Just based on what I've seen in the AP so far, I've got a sneaky suspicion that C4P is going to be busy for the next couple months.
They're going to need a team that specializes in fact-checking all these "fact checks" on Sarah Palin's book. Internet vids wouldn't hurt either. Time for C4P to make a name for themselves.
(sigh) I wait with patience for the day the media fact checks the actual sitting President of the United States the way they "fact check" Sarah Palin.
Still waiting............
Saturday, November 14, 2009
A Few Vids
Ann Coulter on Palin's Book:
Palin's former pastor interviewed back on August 31st, 2008:
Palin's "Comeback":
Sarah on Fox News Sunday?:
Palin's former pastor interviewed back on August 31st, 2008:
Palin's "Comeback":
Sarah on Fox News Sunday?:
The Rundown
Why didn't you tell me you were wearing blue?
First up, an excerpt from Barbara Walters' interview with Palin here.
Next on the Rundown, Levi apparently told US Magazine that Palin's invitation to Thanksgiving was nice, but she's full of it; not to mention it would be awkward.
Well, Levi, I agree with two-thirds of that statement. Just replace "she's" with "Levi's" and it's about right. Oh, Levi got an award from Fleshbot for his porno pictures. Classy. Yeah, I'd say he's pretty much done for. Moving on to things that are still even remotely relevant....
The AP's trashing Palin's book before it's even out. They apparently just can't wait. They got a hold of it illegally and are spinning, spinning, spinning. I haven't talked about it because it's all gossip. But Sarah had something to say on the LOTUS:
Next on the Rundown, Levi apparently told US Magazine that Palin's invitation to Thanksgiving was nice, but she's full of it; not to mention it would be awkward.
Well, Levi, I agree with two-thirds of that statement. Just replace "she's" with "Levi's" and it's about right. Oh, Levi got an award from Fleshbot for his porno pictures. Classy. Yeah, I'd say he's pretty much done for. Moving on to things that are still even remotely relevant....
The AP's trashing Palin's book before it's even out. They apparently just can't wait. They got a hold of it illegally and are spinning, spinning, spinning. I haven't talked about it because it's all gossip. But Sarah had something to say on the LOTUS:
Keep Your Powder Dry: As you probably have heard, the AP snagged a copy of my memoir, Going Rogue, before its Tuesday release. And as is expected, the AP and a number of subsequent media outlets are erroneously reporting the contents of the book. Keep your powder dry, read the book, and enjoy it! Lots of great stories about my family, Alaska, and the incredible honor it was to run alongside Senator John McCain.
We can't wait to hit the road and meet so many on the book tour! See you in Michigan first...
- Sarah Palin
Don't worry; got plenty of powder to spare. I'm sure once Monday rolls around, we'll be firing on all cylinders trying to keep up with all things Palin.
That wasn't the only thing she had to say. If I didn't know better, I'd say she's not to thrilled about something....
That wasn't the only thing she had to say. If I didn't know better, I'd say she's not to thrilled about something....
Obama Administration's Atrocious Decision - Horrible decision, absolutely horrible. It is devastating for so many of us to hear that the Obama Administration decided that the 9/11 terrorist mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, will be given a criminal trial in New York. This is an atrocious decision.
Mohammed and his terrorist co-conspirators are responsible for the deaths of more than 3,000 Americans. Thousands of American families have suffered through the loss of loved ones because of the disgusting attacks launched against the United States, and now this trial venue adds insult to injury, in addition to compromising our efforts in the War on Terror. Heaven forbid our allies see this decision as a reason to become less likely to support our efforts in the future.
Criminal defense attorneys will now enter into delaying tactics and other methods in the hope of securing some kind of win for their “clients.” The trial will afford Mohammed the opportunity to grandstand and make use of his time in front of the world media to rally his disgusting terrorist cohorts. It will also be an insult to the victims of 9/11, as Mohammed will no doubt use the opportunity to spew his hateful rhetoric in the same neighborhood in which he ruthlessly cut down the lives of so many Americans.
It is crucially important that Americans be made aware that the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks may walk away from this trial without receiving just punishment because of a “hung jury” or from any variety of court room technicalities. If we are stuck with this terrible Obama Administration decision, I, like most Americans, hope that Mohammed and his co-conspirators are convicted. Hang ‘em high.
I wholeheartedly support the survivors and the families of the victims in their appeal to the president regarding this matter. You can read more about it here.
- Sarah Palin
Come on, Sarah, tell us what you really think;)
"Hang 'em high." I love this woman. Have I mentioned that lately?
The website she links is called "Never Forget." It includes a letter to President Obama on this issue. You can sign your name to it on the website.
Next up, I recently got "Sarah from Alaska" and "The Persecution of Palin." So far, it looks like Sarah from Alaska's not worth the money. There are some interesting trivia and a few stories I hadn't heard before, but that's just a few slabs of meat on a bunch of bones, but I'll get back to you when I'm done with them.
"Hang 'em high." I love this woman. Have I mentioned that lately?
The website she links is called "Never Forget." It includes a letter to President Obama on this issue. You can sign your name to it on the website.
Next up, I recently got "Sarah from Alaska" and "The Persecution of Palin." So far, it looks like Sarah from Alaska's not worth the money. There are some interesting trivia and a few stories I hadn't heard before, but that's just a few slabs of meat on a bunch of bones, but I'll get back to you when I'm done with them.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Sarah Palin's Comeback
Can Sarah Palin Make a Comback? By Matthew Continetti:
Yes! Thank you! I said that months ago. I don't expect this book to delve into the geopolitical impacts of anything; it's a memoir. It's Palin saying, "Now that we've maybe calmed down a bit, here's who I really am; here's the real story." Back to Continetti:I don't typically watch Oprah. But I won't miss Monday's interview with Sarah Palin. The appearance is supposed to be about Ms. Palin's new memoir, but a lot more will be riding on the encounter than book sales.
After last year's brutal presidential campaign, Ms. Palin is now reintroducing herself to the American public.
Nothing less than her future in American politics—and a possible run for the White House in 2012—hangs in the balance.
Ms. Palin has two problems. The first is that she's become one of the most polarizing figures in the country. The second is that voters continue to worry about her qualifications for the presidency, a concern that her abrupt resignation from office last July intensified.
Lucky for her, both problems are solvable. Since Ms. Palin appeared on the national stage, the left has unfairly demonized her. Blockbuster interviews and book tours will humanize her.
More important than these public appearances is Ms. Palin's message. She needs to adopt a market-friendly populist agenda to strengthen her policy credentials and make her seem less partisan to independent voters. A bipartisan, center-right approach should come easily to her. That's how she won her race for governor in 2006.
Ms. Palin's unpopularity—the result of horrendous media coverage and her role as the McCain campaign's pitbull—is a major political obstacle. Her unfavorable rating
hovers around 50%, the point at which most politicians would reach for the Valium.
An October Gallup poll put Ms. Palin's favorable number at 40%, her lowest rating to date. In a November Gallup survey, 63% of all voters said they wouldn't seriously consider supporting her for the presidency.Yet Ms. Palin isn't as unpopular as John Edwards, and she has a higher approval rating than Nancy Pelosi. As Hillary Clinton's career shows, public perception changes over time. Ms. Palin remains highly popular among Republicans (69% favorable). But the Democrats' striking antipathy to the former governor—she has a 72% unfavorable rating among them—drives down her overall approval.
Independents are a different story. These are the folks who decide presidential elections, and they are divided on Ms. Palin. In last month's Gallup poll, Ms. Palin had a 48% unfavorable and 41% favorable rating among independents. Not good, but not insurmountable. Flip those percentages, and they could be serving moose burgers in the White House in 2013.
What drives independents' uncertainty is their feeling that Ms. Palin isn't up to the job. Independents blanch at her perceived lack of expertise on issues unrelated to
energy or abortion. They look at Ms. Palin's disappointing interview with Katie Couric last year, or laugh at Tina Fey's impression on "Saturday Night Live." Her resignation—still not fully explained—stokes their worst fears.
However, other Republican politicians have profited when they exposed received wisdom about them as false. In 1980, Democrats portrayed Ronald Reagan as a dim-witted ideologue bent on starting a nuclear war.
Then Reagan debated President Jimmy Carter. The public watched as a conservative pragmatist with a puckish wit unmanned a self-important, humorless liberal. Suddenly, Reagan was no longer the "dangerous" choice. He won handily.
Could Ms. Palin follow Reagan's example? Maybe. She'd need to return to her 2006 playbook.In Alaska, Ms. Palin didn't run as a culture warrior. She focused on issues with overwhelming public support: ethics reform, a revised oil tax, and more competition and transparency in the effort to build a natural gas pipeline. She took the conservative vote for granted and focused on winning independents and even some Democrats.
The 2006 Palin model looks a lot like the approach that Virginia's next governor, Republican Bob McDonnell, used to win his election last week. It means applying conservative principles to problems like the economy, health care, and out-of-control federal spending. It means addressing voter concern that big government and big business are in cahoots, heaping expensive burdens on small businesses and individual entrepreneurs.
During her book tour, Ms. Palin is sure to mention that the Obama administration's opposition to offshore drilling and domestic nuclear power, and its support for an onerous cap-and-trade scheme, will raise energy prices across the board. But she also might spend less time discussing campaign intrigue and Alaska trivia, and more time outlining how to spur job creation through tax reform.
She might mention, too, that the Democrats' health-care plan would hike taxes, raise the cost of doing business, and lead to rationing down line. She might point out that, on top of health care, the stimulus and bailouts, President Obama's 2010 budget will further bury the United States in debt. Every time the media try to shift the conversation to personal gossip or past mistakes, Ms. Palin should pull it right back to how the Obama agenda will hurt the middle class.
Oprah will be aghast. The Democrats will be outraged. But independents will be listening. And the rehabilitation of Sarah Palin will have begun.
The Rundown
First up, hold the phone! The NY-23 race is not final after all:
The LOTUS had a busy day. Two posts. I'll put them at the bottom since they're pretty long. But here's a video Sarah linked to her Facebook a couple days ago:
In other news, Sarah reportedly threw Levi an olive branch in her interview with Oprah. Most likely she would rather the kid not destroy himself. Will he listen? It's up to him. I think he'll live to rue the day he ever listened to Rex and Tank.
That was part of the discussion in this Oprah interview preview:
And Palin was a topic of discussion for a good twelve minutes on Hannity tonight:
And O'Reilly is finally going to get her on his show. He's only been trying for over a year:
As for the stuff coming out on what's in Palin's book, I prefer to just wait for the real thing. Until November 17th, it's all gossip.
And someone made a video tribute called Palin Democrats Applaud the Last of the Great Democrats in the House:
Well, that's the Rundown. Now here's those LOTUS posts:
LOTUS #1: Pelosi "Health Plan" Should Be DOA:
We need to be vigilant in investigating the ramifications of the Pelosi Health Care Bill. Some provisions sound so outrageous as to be considered impossible to fathom, but they’re right there in the bill in black and white. For instance, page 297 of the bill explains the punishment for not purchasing government mandated health insurance. If you don’t buy what the government considers “acceptable health care coverage,” you’re going to be hit with a tax of at least 2.5% of your income. And if you don’t pay that new tax, you could be fined as much as $250,000 and sentenced to up to five years in prison.
But here’s the thing: they have to make the penalty for opting out very harsh in order to force us to buy coverage. The only way to keep this government run health care plan afloat is for everyone to buy into it – especially young and healthy people. That means that they will have to penalize citizens if we choose not to buy a plan that will cost a minimum of about $15,000 per family per year.
The bill that came out of the Senate last month – the Baucus Bill – does just the opposite. It calls for a much lighter penalty ($750 maximum) for people who don’t buy government approved health coverage, making it cheaper to pay the fine than to pay for the coverage. (And with a recession on, who can blame families for not wanting to pay $15,000 for a government mandated health care plan?)
But here’s the kicker: the bill also forces insurance companies to cover everyone, regardless of pre-existing conditions. Think about what that means. A lot of people – especially young and healthy people – will just pay the penalty instead of purchasing coverage because they’ll figure that it’ll always be there if they get sick, as government has promised. That’s what will happen, and when it does it will totally undermine the very concept of “insurance” – which is basically a group of people pooling their resources over time to cover themselves for a rainy day, paying while they’re healthy so that they’re covered when they’re sick. Those who are healthy now pay for those who are sick. If your insurance pool only contains sick people, it’s a bust. And that’s what this government plan will be. Without all of those young and healthy people paying into the pool and defraying the costs, the government will have to pony up more and more money, and who knows how long the whole crazy plan will last before it goes broke – and our country with it!
That’s where we are with this bureaucratic mess: either the government penalizes people so harshly that they could be hit with huge taxes and even possible jail time, or the government makes the penalty a slap on the wrist and undermines the plan from the get-go. Forcing individuals to buy health insurance seems unconstitutional, yet Congress wants to foist it on us anyway. Proponents of government controlled health care will say, “But we’re made to buy car insurance and home insurance, what’s the difference with health insurance?” It’s apples and oranges. Auto insurance is a state law requirement, and people can always choose not to drive. Banks might require you to have home owner’s insurance, but again, you choose to own a home, just as you choose to drive. You have no choice at all when it comes to this federal government health care insurance mandate.
There are other ways to reform health care without violating our Constitution and our personal liberties. Let’s get back to discussing market-driven, patient-centered, result-driven solutions, like, for example, allowing people to purchase insurance across state lines, tackling existing government waste and fraud, and reforming medical malpractice laws (tort reform) to stop unwarranted lawsuits that force doctors to order unnecessary procedures just to cover themselves.
Please let your Senators know that the Pelosi Bill should be dead on arrival. Once we go down this big government path, it will be virtually impossible to reverse course. Let’s fight for the reform that makes sense for Americans before it’s too late.
- Sarah Palin
LOTUS #2: Thank you, Washington, for Requesting a Demonstrably Good Idea:
I commend the president for acknowledging today that “there are limits to what government can and should do” to ease our 10.2% unemployment rate – the highest it’s been since 1983. I also applaud his call for suggestions and expression of openness to considering “any demonstrably good idea.” Taking him at his word, I’d like to suggest this one: let’s learn from history and follow the example of the man who occupied the White House in 1983 and was able to transform an even worse recession than the one we’re currently experiencing into the largest peacetime economic expansion in American history.
When you realize the magnitude of President Reagan’s achievements, there is absolutely no reason why anyone would ignore his “demonstrably good” example. If you want real job growth, cut taxes – including capital gains taxes and small business payroll taxes – and slay the death tax once and for all. If you want to stimulate the economy and help poor and middle class families, cut payroll taxes so that more Americans can keep and invest more of what they earn.
If you want lasting economic expansion and prosperity, get the federal government’s budget under control. Instead of more pork-laden stimulus plans, let the free market correct itself. That’s what Reagan did, and history proves it worked.
In his comments today, the president honorably suggested that he welcomes our ideas on how to put America’s economy on the right track. But, there also seemed to be a suggested chastisement of the private sector’s efforts to right some economic wrongs when he said, “...small businesses and large firms...have not yet been willing to take the steps necessary to hire again.”
As business owners seek to expand, or just to keep doors open today, it’s not as if they are refusing to hire out of spite. Given a pro-private sector environment they will be only too happy to hire more people and grow their businesses. Perhaps if leadership in Washington reassured them by, for example, cutting tax burdens and making government more efficient, it would send our businesses a message that it’s safe and smart to expand today.
These are difficult times for so many Americans who are out of work. I implore our leaders to not threaten our economy’s job creators with increased taxes and job-killing schemes like cap-and-tax and the government health care takeover. Government needs to get out of their way and off their backs so that they can grow and hire again.
The lessons of history are clear. We’re blessed to have so many lessons from which to learn, and we’d be smart to emulate successes in America’s past. Our economic recovery decisions should be based on the same free market principles that Reagan employed. They work, history proves it, and I thank our president for asking for this input.
- Sarah Palin
Though Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman conceded and Democrat Bill Owens was sworn into Congress last week, the routine recanvassing of votes shows Owens' lead has narrowed to 3,026 votes, with about 5,800 absentee ballots received so far that have yet to be counted. The final outcome rests on uncounted absentee ballots, and more than 10,000 were sent out.I'm not getting my hopes up. Hoffman could very well still come up short, but if nothing else it looks like the margin will be closer than anyone thought. If Owens does turn out to be the loser....I don't know. We'll just have to wait and see.
The county Boards of Election are still recanvassing votes and it could be the end of November before a final count is certified. If the count overturns the election, Owens could be removed from office.
The LOTUS had a busy day. Two posts. I'll put them at the bottom since they're pretty long. But here's a video Sarah linked to her Facebook a couple days ago:
In other news, Sarah reportedly threw Levi an olive branch in her interview with Oprah. Most likely she would rather the kid not destroy himself. Will he listen? It's up to him. I think he'll live to rue the day he ever listened to Rex and Tank.
That was part of the discussion in this Oprah interview preview:
And Palin was a topic of discussion for a good twelve minutes on Hannity tonight:
And O'Reilly is finally going to get her on his show. He's only been trying for over a year:
As for the stuff coming out on what's in Palin's book, I prefer to just wait for the real thing. Until November 17th, it's all gossip.
And someone made a video tribute called Palin Democrats Applaud the Last of the Great Democrats in the House:
Well, that's the Rundown. Now here's those LOTUS posts:
LOTUS #1: Pelosi "Health Plan" Should Be DOA:
We need to be vigilant in investigating the ramifications of the Pelosi Health Care Bill. Some provisions sound so outrageous as to be considered impossible to fathom, but they’re right there in the bill in black and white. For instance, page 297 of the bill explains the punishment for not purchasing government mandated health insurance. If you don’t buy what the government considers “acceptable health care coverage,” you’re going to be hit with a tax of at least 2.5% of your income. And if you don’t pay that new tax, you could be fined as much as $250,000 and sentenced to up to five years in prison.
But here’s the thing: they have to make the penalty for opting out very harsh in order to force us to buy coverage. The only way to keep this government run health care plan afloat is for everyone to buy into it – especially young and healthy people. That means that they will have to penalize citizens if we choose not to buy a plan that will cost a minimum of about $15,000 per family per year.
The bill that came out of the Senate last month – the Baucus Bill – does just the opposite. It calls for a much lighter penalty ($750 maximum) for people who don’t buy government approved health coverage, making it cheaper to pay the fine than to pay for the coverage. (And with a recession on, who can blame families for not wanting to pay $15,000 for a government mandated health care plan?)
But here’s the kicker: the bill also forces insurance companies to cover everyone, regardless of pre-existing conditions. Think about what that means. A lot of people – especially young and healthy people – will just pay the penalty instead of purchasing coverage because they’ll figure that it’ll always be there if they get sick, as government has promised. That’s what will happen, and when it does it will totally undermine the very concept of “insurance” – which is basically a group of people pooling their resources over time to cover themselves for a rainy day, paying while they’re healthy so that they’re covered when they’re sick. Those who are healthy now pay for those who are sick. If your insurance pool only contains sick people, it’s a bust. And that’s what this government plan will be. Without all of those young and healthy people paying into the pool and defraying the costs, the government will have to pony up more and more money, and who knows how long the whole crazy plan will last before it goes broke – and our country with it!
That’s where we are with this bureaucratic mess: either the government penalizes people so harshly that they could be hit with huge taxes and even possible jail time, or the government makes the penalty a slap on the wrist and undermines the plan from the get-go. Forcing individuals to buy health insurance seems unconstitutional, yet Congress wants to foist it on us anyway. Proponents of government controlled health care will say, “But we’re made to buy car insurance and home insurance, what’s the difference with health insurance?” It’s apples and oranges. Auto insurance is a state law requirement, and people can always choose not to drive. Banks might require you to have home owner’s insurance, but again, you choose to own a home, just as you choose to drive. You have no choice at all when it comes to this federal government health care insurance mandate.
There are other ways to reform health care without violating our Constitution and our personal liberties. Let’s get back to discussing market-driven, patient-centered, result-driven solutions, like, for example, allowing people to purchase insurance across state lines, tackling existing government waste and fraud, and reforming medical malpractice laws (tort reform) to stop unwarranted lawsuits that force doctors to order unnecessary procedures just to cover themselves.
Please let your Senators know that the Pelosi Bill should be dead on arrival. Once we go down this big government path, it will be virtually impossible to reverse course. Let’s fight for the reform that makes sense for Americans before it’s too late.
- Sarah Palin
LOTUS #2: Thank you, Washington, for Requesting a Demonstrably Good Idea:
I commend the president for acknowledging today that “there are limits to what government can and should do” to ease our 10.2% unemployment rate – the highest it’s been since 1983. I also applaud his call for suggestions and expression of openness to considering “any demonstrably good idea.” Taking him at his word, I’d like to suggest this one: let’s learn from history and follow the example of the man who occupied the White House in 1983 and was able to transform an even worse recession than the one we’re currently experiencing into the largest peacetime economic expansion in American history.
When you realize the magnitude of President Reagan’s achievements, there is absolutely no reason why anyone would ignore his “demonstrably good” example. If you want real job growth, cut taxes – including capital gains taxes and small business payroll taxes – and slay the death tax once and for all. If you want to stimulate the economy and help poor and middle class families, cut payroll taxes so that more Americans can keep and invest more of what they earn.
If you want lasting economic expansion and prosperity, get the federal government’s budget under control. Instead of more pork-laden stimulus plans, let the free market correct itself. That’s what Reagan did, and history proves it worked.
In his comments today, the president honorably suggested that he welcomes our ideas on how to put America’s economy on the right track. But, there also seemed to be a suggested chastisement of the private sector’s efforts to right some economic wrongs when he said, “...small businesses and large firms...have not yet been willing to take the steps necessary to hire again.”
As business owners seek to expand, or just to keep doors open today, it’s not as if they are refusing to hire out of spite. Given a pro-private sector environment they will be only too happy to hire more people and grow their businesses. Perhaps if leadership in Washington reassured them by, for example, cutting tax burdens and making government more efficient, it would send our businesses a message that it’s safe and smart to expand today.
These are difficult times for so many Americans who are out of work. I implore our leaders to not threaten our economy’s job creators with increased taxes and job-killing schemes like cap-and-tax and the government health care takeover. Government needs to get out of their way and off their backs so that they can grow and hire again.
The lessons of history are clear. We’re blessed to have so many lessons from which to learn, and we’d be smart to emulate successes in America’s past. Our economic recovery decisions should be based on the same free market principles that Reagan employed. They work, history proves it, and I thank our president for asking for this input.
- Sarah Palin
The Rundown
I'm always late during the end of the week. I come in after everything's already happened, but whatever. Goodies, galore today (technically yesterday). First up, two LOTUS posts by Sarah Palin:
Next up, a Republican candidate for Governor in Wisconsin is angling for a Palin endorsement:
And Levi promises to dish on Palin in his upcoming book. Just keep ridin' them coattails, Levi. Just keep ridin.' You know who the lowest circle of hell is reserved for, right?
And, so as not to leave a bad taste in your mouth, I bid you farewell with this:
All right, rapid response stuff. Good. This is what she needs to do, just slap down this stuff as it comes out. Now, on to Oprah:Coin Controversy: It is stunning to read and hear about this “coin controversy.” At a recent speech in Milwaukee I discussed the troubling fact that we too often move God to the side in our public life, and gave as an example the shift of the words “In God We Trust” to the edge of the dollar coin.
My comments were not about this President or this Congress – this change predated them. I was merely making a point about a disturbing trend in our country, after which I moved on to discuss some encouraging trends. People who try to read more into such straightforward comments are working hard to find a controversy where there is none.
- Sarah Palin
Willow, Piper, and I are in Chicago and just wanted to let you know that I had a great conversation with Oprah today. We taped the show for Monday, November 16th, and enjoyed it so much that we went way over on time. The rest will air on Oprah.com. Oprah was very hospitable and gracious, and her audience was full of warm, energized and (no doubt) curious viewers.I can honestly say I have never watched Oprah before in my life. This will be the first time. Here's what Oprah had to say:
- Sarah Palin
Next up, a Republican candidate for Governor in Wisconsin is angling for a Palin endorsement:
[Scott] Walker sought help in his run for governor Friday in a half-hour meeting with Palin after her invitation-only Wisconsin Right to Life event....We'll see how this goes. Wisconsin is always a toss-up state. It's a mixture of hippies and farmers, somehow managing to co-exist, mostly because the farmers have learned to keep their mouths shut. And then there's the college kids who are stuck somewhere in the middle. It's always a battleground, and the liberals always win just barely, but with Wisconsin on the list of states on the verge of becoming California, it might be enough to knock some common sense into people. But I'm not getting my hopes up.
"Sarah Palin is one of many national political figures we're reaching out to help on the campaign trail to be part of Scott's effort," Bader said.....Palin told Walker she would be focused through the end of the year on her tour promoting her upcoming book, "Going Rogue," but would begin helping candidates in January. Walker asked Palin to appear with him at a Fox Valley event to help combat expected fund-raising help the Democratic candidate would get from President Barack Obama.
And Levi promises to dish on Palin in his upcoming book. Just keep ridin' them coattails, Levi. Just keep ridin.' You know who the lowest circle of hell is reserved for, right?
And, so as not to leave a bad taste in your mouth, I bid you farewell with this:
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
LOTUS: Veteran's Day
In most of our cities and towns, you’ll see memorials to brave Americans – some in uniforms of wars from long ago – who defended freedom. If you look down at their inscriptions, you’ll see that they were dedicated by the mothers, fathers, wives and orphans of the veterans who gave all for their country. In distant lands across the globe, you’ll find silent fields of white markers with the names of Americans who never came home, but who showed their dedication to their country by where they died.
Today we honor those who served and made the ultimate sacrifice, as well as those who served and came home forever changed by the battlefield. Remember all the veterans who fought and sacrificed for our freedom today, and then please take the time to thank our brave men and women currently serving in uniform. We owe them so much.
- Sarah Palin
The Rundown
I was going to write up a rebuttal of the ABC hit piece that was cherry picking to the extreme on Palin's Wisconsin RTL speech. Unfortunately, every time I got started I just started giggling and shaking my head. It's just too ridiculous. It's like trying to counter somebody who insists that Palin believes the moon is made of green cheese. What do you even say?In short, it wasn't worth my time. Quick points: She never blamed Obama for anything, it wasn't a big deal, nobody there gave it a second thought (except ABC), and the organizers of the event banned the media, not Palin. These events probably make more money if there's no media because more people will pay to come in person if they know they can't see it anywhere else. That's why I went in person. If it had been on tv or online I would have stayed home and the event would have lost $30.
But whatever. "Let's not let facts get in the way," right ABC?
Oh, what else happened today... Ah, Scozzafava grew a spine! Yay! Wait, the spine isn't stiffened against liberalism, but against Sarah Palin:
How can Sarah Palin come out and endorse someone who can't answer some basic questions," Scozzafava tells the Post. "Do these people even know who they are endorsing?"
And Scozzafava has this message for the Club for Growth and other Republicans who are vowing to bring down moderates."There is a lot of us who consider ourselves Republicans, of the Party of Lincoln," she said. "If they don't want us with them, we're going to work against them."
"The Party of Lincoln." (gales of laughter) There comes a point when a party outlives its usefulness. At that point, many different factions come together to form a new party. This is what happened when the Whigs fell by the wayside. Factions came together and formed the GOP. Maybe it's time the GOP joins it's Whig predecessors. Blue dogs, social liberals, Reaganites, libertarians, and conservatives of all kinds will pick up the pieces and form our own coalition. Time to put the GOP out of it's misery. But you just keep on fighting for that dead horse, Dede. Go on, there.
I love one of the comments below the article: "Did Scozzafava know who she was endorsing?"
That about sums it up.
You know, we may not win this fight. Conservative candidates may not win. If Sarah runs in 2012, she may lose. We accept that. At least, I do. Ronald Reagan lost the first time around too. Reagan went through a first term where his popularity fell below Jimmy Carter's. He went through highs and lows; through some victories, and through a lot of defeats. But he never wavered. He stayed on course and on principle. Eventually, the rest of the world caught up to him, not the other way around.
So I accept the risk. I accept the challenge. If we have to not only fight Obama's agenda but also our own party, so be it. Choose sides.
This is ridiculous. We've got a Marxist in the White House bent on turning us into Venezuala, we know how to beat his agenda, and the Party people keep fighting us. What the-? Listen up, Dede, we are fighting for freedom, for the future liberty of this country. We don't give a damn (pardon the language) about the party. Either help us or get out of the way. If you continue to stand protectively in front of liberalism, we'll be forced to just plow right through you. And we will plow through you, because this nation is at stake.
This calls for something soul-stirring:
Okay, now on to the vomit-inducing stuff. "He's baaaaack." Actually, he never left. But, whatever. He was flapping his chops on Entertainment Tonight again complaining about not being able to see Tripp. This is why I doubt he will actually file for custody. What will he whine about if he gets it? He might have to go away. No more spotlight for Levi. :(
This line's my favorite: "I wouldn't want her running my country." - Levi.The Douchebag General doesn't like her. Could she get a better endorsement?
Next up, Frank Bailey:
I hope the book still gets written. I was looking forward to it.A California publicist and two co-authors have terminated a book deal with a former aide of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
San Diego-based Releve Marketing and PR announced Tuesday it will no longer represent or co-author Frank Bailey's upcoming book "Renegade: Sarah Palin's Hatchet Man."
Christiana Grace, company co-owner and one of the co-authors, says she can't elaborate on the reasons for the termination. But she adds it was not a falling out with Bailey, her close friend since college. Bailey could not be reached for comment.
And lastly, it looks like Rubio is angling for an endorsement. Possibly:The clean-cut and charismatic Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, is in many ways the perfect candidate for the fiscal conservatives who have taken over the Republican spotlight - and who seem intent on taking over the Republican Party. President Obama's spending policies, he argues, "will rob my children and their generation of their prosperity, and some of their freedoms."Rubio also made some excellent points about the NY-23 race:
...Asked if he would welcome the support of former GOP vice presidential candidate nd Alaska governor Sarah Palin, Rubio offers an unqualified yes, adding that "I can't think of anything her and I disagree with off the top of my head."
"For conservatives who still don’t believe we can be true to our principles and win elections, I hope NY-23 serves as a wake-up call." Wouldn't Hoffman's loss, then, be a wake-up call of a different kind - evidence of the potential fallout when conservative Republicans like Rubio take on moderates from their own party?What will happen in Florida? I don't know. All I know is that I laughed out loud the first time I saw Crist with that bleached-white hair.
Not at all, Rubio said. He pinned the loss on the local Republican Party, which he said shouldn't have selected moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava in the first place.
"The blame lays on those who decided to anoint someone who was so outside the mainstream of Republican thought," he argued.
....Rubio rejects the notion that there is a purge going on of moderate Republicans, arguing that Gingrich has it exactly backward, at least when it comes to his campaign.
"People always couch it as 'is there a purge of moderates,'" he said. "I think the real question is, 'is there room for the conservatives in the party?' Let's not forget that the establishment has endorsed the moderate in this race, Charlie Crist. So if anything, the people fighting to be a part of the Republican Party are the conservatives in this race, not the moderates."
Oh, and USA Today notes that Palin's book tour will run through battleground states.I leave you with this simple video that seems to be based on Bastiat. The best things in life are often simple:
Just File, Already!
I held my nose and dove into the cesspool after posting my rundown. According to Gryphen (a very reliable source\sarc), Levi isn't actually planning on filing for custody of Tripp, he's just doing this to discourage the Palins from filing for full custody.Nobody saw that coming.
Can't give up your meal ticket, can ya? Have to have something to complain to the press about.
If there really are issues, just go to court and straighten it out. But, the aftermath of that would be irrelevancy, so we can't go down that path, can we? No, we must continue to have a reason to slam the Palins - a justification for our shameless money-grubbing. If joint custody is received, what will Levi cry about to get his fifteen seconds then?
Here's Gryphen's comments:
Hold the phone guys! I just received a call from one of my sources and they say that Levi is NOT planning to file for joint custody at the end of this month! I don't know if Levi was misquoted, or if he spoke without checking with his attorney, but it is not in the works thus far.
I did hear however that if Bristol files any papers that Team Levi is ready to respond.
I apologize for getting everybody's hopes up. I was kind of excited as well.
Update2: By now many of you have seen the Insider interview with Levi and wonder if I have gone off of the deep end. I made a follow up call and this is the deal.
TeamLevi is convinced that there will be a motion for full custody filed by the Palin family. In order to let THEM know that Levi is not afraid of that, and that he is willing to go to court as well, he made that statement to the Insider. As you can see from Levi's demeanor he is serious.The reason that Levi has been giving interviews to Vanity Fair and offering to pose for Playgirl is to make money to care for Tripp. He has been doing the best he can to demonstrate that he is a responsible parent, but the young man simply CANNOT get a regular job.
Being plucked out of the middle of his hunting trip and deposited into the middle of the McCain campaign has changed his life forever. He is unable to return to the life he lived before so, with the help of Tank Jones and Rex Butler, he is trying to make lemonade out of the pile of lemons left to him when Palin evicted him from her home.
Forgive me while I wipe the tear of laughter from my eye.
Posing for Playgirl to demonstrate that he's a responsible parent. Oh, that's rich.
Posing for Playgirl to demonstrate that he's a responsible parent. Oh, that's rich.
He could get a normal job if he really wanted, but Tank and Rex put a bug in his ear. Levi himself said at the end of the Vanity Fair article that they told him that not everybody has a chance to be famous.
And nineteen-year-old imaginations ran wild.
And, correct me if I'm wrong, but if this is true (with no guarantee that it is, we'll just have to see if Levi does file), then I guess that means that things with the Palins really aren't to the breaking point, and Levi isn't being driven to this because they won't let him see Tripp. It means that this is a preemptive strike, and not at all based in what he's been saying for the last couple weeks.
Which would mean.....
Levi lied?
Gasp! No! Who woulda thunk it?
Wow. This kid is a walking poster child of self-incrimination. Again, no guarantee that Gryphen is in any way reliable. We'll just have to see what happens. One way, Levi's a liar with a meal ticket. The other way, Levi's a liar without a meal ticket. Either way, I don't really care.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Tammy Bruce on Afghanistan, Huckabee, and Palin
Tammy slams Obama and Huckabee while touting Palin. Good stuff:
Late Nite Goodies
First, another Sarah Palin interview I've dug from the ether of the Bob and Mark Show. This one's on the oil and gas issues with the legislature:
Secondly, this tidbit from O'Reilly tonight:
Thirdly, Machosauce's new vid, only available for a limited time:
And, if you're Bill589, a couple threads to get you through for now here, here, here, and here. In no particular order.
And Oprah tweeted earlier today: "Then going home to finish Sarah Palin's book. She's on a week from today."
Secondly, this tidbit from O'Reilly tonight:
Thirdly, Machosauce's new vid, only available for a limited time:
And, if you're Bill589, a couple threads to get you through for now here, here, here, and here. In no particular order.
And Oprah tweeted earlier today: "Then going home to finish Sarah Palin's book. She's on a week from today."
The Rundown
Let's start with the tabloid trash and then get to the good stuff. That way this post won't leave a bad taste in your mouth.
Apparently Levi has had enough. I pause while you laugh. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, after a couple of weeks on the media circuit and just in time for Sarah Palin's book tour, Levi has finally had enough. His true motives couldn't be any more transparent if he were spelling it out in skywriting.
He's planning on suing for joint custody for Tripp. All I can say is, "Finally!" It's about time. This happens all the time folks. People have a kid, they break up, they work out custody. Nothing earthshattering. I honestly thought they should have done this a long time ago.
Upside: when it's finally worked out, Levi won't be able to use "the Palins are being mean to me!" as an excuse to push his face in front of the cameras.
Now, on to more pleasant things.
Sarah Palin has her Twitter account up! Yay! Yay! Yay! Snoopy dance!
And she's also put out a statement on her book tour. Looks like the 'Cuda's about to kick it into high gear:
And last, but certainly not least, Hot Air's Doctor Zero slams David Frum. I'll post it without block quoting it, because it's pretty long, but it's sticky sweet:
Writing on his website, which used to be called “New Majority” until he got tired of people laughing at him, David Frum published an essay called “The Palin Fantasy” over the weekend. Even as the House of Representatives was preparing to pass the most blatantly unconstitutional assault on America’s freedom in Congressional history, Frum found something really outrageous to write about: Matthew Continetti’s admiring essay on Sarah Palin’s populist appeal. It’s a good thing Frum has his priorities in order. We wouldn’t want Palin to get into office and drop a few trillion dollars of unsustainable debt on us.
Frum disputes Palin’s populist appeal by citing some poll numbers: According to Gallup, 63% of Americans say they would never consider voting for her. By a margin of 62%-31% Americans rate Palin “unqualified” to serve as president – by far the worst score for any leading Republican.
In comparison, only 51% of Americans say they would never consider voting for Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee – and a plurality of Americans rate the two as “qualified”: 50-36 say Huckabee is qualified, 49-39 say Romney is qualified.
This is an important point, because poll numbers never change, especially for private citizens who haven’t declared any intention to run for office, three years before the elections. How often to polls have to shift, or produce completely inaccurate numbers, before people stop trying to use them to shape the reality they supposedly measure? A nation looking for confident, visionary leadership is not going to look down and notice David Frum waving a spreadsheet of poll numbers.
I doubt many of the respondents to that Gallup poll could specify exactly what the “qualifications” for the President are. It’s a singular position, with qualifications that change based on current events, and the mood of the electorate. I suspect the electorate of 2012 will be looking for someone who isn’t a “community organizer” with a shady past and zero governing experience, riding a wave of uncritical media adulation and touting an education at elite universities. Palin doesn’t have the only resume that fits the bill, but nobody else’s resume is selling millions of copies at the moment.
Given the difficulty in itemizing the exact “qualifications” for President, and the painfully thin portfolio of the current occupant of the White House, a poll pronouncing the former governor of Alaska “unqualified” is really measuring the effectiveness of crude media caricatures from 2008.
Palin isn’t currently running for anything, so people who don’t follow politics closely are left with the afterimage of her savage treatment in the last campaign burned into their memories. That might change when people read her book, and follow her appearances on the book tour, but otherwise I wouldn’t expect much movement in her poll numbers unless she actually tosses her hat in the ring. Why would disengaged voters think of her as anything but a celebrity author until then?
Comparing Palin’s “qualification” ratings to Romney or Huckabee is a little silly, because neither of them took the kind of pounding she did. The Left’s supply of anti-Mormon bigotry remains locked in the toxic waste dump of its soul, where it will remain until Romney looks like he’s going to win the Republican nomination.
Huckabee seems to be carefully laying the groundwork for a 2012 run, but right now he could interview live extraterrestrials on his Fox show without pulling a fraction of the sustained media attention Palin continues to receive. Much of this attention is negative, but any principled Republican who thinks he would draw positive media coverage is fantasizing more than the most ardent Palin supporter.
Speaking of fantasies, Frum figures he’s the red pill that will awaken Palin supporters to the hopeless, blasted wasteland of the real world: Palin supporters have constructed an alternative reality in which their heroine is wildly cheered by the American yeomanry, and despised only by a small coterie of sherry-drinking snobs.
No contrary evidence, no matter how overwhelming and uncontradicted, can alter this view: not the collapse in Palin’s support in just 5 weeks in 2008, not the statistical studies that show her as the only vice presidential nominee in ticket to have hurt her ticket, not her rampant unpopularity with American women, not her own flinching from a second encounter with the Alaskan electorate.
That isn’t a glass of sherry gripped in David Frum’s sweaty fist, Palinistas. It’s a mug of scalding hot coffee, and it’s going right down your throats. Personally, I’m stuck in an alternative reality where a hardcore leftist is running up astronomical deficits and double-digit unemployment, in the service of a liberty-destroying collectivist agenda.
I wonder how many hard feelings the voters of 2012 will carry for the woman who gave 110% effort to save us from this little branch in the time line, and has the battle scars to show for it… assuming they can tear themselves away from obsessing over those “statistical studies that show her as the only vice presidential nominee in ticket to have hurt her ticket.”
Frum published a companion piece on his web site, “Saint Sarah” by Napoleon Linardatos. (Get it? She’s an object of religious devotion to her mindless supporters, a little glow-in-the-dark plastic statuette on the dashboard of their limited intellects.) Linardatos zeroes in on the real reason Palin has so many Frum-ious bandersnatches nipping at her ankles:
Since the defeat of the McCain ticket in 2008, Palin as governor failed to make any serious progress despite the fact that she had gained tremendous prominence and influence on the right and that she was at the helm of a conservative state. At the end she decided to resign, 18 months before the end of her term, admitting that she was no longer able to effectively govern the state. It should have been a “mugged by reality” moment for the Palinistas. But for them her resignation was proof of the everlasting prosecution.
Palin would leave governing, as the Washington Post reported, because it was “in the best interest of the state and will allow her to more effectively advocate for issues of importance to her, including energy independence and national security.” Those who can’t govern perpetually campaign.
Do you suppose that tsunami of frivolous lawsuits from the Democrat slander machine might have had something to do with her “failure to make any serious progress” as governor? It doesn’t matter to the dutiful scribes of conventional wisdom. When the Washington Post counts a Republican out, David Frum will always be there with a bottle of chloroform, to make sure they don’t get back up. Deviation from the accepted script for Republican political life is dangerous populism.
It would be foolish to suppose Palin could resume a political career without getting asked about her resignation. In fact, the media won’t just ask her about it… they’ll argue with her about it. She gives every sign of understanding that. One of her best qualifications for high office is her demonstrated ability to set aside ego and emotion, to learn from her mistakes.
Another of Palin’s qualifications is her relationship with her supporters. Contrary to the usual lazy dismissal, they’re not brimming with the kind of blind faith that put Barack Obama in office. Of course they like her. I’d be tempted to say every major politician is well-liked by their supporters, but I haven’t been able to forget about John Kerry yet.
I’ve read a lot of blog posts and comments from enthusiastic Palin supporters, and they generally don’t strike me as hypnotized by the glory of her inevitable victory. They like what she says, they like her personally, and they take every opportunity to encourage her to run for office. Dismissing the ability to inspire such respect and affection as a liability is remarkably wrong-headed.
Palin has developed a remarkable knack for saying all the things President Obama should be saying, at any given moment. While Obama was serving as the warm-up act for anti-American and anti-Semitic nutjobs at the United Nations, Palin spoke of her country’s proud tradition of liberty and capitalism in Hong Kong. While Obama pondered whether the ruins of the Berlin Wall would make a suitable backdrop for his magnificence, Palin wrote of the twilight struggle between Ronald Reagan’s America and the Evil Empire… and wasn’t shy about naming both the heroes and villains.
Palin’s qualifications are not merely academic. She’s been a lonely pair of boots on the ground, in conflicts where most of her presumptive rivals have been content to either sit on the sidelines or follow her lead. She’s demonstrated a willingness to take risks, and stand her ground under fire. Those are qualities Republican voters will be looking for, if they want a President who can do more than just negotiate lower monthly payments on the lethally overdrawn American Distress card.
The mocking dismissal of Palin as a pity fetish for her faithful worshipers has it exactly backward. Many of her strident critics enjoy using her as a voodoo doll to insult her supporters. They’re the real targets of accommodating “moderates” hoping to be chosen as valets to a permanent socialist ruling class. They’re the reason David Frum perches on his dreary web site, furiously scribbling equations that prove they don’t exist. Behind the endless nattering about Sarah Palin’s qualifications for President is the assertion that her supporters aren’t qualified to vote.
Apparently Levi has had enough. I pause while you laugh. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, after a couple of weeks on the media circuit and just in time for Sarah Palin's book tour, Levi has finally had enough. His true motives couldn't be any more transparent if he were spelling it out in skywriting.
He's planning on suing for joint custody for Tripp. All I can say is, "Finally!" It's about time. This happens all the time folks. People have a kid, they break up, they work out custody. Nothing earthshattering. I honestly thought they should have done this a long time ago.
Upside: when it's finally worked out, Levi won't be able to use "the Palins are being mean to me!" as an excuse to push his face in front of the cameras.
Now, on to more pleasant things.
Sarah Palin has her Twitter account up! Yay! Yay! Yay! Snoopy dance!
And she's also put out a statement on her book tour. Looks like the 'Cuda's about to kick it into high gear:
Here are some details of the upcoming book tour. I’m starting in Michigan and you’ll understand why when you read the book. Last year, I made a promise to the good people of Michigan that I would be back, and now I’m keeping that promise. Michigan is near and dear to my family’s heart! Our eldest son, Track, lived with a great host family there during his hockey days.)Next on the rundown, a good opinion piece in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about Palin's pro-life speech:
From Michigan, the “Going Rogue” tour will cover as much of the country as possible. I’ve decided to stop in cities that are not usually included in a typical book tour. For instance, I’m looking forward to meeting our honorable men in women in uniform and their families at a Fort Bragg book signing, and to reconnecting with friends my family made last year on the campaign trail in different book signing venues.
We have a tight schedule, but I’m working with the publisher to allow possibilities of stopping at a few unannounced places, too. I’ll Twitter information when the tour starts, so I’ll post our progress from the road. You can follow on Twitter at SarahPalinUSA.
Below are dates, times, and locations for the first part of the tour – this schedule brings us up to Thanksgiving, where I’ll get to connect with family in Washington state for the holiday. Stay tuned for our post-Thanksgiving schedule coming soon.
Please contact each venue for more information. Can’t wait to see you soon!
- Sarah Palin
"There's just something about Sarah Palin." That's all Charlie Sykes had to say before the crowd went wild. The Milwaukee talk radio personality hosted a Wisconsin Right to Life fund-raiser headlined by the former Alaskan governer and GOP vice-presidential candidate before a packed house at State Fair Expo Center on Friday.
The price of admission included a T-shirt that says it all: "America's Conservative Conscience." Palin made news recently for putting "principle over party," a radical notion for some. But "Going Rogue" (the name of her new book) is part of Palin's signature appeal to middle America. And middle America is definitely paying attention.
As for Palin's very public life choices, Sykes got it exactly right: "We are defined by the choices we make. We are also defined by the enemies we make." Sykes reminded everyone that Palin "thoroughly annoys the mainstream media." Don't forget political elites, Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America, to name a few more.
When it comes to pro-life organizations, Wisconsin Right to Life is in a class by itself. According to Executive Director Barbara Lyons, its commitment to youth outreach is evidenced by extensive use of mass media and the Internet to successfully target the 18-to-24 age group that has 80% of abortions. Wisconsin's abortion rate has decreased by a staggering 52% since 1987.
The list of WRTL-sponsored legislation over 30 years is equally staggering. What's more notable is that not a single piece of it has been overturned by any court anywhere. WRTL made history in 2007 with its successful free speech challenge to McCain-Feingold in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision.
According to Pew Research, "millennials" are far more pro-life than the preceding generation. A May 2009 Gallup Poll reported that 51% of Americans now identify themselves as pro-life, compared to 42% as pro-choice.
Lyons and Palin understand that affecting culture starts by changing hearts and minds "one life at a time" with compassion and simple truth. In defending the defenseless, Palin is clear: "A baby is a baby regardless of the circumstances of her conception, including less than ideal and even impossible circumstances."
With cutting-edge ultrasound technology, we literally have a window into the womb. For those with eyes to see, the truth is clear: the developing unborn child is just that - a child. For those blinded to such obvious truth, Palin is crystal clear: "You have to believe the Earth is flat."
"Ending a baby's life is not health care," said Palin. She called out House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), insisting she allow a vote on the Stupak Amendment, which specifically bans abortion coverage. The House bill that passed the next day included the ban. No small feat.
Early women's rights campaigners opposed abortion. Alice Paul, author of the first Equal Rights Amendment, described abortion as "the ultimate exploitation of women." Like many of her peers, Elizabeth Cady Stanton was also an abolitionist. She was unequivocal: "When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."
Amen.
Palin cuts through convoluted feminist orthodoxy to articulate a pro-life position that is "compassionate, philosophically consistent and intellectually honest." The pro-woman, pro-life worldview that Palin champions (and lives) not only energizes the pro-life movement; it takes back the heart and soul of classic feminism.
Palin sums it up perfectly: "Sometimes the best things in life aren't planned."
And last, but certainly not least, Hot Air's Doctor Zero slams David Frum. I'll post it without block quoting it, because it's pretty long, but it's sticky sweet:
Writing on his website, which used to be called “New Majority” until he got tired of people laughing at him, David Frum published an essay called “The Palin Fantasy” over the weekend. Even as the House of Representatives was preparing to pass the most blatantly unconstitutional assault on America’s freedom in Congressional history, Frum found something really outrageous to write about: Matthew Continetti’s admiring essay on Sarah Palin’s populist appeal. It’s a good thing Frum has his priorities in order. We wouldn’t want Palin to get into office and drop a few trillion dollars of unsustainable debt on us.
Frum disputes Palin’s populist appeal by citing some poll numbers: According to Gallup, 63% of Americans say they would never consider voting for her. By a margin of 62%-31% Americans rate Palin “unqualified” to serve as president – by far the worst score for any leading Republican.
In comparison, only 51% of Americans say they would never consider voting for Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee – and a plurality of Americans rate the two as “qualified”: 50-36 say Huckabee is qualified, 49-39 say Romney is qualified.
This is an important point, because poll numbers never change, especially for private citizens who haven’t declared any intention to run for office, three years before the elections. How often to polls have to shift, or produce completely inaccurate numbers, before people stop trying to use them to shape the reality they supposedly measure? A nation looking for confident, visionary leadership is not going to look down and notice David Frum waving a spreadsheet of poll numbers.
I doubt many of the respondents to that Gallup poll could specify exactly what the “qualifications” for the President are. It’s a singular position, with qualifications that change based on current events, and the mood of the electorate. I suspect the electorate of 2012 will be looking for someone who isn’t a “community organizer” with a shady past and zero governing experience, riding a wave of uncritical media adulation and touting an education at elite universities. Palin doesn’t have the only resume that fits the bill, but nobody else’s resume is selling millions of copies at the moment.
Given the difficulty in itemizing the exact “qualifications” for President, and the painfully thin portfolio of the current occupant of the White House, a poll pronouncing the former governor of Alaska “unqualified” is really measuring the effectiveness of crude media caricatures from 2008.
Palin isn’t currently running for anything, so people who don’t follow politics closely are left with the afterimage of her savage treatment in the last campaign burned into their memories. That might change when people read her book, and follow her appearances on the book tour, but otherwise I wouldn’t expect much movement in her poll numbers unless she actually tosses her hat in the ring. Why would disengaged voters think of her as anything but a celebrity author until then?
Comparing Palin’s “qualification” ratings to Romney or Huckabee is a little silly, because neither of them took the kind of pounding she did. The Left’s supply of anti-Mormon bigotry remains locked in the toxic waste dump of its soul, where it will remain until Romney looks like he’s going to win the Republican nomination.
Huckabee seems to be carefully laying the groundwork for a 2012 run, but right now he could interview live extraterrestrials on his Fox show without pulling a fraction of the sustained media attention Palin continues to receive. Much of this attention is negative, but any principled Republican who thinks he would draw positive media coverage is fantasizing more than the most ardent Palin supporter.
Speaking of fantasies, Frum figures he’s the red pill that will awaken Palin supporters to the hopeless, blasted wasteland of the real world: Palin supporters have constructed an alternative reality in which their heroine is wildly cheered by the American yeomanry, and despised only by a small coterie of sherry-drinking snobs.
No contrary evidence, no matter how overwhelming and uncontradicted, can alter this view: not the collapse in Palin’s support in just 5 weeks in 2008, not the statistical studies that show her as the only vice presidential nominee in ticket to have hurt her ticket, not her rampant unpopularity with American women, not her own flinching from a second encounter with the Alaskan electorate.
That isn’t a glass of sherry gripped in David Frum’s sweaty fist, Palinistas. It’s a mug of scalding hot coffee, and it’s going right down your throats. Personally, I’m stuck in an alternative reality where a hardcore leftist is running up astronomical deficits and double-digit unemployment, in the service of a liberty-destroying collectivist agenda.
I wonder how many hard feelings the voters of 2012 will carry for the woman who gave 110% effort to save us from this little branch in the time line, and has the battle scars to show for it… assuming they can tear themselves away from obsessing over those “statistical studies that show her as the only vice presidential nominee in ticket to have hurt her ticket.”
Frum published a companion piece on his web site, “Saint Sarah” by Napoleon Linardatos. (Get it? She’s an object of religious devotion to her mindless supporters, a little glow-in-the-dark plastic statuette on the dashboard of their limited intellects.) Linardatos zeroes in on the real reason Palin has so many Frum-ious bandersnatches nipping at her ankles:
Since the defeat of the McCain ticket in 2008, Palin as governor failed to make any serious progress despite the fact that she had gained tremendous prominence and influence on the right and that she was at the helm of a conservative state. At the end she decided to resign, 18 months before the end of her term, admitting that she was no longer able to effectively govern the state. It should have been a “mugged by reality” moment for the Palinistas. But for them her resignation was proof of the everlasting prosecution.
Palin would leave governing, as the Washington Post reported, because it was “in the best interest of the state and will allow her to more effectively advocate for issues of importance to her, including energy independence and national security.” Those who can’t govern perpetually campaign.
Do you suppose that tsunami of frivolous lawsuits from the Democrat slander machine might have had something to do with her “failure to make any serious progress” as governor? It doesn’t matter to the dutiful scribes of conventional wisdom. When the Washington Post counts a Republican out, David Frum will always be there with a bottle of chloroform, to make sure they don’t get back up. Deviation from the accepted script for Republican political life is dangerous populism.
It would be foolish to suppose Palin could resume a political career without getting asked about her resignation. In fact, the media won’t just ask her about it… they’ll argue with her about it. She gives every sign of understanding that. One of her best qualifications for high office is her demonstrated ability to set aside ego and emotion, to learn from her mistakes.
Another of Palin’s qualifications is her relationship with her supporters. Contrary to the usual lazy dismissal, they’re not brimming with the kind of blind faith that put Barack Obama in office. Of course they like her. I’d be tempted to say every major politician is well-liked by their supporters, but I haven’t been able to forget about John Kerry yet.
I’ve read a lot of blog posts and comments from enthusiastic Palin supporters, and they generally don’t strike me as hypnotized by the glory of her inevitable victory. They like what she says, they like her personally, and they take every opportunity to encourage her to run for office. Dismissing the ability to inspire such respect and affection as a liability is remarkably wrong-headed.
Palin has developed a remarkable knack for saying all the things President Obama should be saying, at any given moment. While Obama was serving as the warm-up act for anti-American and anti-Semitic nutjobs at the United Nations, Palin spoke of her country’s proud tradition of liberty and capitalism in Hong Kong. While Obama pondered whether the ruins of the Berlin Wall would make a suitable backdrop for his magnificence, Palin wrote of the twilight struggle between Ronald Reagan’s America and the Evil Empire… and wasn’t shy about naming both the heroes and villains.
Palin’s qualifications are not merely academic. She’s been a lonely pair of boots on the ground, in conflicts where most of her presumptive rivals have been content to either sit on the sidelines or follow her lead. She’s demonstrated a willingness to take risks, and stand her ground under fire. Those are qualities Republican voters will be looking for, if they want a President who can do more than just negotiate lower monthly payments on the lethally overdrawn American Distress card.
The mocking dismissal of Palin as a pity fetish for her faithful worshipers has it exactly backward. Many of her strident critics enjoy using her as a voodoo doll to insult her supporters. They’re the real targets of accommodating “moderates” hoping to be chosen as valets to a permanent socialist ruling class. They’re the reason David Frum perches on his dreary web site, furiously scribbling equations that prove they don’t exist. Behind the endless nattering about Sarah Palin’s qualifications for President is the assertion that her supporters aren’t qualified to vote.
LOTUS: Commemorating a Victory for Freedom:Twenty years ago, the ultimate symbol of the division between freedom and tyranny was torn down. The Berlin Wall was constructed for one purpose: to prevent the escape of East Germans to the freedom of the West. The Wall’s cold, gray façade was a stark reminder of the economic and political way of life across the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.
Ronald Reagan never stopped regarding the Berlin Wall as an affront to human freedom. When so many other American leaders and opinion makers had come to accept its presence as inevitable and permanent, Reagan still hammered away at the Wall’s very premise in human tyranny, until finally the Wall itself was hammered down.
Its downfall wasn’t the work of Reagan alone. Our president’s actions were joined with the brave acts of many individuals who stood firm and united in facing the Soviet Union. The Berlin Wall came down because millions of people behind the Iron Curtain refused to accept the fate of enslavement and their supporters in the West refused to accept that the “captive nations” would remain captive forever.
Though that long, tragic episode in human history had come to a close finally with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it wasn’t the “end of history” or the end of conflict as some had hoped. New conflicts confront us today throughout the world which call for courage and resolve and dedication to freedom. The new democracies and market economies that have emerged in Central and Eastern Europe still require our friendship and alliances as they continue to seek security, prosperity, and self-determination. But as we reflect on present and future challenges, let’s take time to celebrate the anniversary of this awesome victory for freedom.
The downfall of that cold, gray concrete Wall should be a lesson to us in hope. Nothing is inevitable. Tyranny is no match for the hope and resolve of those who work and fight for freedom.
- Sarah Palin
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And the Barbarians roar! Let's hear something like that come out of Obama's mouth. Still waiting.....
Sunday's A-Comin'!
I'm not Pentecostal, maybe that's why I wasn't familiar with this sermon. I'm referring to the title of Sarah's Facebook post. The title suggests the idea that Friday (or health care bill passing day) may be dark, but joy cometh on Sunday morning.
But apparently, there was also a famous sermon that took that theme and ran with it. Whether Sarah was referring to this particular sermon, I don't know. I understood her reference without knowing anything about this sermon, so it may just be a coincidence. It's cool either way. It's about an hour long. The beginning is kinda jumpy, but it clears up. The part I'm referring to starts at around 54:30. Check it out:
And if you've got the appetite for more:
But apparently, there was also a famous sermon that took that theme and ran with it. Whether Sarah was referring to this particular sermon, I don't know. I understood her reference without knowing anything about this sermon, so it may just be a coincidence. It's cool either way. It's about an hour long. The beginning is kinda jumpy, but it clears up. The part I'm referring to starts at around 54:30. Check it out:
And if you've got the appetite for more:
Sunday, November 8, 2009
A Look Back
I like this guy. Subscribe to his vids if you haven't already. This was his reaction to the Palin/Biden debate last year.
Will We Destroy the Republican Party?
Since Hoffman lost (that was the risk of endorsing him - even though he was a long shot either way, once he lost it was proof of conservatism's, and thus Sarah Palin's, failure), I've read dozens of articles and suffered through countless talking heads spouting off about how the party is doomed if we follow Limbaugh and Palin.We haven't moved. They have. The party is doomed because they're hanging themselves. Conservatives are just standing on the sidelines screaming, "What are you doing?! Stop it! This is suicide!" We are people of conscience. We will compromise when necessary, but the GOP is compromising itself into nothing.
Republicans in Congress now claim to be all against Obamacare and everything else. Well, guess what? I don't buy it for a minute. They may be good people, but the fact is that they lost my trust over the last eight years, and if they want it back they're going to have to earn it. I'll not give them power again until I know that they're sincere and will use it the right way and for the right reasons. Until then, if it means keeping the Dems in power, so be it.
I don't think the GOP has learned its lesson yet, and putting them back into power until they have will accomplish exactly nothing.
So, will we destroy the Republican party? If we have to.
SP Video Sunday
In honor of Palin's Right to Life speech in Wisconsin,this Sunday we revisit one of the best speeches of all time, the one in Evansville. Enjoy:VCRTL Part 4 from 1LifeDigital on Vimeo.
Palin: Listen Now, Or Listen in 2010 - Your Choice.
The LOTUS: The Pelosi Bill Was Rammed Through on Saturday, But Sunday’s ComingWe’ve got to hold on to hope, and we’ve got to fight hard because Congressional action tonight just put America on a path toward an unrecognizable country. The same government leaders that got us into the mortgage business and the car business are now getting us into the healthcare business.
Despite Americans’ decisive message last Tuesday that they reject the troubling path this country has been taking, Speaker Pelosi has broken her own promises of transparency to ram a health “care” bill through the House of Representatives just before midnight.
Why did she push the 2,000 page bill this weekend? Was she perhaps afraid to give her peers and the constituents for whom she works the chance to actually read this monstrous bill carefully, if at all? Was she concerned that Americans might really digest the details of a bill that the Wall Street Journal has called “the worst piece of post-New Deal legislation ever introduced”?
This out-of-control bureaucratic mess will be disastrous for our economy, our small businesses, and our personal liberty. It will slam businesses at a time when we are at double-digit unemployment rates – the highest we’ve seen in a quarter of a century. This massive new bureaucracy will cost us and our children money we don’t have. It will rob Americans of more of our freedom and further hamper the free market. Make no mistake: we’re on course to have government commandeer one-sixth of our economy. The people who gave us Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac now want to run our health care. Think about that.
All of us who value the sanctity of life are grateful for the success of the pro-life majority in the House this evening in its battle against federal funding of abortion in this bill, but it’s ironic because we were promised that abortion wasn’t covered in the bill to begin with.
Our healthy distrust of these government leaders made us look deeper into the bill because unfortunately we knew better than to trust what they were saying. The victory tonight to amend the bill and eliminate that federal funding for abortion was great – because abortion is not health care. Now we can only hope that Rep. Stupak’s amendment will hold in the final bill, though the Democratic leadership has already refused to promise that it won’t be scrapped later.
We had been told there were no “death panels” in the bill either. But look closely at the provision mandating bureaucratic panels that will be calling the shots regarding who will receive government health care. Look closely at provisions addressing illegal aliens’ health care coverage too.
Those of us who love freedom and believe in open and transparent government can only be dismayed by midnight action on a Saturday. Speaker Pelosi’s promise that Americans would have 72 hours to read the final bill before the vote was just another one of the D.C. establishment’s too-common political ploys. It’s broken promises like this that turn people off to politics and leave them disillusioned about the future of their country.
But despite this late-night maneuvering, many of us were paying close attention tonight. We’ll keep paying close attention. We need to let our legislators in Washington know that they still represent us, and that the majority of Americans are not in favor of the “reform” they are pushing. After all, this is still a country “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
We will make our voices heard. It’s on to the Senate now. Our legislators can listen now, or they can hear us in 2010. It’s their choice.
- Sarah Palin
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