Palin spinning out of control...

Discussion in 'Politics' started by OPTIONAL777, Jul 5, 2009.

  1. Mercor

    Mercor

    OPTIONAL777 spinning out of control...
     
    #11     Jul 8, 2009
  2. Greg Mitchell

    Author, 'Why Obama Won'
    Posted: July 6, 2009 10:14 AM



    The Myth of How the Media Destroyed Palin


    It's been amusing to observe, in the past few days, Sarah Palin hit the media (from blogs to the New York Times) for causing all of her troubles, even threatening to sue some of them for "defaming" her. She's even tweeted the charges, repeatedly. It's been equally fun to read some of those who backed her and John McCain last fall now admitting, after her resignation speech, that she is a true lightweight. This was apparent to most Americans within days of her emergence on the national ticket late last summer.

    Ross Douthat, one of her old boosters, in the Times this morning writes that her wacky I'm-outta-here speech disqualifies her from running for president for years to come -- but still manages to blast the media for coming to this conclusion months before he did. Dose that even suggests that the "elite" take down of Palin ruins it for any other folksy, non-Harvard candidate to run again -- and shatters the notion that anyone-can-grow-up-to-be-President. Of course, this is nonsense. For one thing, we generally insist that "anyone" display some degree of brain power and judgment, and also not quit when the going gets rough.

    Can't wait for David Brooks to weigh in. Remember that he said on a panel last autumn that she was thoroughly unfit for higher office, but refused to state that flatly in his column.

    In fact, in the months after the November election, we heard from pundits and disgruntled GOPers that the media helped elect Obama by attacking, or mocking, Sarah Palin. These critics still allege that she gave John McCain a big boost in the polls when first named and that she would have help drive him to victory -- if not for the allegedly unfair treatment by Katie and Tina Fey and those mean bloggers and all the rest.

    But this is not true. The myth should be put to bed once and for all, as Sarah finally crosses that bridge to nowhere.

    In fact, Palin never really helped him except with the GOP "base," which he would have won over anyway. She never had broad-based appeal and, as I have written here previously (and in my book, Why Obama Won), McCain had been fooled by false media coverage of the purported huge number of Hillary Clinton fans -- women and the working class -- who were eager to bolt Obama for the GOP. This never came to pass.

    In reality, the undermining of Palin happened well before the networks and SNL got to her. The polls proved it. Her home state paper, the Anchorage Daily News was quick to expose elements of her past that raised questions and just days after she was named, the Fairbanks, Alaska daily called her choice by McCain a silly one. And the evidence mounted from there, within days.

    More than anything, McCain was hurt by shattering his strongest calling card -- "experience" -- by picking a neophyte to serve one heartbeat away. Now, some conservative pundits who long backed her now may be reaching the same conclusion as evidence has mounted.

    This is not Monday morning (literally) quarterbacking. Here is an excerpt from a column I wrote here last September 1, 2008, on the surprising poll results just as Palin was gaining the GOP nod -- and well before the negative stories in the national press appeared.

    A new CNN/Opinion Research poll released today shows that he contest between Barack Obama and John McCain -- after the twin "bounces" of the past few days -- remains essentially tied, with Obama leading at 49% to 48%. But what's most intriguing are the results regarding McCain's choice for veep, who was expected to draw more women to the GOP ticket.


    In fact, men seem to be more impressed with this move than women. Just now, this seems to be confirmed by a CBS poll, showing Obama with a 48% to 40% lead overall -- but with a wide lead among women, at 50% to 36%, which has only widened. Only 13% of women said they might be more likely to vote for McCain because of Palin, with 11% saying they are now less likely.

    CBS also reports: "Before the Democratic convention, McCain enjoyed a 12-point advantage with independent voters, but now Obama leads among this group 43 percent to 37 percent....The poll shows an increase in the number of Obama voters who are enthusiastic about him."

    As for the CNN poll: "Women now appear slightly more likely to vote for Obama than they did a week ago, 53 percent now, compared to 50 percent," reports Keating Holland, CNN's director of polling. "But McCain picked up a couple of points among men. More important, McCain solidified his party's base with the Palin selection, dropping Obama's share of the Republican vote six points to just 5 percent now. The Palin selection did not help among women -- that may come later -- but it did appeal to Republican loyalists."

    Men have a slightly more favorable opinion of Palin than women -- 41 percent vs. 36 percent. "If McCain was hoping to boost his share of the women's vote, it didn't work," Holland said. And USA Today/Gallup has just released its post-Palin poll showing that Obama has widened his lead from four points to 50% - 43%.

    Here is an excerpt from the CNN report: "Is Palin qualified to be president? Fifty percent say she is unqualified to assume the presidency if that becomes necessary; 45 percent say she's prepared for the White House. In recent history, the only running mate to earn less confidence from the public was Vice President Dan Quayle in 1992.

    "Three quarters of all voters think McCain chose a female running mate specifically because he thought adding a woman to the Republican ticket would help him win in November."
     
    #12     Jul 8, 2009
  3. Whether or not Palin was qualified to be president is academic at this point. We have a president who has proved beyond any doubt that he is totally unqualified. Palin's intellect might not impress deep thinkers like Katie Couric or David Brooks, but I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have embarrassed us by going around issuing meaningless apologies, bowing to the Saudi king and treating us like serfs.

    It is fascinating to watch the raw hostility of the left to a strong Christian woman who took on the corrupt political machine of Alaska and defeated it.
     
    #13     Jul 8, 2009
  4. Good Stuff:

    (Do your country a favor and kick a leftist-idiot in the groin today, and everyday)


    http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2009/07/08/reader_letters/

    Can Palin ever come back?

    By Camille Paglia

    July 8, 2009 | Dear Camille,

    Just wondering. Do you still think Sarah Palin is ready for the big stage?
    James L. Somers


    Good question! And very timely after Palin's shock resignation as governor of Alaska this past Fourth of July weekend. I assume that family priorities -- personal as well as financial -- had become all-consuming. Given her success with finalizing the massive Alaska pipeline project, I think Palin should have stuck it out, but of course she is master of her own fate. What certainly was blameworthy was the chaotic and rushed statement itself. Something so politically consequential needed more careful composition and rehearsal. Why provide more fodder for the vultures and harpies of the Northeastern media?

    Unfortunately, it's pretty obvious that Palin still lacks that cadre of trusted pros who are the invisible elves behind every successful national politician -- the assistants who gather and vet material and who filter proposals and plan logistics. In a way, this is part of her virtues -- her complete freedom from routine micromanagement and business as usual. She does her own thing with seat-of-the-pants gusto. It's why she remains hugely popular with the Republican grass-roots base -- as I know from listening to talk radio. Callers coming fresh from her rallies are always heady with infectious enthusiasm.

    Of course you'd never know that from reading hit jobs like Todd Purdum's sepulchral piece on Palin in the current Vanity Fair. Scurrying around Alaska with his notepad, Purdum still managed to find comically little to indict her with. Anyone with a gripe is given the floor; fans are shut out. This exercise in faux objectivity is exposed at key points such as Purdum's failure to identify the actual instigator of Palin's extravagant clothing bills (a crazed, credit-card-abusing stylist appointed by the McCain campaign) and his prissy characterization of Palin's performance at the vice-presidential debate as merely "adequate." Hey, wake up -- Palin cleaned Biden's clock! By the end, Biden was sighing and itching to split.

    Whether Palin has a national future or not will depend on her willingness to hit the books at some point and absorb more information about international history and politics than she has needed to know in her role as governor. She also needs a shrewder, cooler take on the mainstream media, with its preening bullies, cackling witches, twisted cynics and pompous windbags. The Northeastern media establishment is in decline, and everyone knows it. Palin should not have gotten into a slanging match with David Letterman or anyone else who has been obsessively defaming her or her family. Let surrogates do that stuff.

    The vicious double standard is pretty obvious. Only the tabloids, for example, ran the photos of a piss-drunk Chelsea Clinton, panties exposed, falling into her car outside London clubs a few years ago. If Chelsea had been the scion of Republican bigwigs, those tacky scenes would have been trumpeted from pillar to post in the U.S. as signals of parental failures or turmoil in clan Clinton. As a Democrat, I detest the partisan machinations that have become standard in Northeastern news management and that are detectable in editorial decisions at major metropolitan newspapers nationwide. It's why I, like a host of others, have shifted my news gathering to the Web.
     
    #14     Jul 8, 2009
  5. mxjones

    mxjones

    Arnold should step down then...he can't run again. He is a lame duck. Bush should have quit shortly after re-election...he couldn't run again either. Lame duck. Come to think of it, we would be a lot better off as a country had he done so.

    The BEST thing that can happen for Obama and the Democrat party is for Palin to run for President in 2012. The second best thing is for her to rise to the head of the Republican Party and campaign for others.

    Palin is a quitter - she went to five different colleges. She quit one thing to prematurely move to another. And now she quits the one thing that gives her resume any credibility...before her FIRST term is even complete.

    lol
     
    #15     Jul 8, 2009
  6. From the same column ....



    YOUR NEXT SENATOR ..... ALEC BALDWIN


    http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2009/07/08/reader_letters/


    As to your question "How have we come to this pass in America where the assassination of top government officials is fodder for snide jokes on national radio?" let me outline the path off the top of my head.
    Quantcast

    My first memory of such a case was watching Alec Baldwin in 1998 demand that Henry Hyde, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, be stoned to death. Baldwin went on to demand that after that execution, the killing extravaganza should continue to the chairman's house, where his wife and children would be killed as well, along with the families of other Republican politicians whom Baldwin did not agree with. Baldwin later claimed it was just a joke, but I remember watching this on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien," and I can assure you there was nothing funny about it in tone or substance. Baldwin's rage was chilling, his assassination endorsement grotesque.

    Second, Randi Rhodes on her Air America show in 2004 compared George W. Bush to Fredo Corleone and said he should be taken out fishing -- and imitated the sound of a gunshot. The third thing was the 2006 film "Death of a President," featuring the assassination of George W. Bush while he was still a sitting president. I understand the purpose of the film was to explore the fallout of a modern assassination in the new media environment, but that could have been accomplished with a fictitious current president -- as is done in countless films, TV shows and books. In an environment that treats assassination so casually, it was inevitable that it would become joke fodder.

    Michael James Barton
    Sugar Land, Texas




    (again, I must implore you to kick a leftist-idiot in the groin, at least one time a day ... good for the soul)
     
    #16     Jul 8, 2009
  7. wint

    wint


    POINT 1

    I think Palin made a pretty articulate case: There comes a time when every politician needs to decide whether they're just "hanging on" to collect a paycheck.

    Too many of them do just hang on. Then there are others who pursue an aggressive agenda and probably should serve more than the two terms they're allowed.

    I think that's the case with President Bush, for example. I would have liked to see the President run for a third term to finish his Middle East agenda.

    Obongo has made a shambles out of US foreign policy in the M.E. President Bush may have been hated by European liberals for his cowboy diplomacy but Obongo is being ridiculed by everyone for his weakness.

    POINT 2

    As for Palin attending five colleges . . . that's one of the most moronic comments I've read . . . and I've read many from you Lefties. I attended five colleges as an undergrad and dropped out of one of them mid-term. So what? Today I have two masters. A lot of people I know have similar or even more complicated records.

    Robert Mcnamara just died. As several commentators have noted recently, Mc was one of the "best and the brightest" and look at the mess he made in Vietnam. Hillary is uber-bright and so's Bill. Look at the shambles they made. Jimmy Carter was a nuclear engineer - total flop.

    And last but not least . . . Obongo . . . uber-uber-bright . . . and clearly in the running for the Worst President In History.

    Academic degrees mean squat. Thanks, but I'll take my chances with Gov Palin. She appears to have a "doctorate" in life, comon sense and courage . . . all of which the vast majority of Lefties and academics lack.
     
    #17     Jul 8, 2009
  8. wint

    wint


    I'm sorry, but . . . what's your point?

    Are you saying that you agree with this "analysis?"

    As I understand HIS point . . . he wants to prove to us that the liberal media HAS NOT conspired to attack Palin . . . and he does that by trying to show that McCain made a poor choice in selecting her.

    How does that even go together? It's apples and oranges.

    Did you even read the article before posting it?

    McCain was the problem . . . not Palin. Palin drew crowds that were bigger than Obama's. Her popularity has remained high and will get higher . . . while McCain has been forgotten.

    The "conservatives" who oppose Palin are actually Progressive Republicans cut from the same mold as Tom Rich, John McCain and General Powell. They may as well switch and become Democrats.
     
    #18     Jul 8, 2009
  9. Judging by your post(s), I would have to agree that your academic credentials mean squat.
     
    #19     Jul 8, 2009
  10. That Paglia post was spot on. She is the one liberal who still manages to keep her credibility and integrity.
     
    #20     Jul 8, 2009