattan or San Francisco. She's Sarah Palin, and she's Alaska, for Obama's sake!

And your point is...?

[More]

Joining the list of usual suspects noted by Schwartz is former New Jersey governor and still Vichy Republican Christine Todd "Landslide" Whitman. Whitman, a leading enabler of abortion, including partial birth abortion, founded a political action committee called It's My Party Too (IMP-PAC), with the goal of electing RINOs at all levels of government. Whitman claims that Gov. Palin's resignation shows 'attitude' against constituents. By that same "logic," Whitman's veto of a partial abortion ban showed "attitude" against innocent infants. Gov. Palin can wear Whitman's opposition to her as a badge of honor.

- JP

Mark Meed: 4 Palin-Hating Groups Who Should Be On Her Resume

The Mos Eisley Cantina collection of characters who oppose her
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We can learn a lot about someone through an examination of the enemies he or she has cultivated. Mark Meed, in an op-ed for David Horowitz's NewsReal Blog, says Sarah has cultivated some of the best... actually, the worst, from our point of view down here in the Brazos Valley:

1. The Republican Establishment

Barbara Bush is only the latest in a long line of GOP patricians who have damned Palin with faint praise then suggested, with varying degrees of subtlety, that she quietly depart the stage so the grownups can take over... Scant mention is made of the fact these are the same grownups who presided over the frittering and fumbling away of the same Reagan legacy they rhapsodize about on the Sunday shows...

[...]

2. “Friends” on the Right

Others, nominally on the Right side of the fence, aren’t subtle at all.

Kathleen Parker, Peggy Noonan, David Brooks and David Frum – to name just a few of the bitter old women involved – have each in their turn made pronouncements about Palin in which terms like “fatal cancer”, “joke”, “nincompoop”, “disastrous” and my personal favorite “a different version of Madonna” factor prominently. Perusing these utterances it’s easy to imagine some back-channel contest to see who can be most snide and condescending without actually leaving spittle on the page... Like the Republican old guard they relentlessly shill for, these scribes and pundits largely see political change in terms of replacing elites from the Left with elites from the Right, which necessarily includes them.

[...]

3. The Media

So shrill and venomous has been the media’s reaction to Palin – reminiscent of the Ringwraiths screeching over the empty beds at the Prancing Pony – that it’s earned its own pseudo-psychiatric term “Palin Derangement Syndrome”... Bottom line, there is no happy-mask left for these people where Palin is concerned. With every new silly, counter-factual, hopelessly predictable hit-piece they churn out they might as well just add the boilerplate disclaimer: “I am a desperately unhappy, deeply neurotic pseudo-intellectual whose only pleasure comes imagining myself superior to Sarah Palin and every ‘ordinary’ American she represents,” because that’s what screams across the divide.

4. The Entertainment Industry

[...]

It would be extravagant to claim that before Sarah Palin dogpile we had no inkling how vulgar, nasty and breathtakingly obtuse our entertainment and entertainers had become... We can however assert with some confidence that with Palin our glitterati have dropped the pretense that it’s only about the US government and are now utterly transparent in their contempt for the type of American Palin represents, which is most of us.

[...]

If she achieves nothing else in her lifetime except having – just by virtue of who she is and what she represents – flushed some of them out of hiding, that alone should secure her a place in history, complete with statue, bank holiday and catchy song.

[More]

Our Sarah does seem to rile up all the usual suspects, doesn't she?

- JP

Scarborough's attack on Gov. Palin just part of the plan

More opening salvos in the Vichy GOP's war on Sarah
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Vichy Republican, former Congressman and MSDNC talk show host Joe Scarborough launched a full-scale attack on Sarah Palin Tuesday. The two-pronged assault by the man Don Imus has described as "a disgusting, backstabbing phony," was waged in a Politico opinion piece and on MSDNC's poorly-rated "Morning Joe" program.

At least Palin supporters can't claim that they were "blindsided." Politico predicted that this was coming in an October 31 article written by Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei titled "Next for GOP leaders: Stopping Sarah Palin." The GOP establishment's campaign against the party's 2008 vice presidential candidate was described in the piece as an "urgent task that they will begin in earnest as soon as the elections are over." By "in earnest," Allen and Vandehei meant to say beyond the usual anti-Palin smears made by pretend "conservatives" such as Kathleen Parker, David Frum and Peggy Noonan. Those sort of attacks have been seen since Gov. Palin was named as John McCain's running mate in late August of 2008.

Indeed, we have seen similar attacks on the first woman to be both Alaska's governor and the GOP's vice presidential candidate coming from new quarters. Probing maneuvers by Karl Rove testing Gov. Palin's perimeter began in mid-September and were ramped up by "Bush's Brain" just two days before the Allen-Vendehei article was published by Politico, when Rove questioned her "gravitas" and declared the "Sarah Palin's Alaska" series on TLC to be "unpresidential."

The next skirmish in the coordinated RINO attack on Gov. Palin came from the unlikeliest of guerrilla fighters in the person of Barbara Bush, whose diss was both sexist and condescending, as Mama Frizzy preceded her opinion that Sarah Palin "should stay in Alaska" with a back-handed compliment about the beauty of the woman she was attacking.

The assaults on Gov. Palin by Rove and Bush were both based on style, not substance, as was pointed out at Wake up Black America:

The reason why anti Sarah Palin snipes can't debate me and her supporters on the issue of Sarah Palin's qualifications to be president is because the arguments that go in her favor are all based on facts, where as the negatives are based on opinions, gossip, smears and lies. Palin has earned the right to run for the GOP nomination. She in essence saved the GOP from it's certain death as a national party. While she has been going after Obama, Pelosi, Reid and others on their failed polices, other potential 2012 GOP candidates have been silently standing by watching trying to keep their powder dry.

The attacks by Scarborough are similar to the ones made by Rove and Mother Bush in this regard. Let's examine Scarborough's points from his Politico hit piece one by one:

"What man or mouse with a fully functioning human brain and a résumé as thin as Palin’s would flirt with a presidential run? It makes the political biography of Barack Obama look more like Winston Churchill’s..."

This is a bald-faced lie. Sarah Palin was a city councilwoman for two terms (4 years), a mayor for three terms (6 years), chair of a state oil and gas commission for a year and chair of an interstate (38 states) oil and gas commission for a year. As governor of Alaska, three of her administration’s major proposed pieces of legislation passed in her first year in office -- an overhaul of the state’s ethics laws, a competitive process to construct a natural gas pipeline and a restructuring of Alaska’s oil valuation formula. As governor, she also used her veto powers to cut budgetary spending and called a halt to the “bridge to nowhere” that would have cost taxpayers an additional $400 million dollars. Comparisons of her resume to that of Barack Obama are here and here, lest anyone question whose is "thin." It is important to note that her resume includes considerable government executive experience, while Obama's has none. In the private sector, she is also a small businesswoman, co-owner of the family's salmon fishing operation with her husband Todd for years. So Sarah Palin's resume not only puts Barack Obama's to shame, but Joe Scarborough's as well.

In the past month alone, she has mocked Ronald Reagan’s credentials, dismissed George H.W. and Barbara Bush as arrogant “blue bloods” and blamed George W. Bush for wrecking the economy.

Sarah Palin most certainly did not mock President Reagan or his credentials. She merely pointed out that others had dissed Reagan as "only an actor" in response to Rove characterizing her television show as "unpresidential." Gov. Palin's remarks about the Bushes were also made in response to an unprovoked attack on her, one made by Barbara Bush herself.

Borrowing again from old left-wing attacks that Democrats used against GOP presidents, Palin channeled Ann Richards by bashing Bush and his wife as “blue bloods” who had wrecked America.

Exposing his own hypocrisy, Scarborough borrows from Democrat attacks on Sarah Palin in this piece. No less than three times Scarborough uses "half-term governor," one which comes right from the top of the list of DNC talking points. His characterizations of her as "maniacal" and "dopey" come right out of the left wing's anti-Palin playbook. Sarah Palin was correct that George H.W. Bush's abandonment of Reagan principles doomed him to be a one-term president who opened up the door for 8 years of Bill Clinton in the Oval Office.

"Maybe poor George Herbert Walker Bush was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Indeed, he was so pampered growing up that on his 18th birthday, the young high school graduate enlisted in the armed forces. This spoiled teenager somehow managed to be the youngest pilot in the Navy when he received his wings, flying 58 combat missions over the Pacific during World War II. On Sept. 2, 1944, “Blue Blood” Bush almost lost his life after being shot down by Japanese anti-aircraft fire."

What does the elder Bush's commendable war record have to do with this argument? It doesn't change the fact that his ineptitude on fiscal matters prevented his reelection and allowed the Democrats to gain control of the executive branch for 8 years. Sure, he did the right thing in Kuwait, and he's a nice guy, but this doesn't change the facts of history. Congressman Charlie Rangel served honorably in the Korean War, yet those admirable credentials did not prevent him from making bad decisions which led to censure by his peers on the House ethics committee. Scarborough's diversionary tactic is transparent and weak.

Who wouldn’t agree that finishing third in the Miss Alaska beauty contest is every bit as treacherous as risking your life in military combat? Maybe the beauty contestant who would one day be a reality star and former governor didn’t win the Distinguished Flying Cross, but the half-termer was selected as Miss Congeniality by her fellow contestants.

It's no surprise that Scarborough would throw in some sexism in his attack on Gov. Palin. The Vichy GOP has been in bed with the liberal Democrats for so long now that their attacks on good conservatives sound just like those made by their fellow travelers in the donkey party. Look, Sarah is so much more than a former beauty contestant. She only entered beauty contests to try to help pay her way through college, and for that she is vilified? She has, in fact, been a Blue Star Mom and Commander of her State's National Guard and Air Guard. As both a governor and a citizen, Sarah Palin has been nothing but supportive of our troops and veterans. That Scarborough has to reach all the way back to the Second World War to defend George H. W. Bush only demonstrates the weakness of his argument.

Another claim repeatedly made by Scarborough on MSDNC and aped by his Democrat co-host is that every Republican leader or talk radio host with whom he's spoken shares his criticism of Palin but is afraid to say so on the air. He must not talk to many conservative talk show hosts, then. We will bet real money he doesn't talk to Mark Levin, who just last month condemned Moaning Joe for previous attacks on Gov. Palin:

I see Palin campaigning all over the country for candidates. I see her raising funds for them. I see her attending Tea Party events, Republican events, you name it. She's in the fight. She has put her neck on the line and has exposed her family to outrageous ridicule. And she has done great things that have advanced conservatism and Republican Party hopes next week.

Conversely, Joe Scarborough has done nothing. He sits at his table on MSNBC arrogantly denouncing conservatives, pandering to liberals, and repeating stupid talking points someone uttered days earlier. He has no ideas and, worse, he drags down those who do. Has he campaigned for anyone? Yet he passes judgment on someone who has. Has he raised funds for anyone? Has he used his "celebrity" (such as it is) in constructive ways?

[...]

Go Sarah. Get lost Joe.

We also doubt he's had many conversations with the king of talk radio, Rush Limbaugh. The two have had a long-running feud, during the course of which Rush said:

Moderates want kumbaya, moderates want everybody to just hug and kiss and get along. It's all a myth.... People fall for these tricks that are designed to shut us up, that are designed to get us to stand down, to be nice and gentle because the Republican Party, you have to understand, Rush, is hated and despised because everybody knows it's full of racists, sexists, bigots, and homophobes, and that's a cliche, and it just bothers me that smart people like Scarborough fall for this because he's allowing himself to be neutered, and that's what made him upset today, I called him a neutered, chickified moderate. [Emphasis ours.]

No, Scarborough didn't find corroborators in the lies he's telling about Gov. Palin in the persons of either Limbaugh or Levin, so one has to wonder which lower-echelon Republican talk show hosts Moaning Joe is talking to. It must be the ones whose ratings are as pitiful as Scarborough's are. Oh, wait, nobody's ratings are that pitiful, at least not anybody of consequence.

Make no mistake, the attacks on Sarah Palin by first Rove, then Mrs. Bush and most recently Joe Scarborough were carefully planned and coordinated. These are only the opening salvos in the Republican Party establishment's war on Sarah Palin. Chief among her many sins in their eyes is that she encouraged and supported the grass roots movement against the good old back room boys, and for this she must be destroyed politically. Ironically, while she has been busy taking the fight to Barack Obama and the liberal Democrats, the same Republicans who should have joined her in that battle have been busy planning and waging political warfare against her instead. One thing you can be sure of, more attacks have already been mapped out by the GOP elites, and we will be witnessing them in the coming weeks.

In conclusion, Scarborough got one, and only one, point right. If establishment Republicans want to criticize Gov. Palin, let them do so not in a cowardly and anonymous manner. Let them grow a spine and put their names behind their disrespect. Of course, Gov. Palin was the first person to make that suggestion, so Scarborough is simply echoing the woman he wants to destroy on that particular point.

- JP

Stacy McCain on the sneering Charles Krauthammer

"There is... a very real possibility of Palin winning the 2012 presidential nomination"
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Stacy McCain reminds us that it is not Charles Krauthammer’s fault that the media are obsessed not only with with presidential politics, but with what they see as their mission from Gawd, The Obamamessiah, to destroy Sarah Palin:

However, it is Krauthammer’s fault that he can’t speak of Palin except to dismiss her with a sneer. (Am I the only one who noticed his significant pause between “glorious” and “woman”?)

Allahpundit isn’t as openly sneering as Krauthammer: “While no one would claim that conservatism begins and ends with Palin, some of her more devoted supporters do seem to regard her as an avatar of the movement.”

Here’s my problem with such dismissive attitudes toward Palin from conservatives: It sets up the 2012 primary contest as a battle between Smart Republicans (who are presumed to oppose Palin) and Dumb Republicans (who presumably support Palin). This message — which is being shouted from the rooftops by Krauthammer, Rove and many others — will tend to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Which is to say, most of the Smart Republicans who take their political cues from the conservative intelligentsia will in fact oppose Palin. But the influence of Rove, Krauthammer et al. is not so great as they wish and, in a multi-candidate field, the irreducible hard core of Palin supporters among GOP primary voters is still large enough to win pluralities in every state where the primary electorate is limited to registered Republicans. (Seriously: Comparing the average Romney supporter to the average Palin supporter, which is more likely to trudge through the snow to attend an Iowa caucus meeting?)

There is therefore a very real possibility of Palin winning the 2012 presidential nomination, at which point all the sneering condescension of the Krauthammer/Rove class will justify the MSM in declaring, “The Dumb Republicans have won!”

And that’s not going to help beat Barack Obama, is it?

[More]

Stacy makes a good point, and we agree. However, we don't share his presumption that Rove, Krauthammer, Frum and their ilk would prefer to see a first Sarah Palin term in the White House to a second Obama term. He argues that the conservative intelligentsia should "start acting as if a Palin presidency were both possible and preferable to Obama’s re-election," but we're not optimistic that will come to pass. After all, how many of those supposed conservatives voted for Obama? Most probably won't admit which lever they pulled when behind the curtains, but many of the Conservative Lite^® elites, including Amanda Carpenter, Joe Scarborough, Bill Bennett, Peggy Noonan were in high song of the freshman Senator's praises in the run up to the 2008 election.

Our biggest problem with Karauthammer is that he seems more offended that the press is obsessed with Gov. Palin, when he should be offended that it is obsessed with her destruction. But Krauthammer and the other right of center elites love the media. They are of the media part and parcel. Media elitism is the hand that has fed them lo these many years, and they dare not bite it. Unlike Sarah Palin, they have shown not the slightest interest in even reforming it.

- JP

What a coincidence! Morning shows hype Bar Bush's Palin blast

You DO believe in coincidence, don't you?
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In the same Monday morning time slot, all three major alphabet networks seized upon Barbara Bush's recent diss of Gov. Palin to push the "divisive" and "overexposed" memes. The former is an oldie but baddie, while the latter is the newest shared anti-Palin media narrative:

On Monday, all three network morning show's eagerly highlighted former First Lady Barbara Bush voicing opposition to a Sarah Palin presidential run while suggesting the former Alaska governor has spent too much time in the public eye. As Harry Smith proclaimed at the top of CBS's Early Show: "It's all Palin all the time. But could the most famous family from Alaska be on the verge of overexposure?"

Later on the Early Show, senior White House correspondent Bill Plante noted: "But there are critics. In an interview with Larry King, former First Lady Barbara Bush weighed in on the possibility of a President Palin." A clip was played of Bush: "I think she's very happy in Alaska and I hope she'll stay there." On NBC's Today, correspondent Norah O'Donnell declared: "Nothing like some controversy to help sell a book, right? Just as Palin gears up for her national book tour and a possible presidential run, Barbara Bush says she likes Palin, but hopes she stays home." Finally, on ABC's Good Morning America, correspondent John Berman announced: "Sarah Palin seems to be everywhere. But, not everyone approves. Why Barbara Bush and other Republicans are saying enough."

While the Early Show only mentioned Bush's criticism, both Today and Good Morning America sought to tout widespread GOP opposition to Palin. On NBC, O'Donnell exclaimed: "Even the conservative magazine, The Weekly Standard, is going negative on Palin. The article says Palin's show 'has secured her a spot in the reality TV Star pantheon. And good for Palin, though there's no compelling reason to suggest the rest of us should tag along behind.'" On ABC, Berman remarked: "Listen to conservative George Will on This Week with Palin's visit to Dancing with the Stars." A clip was played of Will: "It's stirring family values but it's not good training to be president."

[More]

Gee, what a coincidence. And if you really believe this was a coincidence, we would like to sell you a brand new Pontiac which just rolled off the assembly line yesterday.

- JP

We were wrong about Barbara Bush's motivation

Our "well, duh" moment
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We have to admit it: we were wrong. The other day, we opined that Bar Bush's blast aimed at Gov. Palin was likely made because she wanted to see Jeb in the White House as the Bush-in-chief. Well, that's likely still a pipe dream for Mama Frizzly, but it's not the reason why she gratuitously gonged the guv. Turns out her Sarah slap was not just Jeb jive; it's RINO rapture:

Former President George H.W. Bush and former first lady Barbara Bush named Mitt Romney as their favorite Republican for the 2012 presidential nomination.

"If you asked me, who was the nominee be, I couldn't tell you. We like Mitt Romney. We know him well and like him very much," Bush said in an interview with CNN's Larry King.

The former president then joked about his support, saying: "Don't want to kill him off."

"He's a reasonable guy. A conservative fellow, which is good. But, no, I think he'd be a good president, a very good president," Bush said of the former Massachusetts governor.

The former first lady echoed Bush's words when she was asked her favorite.

"I'll go with George. Mitt Romney. I like a lot of them. But I like people who feel that you can respect other people's ideas. I like that a lot," Barbara Bush said.

Mitt is a "conservative" fellow? Well, to a progressive like Poppa Bush, Romney must seem conservative. And the Bushies are all about respecting other people's ideas. After all, they've adopted Bill Clinton as a dishonorary son, and Bush41 glowingly introduced Obama last fall at a Points of Light function held at the GHWB library, just a couple of miles down the road from here on the Texas A&M campus. To return the favor, the current prez will award the former one the Medal of Freedom next year. Feel the love! Hey, it's easy to respect another person's ideas when you both hold them in common.

Let's face it, the elder Bushes don't like the Sarahcuda one bit because she wants to make Vichy Republicans like them a politically endangered species. More power to her.

- JP

Day By Day (November 20, 2010)

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Good Morning! It's a wonderful life if we just take it Day By Day.



Support Pro-Palin Day By Day

- JP

Stuart Schwartz on She Who Must Be Stopped

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Stuart Schwartz opines at American Thinker on how, in the warped view of the media elites, Sarah Palin, despite helping elect 60 candidates in the midterm elections, is a "loser" because she refuses to play the game of politics by the political establishment's rules:

Immediately following the election, the nation's elites went on Sarah Palin Alert. They have worked hard to strip taxpayers of hard-earned dollars and make Washington, D.C. the center of wealth, with six of the ten wealthiest counties in the United States bordering the Beltway. And it was Karl Rove who slammed his foot down on the accelerator of government spending during the Bush presidency, handing Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama a government poised to careen out of control. And it has: now that great centralized motor vehicle bureau known as the federal government has twice as many $150,000-a-year bureaucrats as it did when Obama took office, all extravagantly paid to scowl, fill out forms, and say "no" to the hapless citizens underwriting their million-dollar homes.

Small wonder that Republican Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, a veteran of almost two decades inside the Beltway, looked at the Tea Party-inspired Republican sweep and saw only danger...from Sarah Palin. He said of her Herculean effort in creating a Republican wave: she cost us the U.S. Senate! Stop her! he screamed. And the media answered with a barrage of articles offering advice on how to stop Palin. For example, a former Wall Street Journal editor who had bolted when the owner of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, bought the news outlet and put an end to its leftward drift laid out a plan to "derail Palin for 2012."

The mainstream media have been only too happy to oblige, for... the media elites immediately joined the Republican political establishment to highlight the "urgent task" resulting from the midterm victory: "Stop Sarah Palin."

And over on the Upper East Side of New York City, at a favorite hangout called The Corner Bookstore ("a small treasure in a neighborhood famous for its elegant townhouses" and celebrities), Peggy Noonan takes time out from being quintessentially Manhattan and concentrates on the common enemy created by the midterm elections. Sarah Palin has again, she writes, proved herself "a nincompoop." This "empty or crazy" woman actually thinks she's capable of operating in the rarefied atmosphere of official Washington, of holding her own with the media establishment. Look at her: Palin hangs with her family and enjoys such tacky pursuits as hunting and fishing. Meanwhile, everyone who is anyone knows that a life truly worth living begins here, where Lauren Weisberger first read from The Devil Wears Prada to the applause of Peggy's friends. Prada, not Palin. There's a world of difference in those five letters beginning with "P," Noonan reminds us, as the latter has none of the cachet of the former and lacks "actual talent."

And to the west on this storied island, the width of Central Park and then some, two icons of the ruling class have gathered in the studios of CNN to reinforce the notion that Sarah Palin is now a danger to the United States. It's called "Parker Spitzer." Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker and the disgraced former governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, have put together a show that is mainstream media right down to its "bomb" in the ratings. Parker lets us know that she is proud to have led the "assassination" of Palin in the days following the Alaska governor's vice presidential nomination. Rove is right to slam Palin, for she has "earned her ridicule" for her outrageously extreme positions. Palin believes that abortion is wrong, that Israel is courageous and admirable, that traditional family relationships are a strength and blessing, and that God is a part of all that is good and true -- extremist positions, Parker claims, repugnant to the real heart of America...Washington, D.C. This "dangerous" woman represents a "fresh terror" for "establishment Republicans," who, like Parker and Spitzer, are professionals. This election has now put the professionals on alert: Palin must be stopped.

[More]

Parker, Spitzer, Noonan and Rove are the Bob, Ted, Carol and Alice of the media elites, an unholy media alliance of political prostitutes and johns. What a fitting metaphor for the Beltway political establishment: Democrats and Vichy Republicans crawling into bed together as they have done to stop what Schwartz describes as "the greatest threat to come out of the midterm Republican victories: Sarah Palin." She's a winner, but in the bassackwards world of the media elites, that makes her a "loser" in their Book of the Dead and Dying. And all for the simple reason that She Who Must Be Stopped will never compromise her first principles.

- JP

Ziegler: The real story behind Kathleen Parker’s bizarre Palin boast

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In a Daily Caller opinion piece, documentary filmmaker and author John Ziegler tells the story behind his recent appearance on CNN's ratings-challenged "Parker Spitzer" program in which he managed to get faux conservative Kathleen Parker to boast that she "led" the media assassination of Sarah Palin:

The only reason anyone cared that I went on the show was that, for some inexplicable reason, I was apparently the first person to ever confront Kathleen Parker, who is billed as a “conservative” on the show, about how and why she could have possibly endorsed Barack Obama for president while also allowing herself to be used by the left-wing media to help destroy the VP candidacy of Sarah Palin. This in itself is truly stunning to me and an indication that conservatives do an incredibly lousy job of enforcing even a meager amount of accountability on those who betray the cause for no substantive reason and with the obvious motive of augmenting their elite television and dinner party invitations.

Frankly, the only reason I agreed to even do the appearance was to get the chance to finally confront Parker about her obvious sell out.

[...]

Most of the focus has been on Parker responding to my attempts to get her to admit the treason she committed in 2008 by going in the other direction (in what I perceived at the time as a knee-jerk “fight or flight” response) and actually bragging that she “led” the “assassination” of Sarah Palin 1.0 (which is a term I have used to describe Palin’s pre-Fox News persona, which I see as fundamentally different than the one she was forced to create due to the media’s unfair targeting of her).

[...]

While Parker’s admission about “leading” the “assassination” of Palin (1.0) was both bizarre and shocking (and elicited a rather perfect tweet from Palin herself), almost totally lost in that skirmish is that Parker blatantly lied when she denied ever endorsing Obama as a presidential candidate. A simple look at Charles Krauthammer’s evisceration of Parker’s Obama folly reveals that this was really the most remarkable revelation of my appearance.

[More]

Ed Morrissey points out that Parker attempted to walk back her braggadocio only 24 hours after Ziegler pushed her "truth" button:

After asserting that she “led” the charge againstSarah Palin in 2008 the day before, Kathleen Parker revisited her comments and the greater media bias against Palin last night, adding a few revisions. For one, she didn’t really lead the charge against Palin– “the liberal media” did– and did treat Palin, in some instances, “cruelly, and partly because she’s a woman.” She and co-host Eliot Spitzer further explored the relationship between Palin and the media with Mediaite founder Dan Abrams.

Parker modified her earlier statement about “leading” the assassination, toning it down to being the first on the right after Palin’s damning interview with Katie Couric to question her qualifications.

Can that actually be walked back? After proclaiming oneself to be the leader of a media assassination movement, can one credibly backtrack to a position of sadness over its success? I’d say that either Parker realized that she had crossed a line — or CNN did. John’s point is validated in this retreat.

Too late, Ms. Parker. You've already demonstrated to the entire world that you're a jealous harpy, a Vichy Republican and not by any stretch of the imagination a "conservative."

- JP

Gov. Palin to Vichy Republican Kathleen Parker: I'm still standing

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John Ziegler was a guest on CNN's new ratings-challenged "Parker Spitzer" program Thursday, and the following exchange took place:

ZIEGLER: You took part in the targeting of Sarah Palin. You essentially took part in the assassination of Sarah Palin 1.0. That person is dead; she doesn't exist any more.

PARKER: No, no, no. Actually, I did not take part in it: I led it. Let's be clear. Let's get our facts straight.

Indeed, Parker began attacking Gov. Palin only weeks after John McCain named her as his running mate in the 2008 presidential election and hasn't relented to this very day.

The governor responded to the prideful Parker via Twitter Friday:

"Parker: appreciate your admittance. Now, I'm still standing;Standing by family, faith & flag. Who do u stand by today? http://bit.ly/d5p72x"

Oh, I think we know where the despicable Conservative Lite^® Parker stands...

h/t: Kristinn

- JP

Attack of the Bushies

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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

Karl Rove is a big, fat hypocrite

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Let's try to get this straight. Karl Rove claims that because she is hosting a "reality show" on TLC, Sarah Palin lacks the "gravitas" to be president. Yet he praises John Stewart's Obama interview on a Comedy Show? An interview in which Stewart called the President of the United States "dude?"

Sarah Palin hosts travelogue-type show: no gravitas. Obama goes on comedy show: gravitas. Todd Palin as First Dude: no gravitas. Obama as Dude-In-Chief: gravitas.

The same Karl Rove who claims Gov. Palin lacks gravitas also declared that "45 percent of NPR listeners were Saddam Hussein." Uh, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over? That's real gravitas there, Rove, you hypocrite. Texas should be ashamed to call you her son.

- JP

Sarah the RINO Slayer: Taxidermy man is gonna have a heart attack…

-by VotingFemale
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H/T to commenter Orca for photoshop concept. Free use of this photoshop art is granted for reuse on condition the patriot heart logo is retained.

Poor old RINOs. Their cover blown as liberal socialists in GOP clothing, the mid-term Palin-backed candidates have taken their toll on the GOP establishment's RINO herd.

Taken down by Palin-Backed candidate:

Newt Gingrich Backed Dede Scozzafava – Losing in the polls, dropped out of House NY District race, refused to endorse her GOP opponent who was running as Independent, instead endorsed the Democrat candidate.

Taken down by Palin-Backed candidate:

Newt Gingrich & NRSC Backed Charlie Crist - incumbent governor running for Senate; losing in the polls, dropped out of GOP Senate Primary, refused to endorse his GOP opponent, switched to Independent to run against him, refused to return GOP campaign funds gathered as a GOP primary candidate; now significantly trails GOP opponent in the polls

Taken down by Palin-Backed candidate:

Karl Rove & NRSC Backed Lisa Murkowski – incumbent Senator; lost the GOP Senate primary, refuses to endorse her GOP opponent, tried to switch to Independent and was refused by the Independent Party, runs anyway as a write-in

Taken down by Palin-Backed candidate:

Karl Rove and NRSC Backed Mike Castle – incumbent lame duck US Representative ran for Senate instead of reelection to the House; lost the GOP Senate primary race, refuses to endorse his GOP opponent, may or may not run as an Independent or write-in, now actively attacking his former GOP opponent

So much for "tea leaves" reading by the GOP establishment on the mood of the 2010 mid-term electorate. They backed the wrong candidates, and their RINOs became roadkill under the Tea Party bus.

What did the GOP establishment do? Attack the primary winners either directly or indirectly. Make a note of it for when these establishment guys come up for reelection. Though Karl Rove is not an office holder, he fancies himself as an 'architect' of campaigns. Well Mr Architect got his butt handed to him in the Castle campaign he designed, and he didn't take losing a run for the Senate like a man rather than like a spoiled, whiny, party-splitting little weasel.

-VF

Update 09-20-2010: It was incorrectly stated Murkowski was rejected by the [Alaskan] Independent Party and should have stated the Alaskan Libertarian Party. Vice Chairman Harley Brown told Roll Call "We've unanimously decided not to allow Murkowski to run on the Alaska Libertarian Party line in November."

TX4P contributor Voting Female, Texas born and raised, manages her own blog and resides in New England.

Meghan McCain: 'I am team Romney'

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It will come as no big surprise to anyone that Meghan McCain is a Mitt Romney supporter. The self-described "progressive Republican" recently told "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno:

"I just want a candidate that's going to stop being so versus them. So right now I am team Romney."

She sure is. One of the requirements of being in the pit for Mitt is that you have to trash talk Sarah Palin, and Ms. McCain has done more than her unfair share of that. She slams Gov. Palin repeatedly in her recently-released book, while Sarah Palin has never, ever, said one unkind word about young Meghan's father. The elder McCain, while not criticizing Gov. Palin directly, has never lifted a finger to prevent first his campaign aides and later his daughter from smearing his former running mate. Loyalty and Respect are two-way streets, Senator.

John McCain's daughter has made two appearances on Palin-hating MSNBC's Rachel Maddow show, which leads us to wonder if the 25-year-old Vichy Republican plans to start a pro-Mitt, anti-Palin website anytime soon. She could call it "Moonbats for Mitt."

- JP