The Cowardly Character Assassination Of Sarah Palin

[longeyes]

Since when do we have government functionaries in effect telling prospective Presidential candidates not to run if they are too "controversial?"

This is a very ominous development.

[Wildalaska]

I spoke to one of her friends briefly.

She is upbeat becuase quite frankly, she is a truly nice person (not politician hypocrite nice, but real "hey that dude/chick is a really cool person nice) who loves life, Alaska and the good ol' USA.

On the other hand she is a bit shall we say, disappointed in the behavior of certain folks. Those of us up here who like and appreciate sarah as the one person who can lead the repubs out of this mess are waiting with anticipation for heads to roll now and in the future.

One politico up here wrote "the Alaskan landscape is littered with the bodies of those who crossed her".

She has a 65% approval rating. She hasn't hesitated to press the flesh before and go right to the people, which isnt hard in a state of 200,000 folks where you don't even need the libtards in Los Anchorage to win...Shes governor for another term and she will run for pres in 2012

[lanternlad]

"The blame lies squarely on Jorge. McCain had zero chance, mostly because Jorge sold out just about every traditional Republican attribute and left the party with no compass. McCain's biggest problem wasn't himself OR Sarah Palin, it was that too many voters (including many Republicans) were pissed off at Jorge Bush and weren't in any way reassured that McCain wasn't going to follow up wit more years of abandoning what the Republican party was supposed to stand for."

+1

It really didn't matter who the Dems ran this time around. George Bush is so unpopular (for whatever reason deserved or undeserved) that a blindfolded chimp with a pencil in his teeth stood a better chance at winning the Oval Office than anyone the Republicans ran. Was John McCain the best choice for office? By no means. But he was the best the GOP had - which is a sorry statement in and of itself. Personally, I voted for Alan Keyes (as a write-in, I live in Texas and knew McCain would win it easily regardless of who I voted for) so that I could truthfully say I voted for a black man but not a socialist.

I thought Sarah Palin was a brilliant choice. The fact the press went so insane when she was chosen proves how scared they were of her and the impact she would make. Even the National Organization of Women endorsed Obama instead of the candidate who had a WOMAN as his back-up. That is very telling.

[Desertdog]

I saw a poll today, I think it was on Fox News Network, on who should run for President on 2012 for the Republicans,  and 65% was  for Palin.

[longeyes]

Sarah Palin exemplifies the essence of what is happening in American politics: the ever-growing separation of "We the People" from established government and authority.  Consciously or unconsciously she touches those who feel alienated from an increasingly insulated and arrogant political power structure.  If there is a cult of Obama, there is going to be a counter-cult of Palin.  Nothing "they" can do will stop this.

[MechAg94]

Sarah Palin exemplifies the essence of what is happening in American politics: the ever-growing separation of "We the People" from established government and authority.  Consciously or unconsciously she touches those who feel alienated from an increasingly insulated and arrogant political power structure.  If there is a cult of Obama, there is going to be a counter-cult of Palin.  Nothing "they" can do will stop this.

Good point. 
The biggest problem I see right now is all the gullible fools I hear from that believe all the media character assassination efforts.  I would have thought people would be smarter about that.  Also, some people seem to act like politicians should all be 100% perfect.  If not, they go real negative on them.

[Nitrogen]

It doesn't take much to make an uneducated hick look like an uneducated hick.

The media sharks sniffed blood in the water, and did what sharks do best when they smell blood in the water. 

While I agree somewhat with MechAg94, I think we're going about it the wrong way.  I know I sure as hell don't want Joe The Plumber, or most Idiot Americans in positions of government power.  I WANT smart "Elitists" in power.

The problem is with the elitists that feel that they are better than others; and act that way. 
65% of Americans say they believe in ghosts.  I don't want the unwashed masses in government.  Sorry.

[agricola]

It doesn't take much to make an uneducated hick look like an uneducated hick.

The media sharks sniffed blood in the water, and did what sharks do best when they smell blood in the water. 

While I agree somewhat with MechAg94, I think we're going about it the wrong way.  I know I sure as hell don't want Joe The Plumber, or most Idiot Americans in positions of government power.  I WANT smart "Elitists" in power.

The problem is with the elitists that feel that they are better than others; and act that way. 
65% of Americans say they believe in ghosts.  I don't want the unwashed masses in government.  Sorry.

Isnt Sarah Palin the (reasonably successful) governor of a state?  Doesnt she have at least a decade of experience in various offices before that?  You make it sound as if she just rolled into the bus station with a piece of straw in her mouth and without shoes.

[longeyes]

I'm not here to idealize Sarah Palin--or anyone.

For the most part I subscribe to the "best government is the least government" model and "leave us the **** alone" philosophy.

Priority one for me is to ask which prospective holder of power is the least dangerous to our personal liberties.  Right now, warts and all, Palin scares me less on that score than most of the alternatives.

Palin, as I have said in prior posts, is to me "not fully-formed," but I have no doubt that she is educable.  At least she retains some humility, something most of the rest of them conspicously lack.

We will see, in due course, just how smart and sophisticated Barack Obama really is.  So far color me skeptical.

[Desertdog]

I don't want the unwashed masses in government.

We seemed to do damned good while the unwashed masses really were in charge.  They were farmers and tradesmen who came to Washington to SERVE THE PEOPLE and went home after one or two terms and resumed their trade.
They did not spend 20 to 50 years serving their own egos and becoming multi millionairs while serving.

[Sergeant Bob]

65‰ of Republicans polled said they were supporting Palin for 2012.

[longeyes]

If Obama wants reform, let him start by promoting strict term limits.  Then I'll believe him.  Not before.

[grampster]

WildAlaska,

I'll trade my Canadian, Berkley educated, democrat socialist governor for Sarah.  And I'll throw in a trout fishing trip on the Muskegon river.

grampsterfromthesocialistrepublicofwhatusedtobeMichigan

[seeker_two]

65‰ of Republicans polled said they were supporting Palin for 2012.

If the GOP was smart, they'd make her and Jindal the face of the GOP and have them as the "voice of the opposition" to Obama's liberal policies for the next four years.....

...but then, has the GOP been smart lately?   :rolleyes:

[Desertdog]

...but then, has the GOP been smart lately?

McCain showed some smarts when he picked Palin but the dumb took over again.

[Pb]

A lot will be different in four years.  There is no telling who will be the repub.  frontrunner.  Remember, the election we just had was "supposed" to be be between Hillary and Guiliani.

I do hope it is Palin, though.

[BigStick]

I saw this response to the attacks on Palin a few days ago: Operation Leper.

I hope the guilty parties never work on the Republican side again. Classless, backstabbing, elitist trash should be working for the Democrats or MSNBC.

[MechAg94]

It doesn't take much to make an uneducated hick look like an uneducated hick.

The media sharks sniffed blood in the water, and did what sharks do best when they smell blood in the water. 

While I agree somewhat with MechAg94, I think we're going about it the wrong way.  I know I sure as hell don't want Joe The Plumber, or most Idiot Americans in positions of government power.  I WANT smart "Elitists" in power.

The problem is with the elitists that feel that they are better than others; and act that way. 
65% of Americans say they believe in ghosts.  I don't want the unwashed masses in government.  Sorry.

I couldn't disagree more. 

The "educated elite" by definition do not have your best interests at heart or even necessarily the county's.  If you think they do, then it is likely that you are the "ignorant hick".  I'll bet they would see you that way for certain.  They see us as people who can't take a crap without them telling us how to do it properly.  They see government's role as caring for us for our own good, NOT getting out of the way and allowing us to make decisions for ourselves.  I don't want someone like that in my government if I can help it, which often I can't.

I don't need a politician who looks good at press conferences or on TV, that is all fluff and largely meaningless.  I want one who will genuinely takes things in consideration and makes good decisions, and who understands when a government solution is neither needed nor required and might actually be worse.  I think Palin might be someone who comes close to that, but I sure hope there are others out there as well.

[roo_ster]

Good instapundit post on McCain's (non) reaction to his staffers' scapegoating his VP for their (and his) screwups.

Mash the link for links to original articles.


http://www.pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/archives2/027080.php


November 12, 2008

MELISSA CLOUTHIER: Shame on John McCain for Not Defending Sarah Palin. "What rock is Senator McCain hiding under and why can’t he show himself for a moment to defend his running mate? . . . Once again, John McCain’s actions betray the character traits conservatives abhorred about the man during his years in the Senate: He would spit in a friend’s eye to win the favor of an enemy." On the upside, he's making a lot of Republicans feel better about losing to Obama. It's all part of the healing!

UPDATE: Reader Edward Tabakin writes:

    I have a simpler explanation for why McCain isn't defending Palin against the smears. He hates her. She drew bigger crowds, more enthusiastic crowds, more loving crowds that he could ever get. Remember, the initial plan was to send her out to small towns and rural America, to rally the bitter clingers of Bibles and guns to McCain's side. But there came a moment -- maybe in the Friday rally where he announced her as his pick, maybe during the convention -- where both McCain and Palin realized that she could go to Klamath Falls National Forest and draw a bigger crowd than he could in Red State, Texas, and that forced McCain to do joint rallies with Palin. She could whip the crowds up for him, get a big, big roar, bigger than he could get on his own. The problem was, for her, the cheers were from the heart; for him, from a sense of duty. It's the political version of the eternal triangle.

    My feeling is that anyone caught in that situation might have that sort of reaction. That it's happening to Senator McCain makes it all the sweeter.

Ouch. But I think there's something to this. I mentioned early on that the campaign faced problems with the #2 overshadowing the #1. Of course, this response only makes McCain look smaller.

[roo_ster]

My favorite lesbian commentator on Palin and her detractors.

There is more at the link.

...reporters have been too busy playing mini-badminton with every random spitball about Sarah Palin, who has been subjected to an atrocious and at times delusional level of defamation merely because she has the temerity to hold pro-life views.

How dare Palin not embrace abortion as the ultimate civilized ideal of modern culture? How tacky that she speaks in a vivacious regional accent indistinguishable from that of Western Canada! How risible that she graduated from the University of Idaho and not one of those plush, pampered commodes of received opinion whose graduates, in their rush to believe the worst about her, have demonstrated that, when it comes to sifting evidence, they don't know their asses from their elbows.

Liberal Democrats are going to wake up from their sadomasochistic, anti-Palin orgy with a very big hangover. The evil genie released during this sorry episode will not so easily go back into its bottle. A shocking level of irrational emotionalism and at times infantile rage was exposed at the heart of current Democratic ideology -- contradicting Democratic core principles of compassion, tolerance and independent thought. One would have to look back to the Eisenhower 1950s for parallels to this grotesque lock-step parade of bourgeois provincialism, shallow groupthink and blind prejudice.

I like Sarah Palin, and I've heartily enjoyed her arrival on the national stage. As a career classroom teacher, I can see how smart she is -- and quite frankly, I think the people who don't see it are the stupid ones, wrapped in the fuzzy mummy-gauze of their own worn-out partisan dogma. So she doesn't speak the King's English -- big whoop! There is a powerful clarity of consciousness in her eyes. She uses language with the jumps, breaks and rippling momentum of a be-bop saxophonist. I stand on what I said (as a staunch pro-choice advocate) in my last two columns -- that Palin as a pro-life wife, mother and ambitious professional represents the next big shift in feminism. Pro-life women will save feminism by expanding it, particularly into the more traditional Third World.

As for the Democrats who sneered and howled that Palin was unprepared to be a vice-presidential nominee -- what navel-gazing hypocrisy! What protests were raised in the party or mainstream media when John Edwards, with vastly less political experience than Palin, got John Kerry's nod for veep four years ago? And Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, for whom I lobbied to be Obama's pick and who was on everyone's short list for months, has a record indistinguishable from Palin's. Whatever knowledge deficit Palin has about the federal bureaucracy or international affairs (outside the normal purview of governors) will hopefully be remedied during the next eight years of the Obama presidencies.

The U.S. Senate as a career option? What a claustrophobic, nitpicking comedown for an energetic Alaskan -- nothing but droning committees and incestuous back-scratching. No, Sarah Palin should stick to her governorship and just hit the rubber-chicken circuit, as Richard Nixon did in his long haul back from political limbo following his California gubernatorial defeat in 1962. Step by step, the mainstream media will come around, wipe its own mud out of its eyes, and see Palin for the populist phenomenon that she is.

[grampster]

Well said.  I like lesbians, actually.  Generally get to the point and aren't afraid of expressing it.  Truth is so much fun to watch and read when expressed by someone with knowledge and wit.