Not as much as a speaking coach. After my time at DINFOS my speech was transformed, and that part of broadcasting school with Mr. Runda was only a week or so long.
Posted on 01/28/2015 2:18:59 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Matt Lewis has a column today over at the Daily Beast headlined, "You Betcha I Was Wrong About Sarah Palin: It’s time to admit that, whatever their motivation was at the time, the Alaska governor’s critics always had a point." I don't really disagree with much of what Matt says when it comes to noting that Palin's speaker-circuit pandering and Hee-Haw witticisms have become cringe-worthy—speaking as a Christian, I was pretty dissappointed last year when Palin referred to waterboarding as baptism for terrorists. As usual, Matt makes some very good points so I encourage you to read his column.
However, I am interested in why Matt felt he needed to offer up a personal mea culpa here. Despite her recent and much criticized speech in Iowa and feint at presidential ambitions, it's not really news the epitaph to her political career has been written. And yet, the gratuitous media persecution of her and her family has, and continues to be, entirely shameful and unjustified. See the CNN anchor mocking her daughter's assault, as recently as this October.
Perhaps Sarah Palin has proven she's not a major intellectual. But let me assure you that there are lots and lots of dumber politicians that were never attacked in such a vicious and unforgivable manner. They are allowed to hide behind handlers, and in many instances, grow into the job. Frankly, I think Palin had raw political talent and intelligence that, had it been properly guided and allowed to develop free from the trauma of having her family being persecuted every five seconds, we'd all be talking about a very different woman. Instead, Andrew Sullivan spun conspiracies that would have made Alex Jones blanche and people such as Bill Maher mocked her developmentally disabled child. Compare how Palin's family has been attacked by the media with the way the media lost all sense of proportion and propriety going after a lone GOP staffer who made some comparatively mild criticisms of Obama's daughters.
Obviously, Lewis isn't wrong to acknowledge she is not the reincarnated Pericles. And he's right that the adulation for her from parts of the conservative base was truly excessive for a time. However, Palin has often been far more wily than her critics and vindicating the media even slightly when there's been no real apology for the inexcusably vicious way they went about making their criticisms seems unneeded. Please do recall that the other option for VP in 2008 was Joe Biden, who after 36 years in the Senate was a well-documented liar of few real accomplishments, not to mention total buffoon. It's kind of amazing we're still debating Palin's merits for public office when Joe Biden's been VP for 6 years and has done things such as completely blow getting a status of forces agreement in Iraq, thus paving the way for ISIS, and the media shrugs and says, "Crazy Unca' Joe's at it again!" And as for all of the attention paid to Palin's supposed white trash brood, remember that Joe Biden's son Hunter was given a special waiver to join the Navy at age 43 only to be kicked out for doing cocaine at age 44. This is the same son who had rather questionable ties to a Ukrainian gas company. Despite being far more consequential problems than whether or not Palin's kids got in a scrape at a snowmobile kegger, these scandals barely registered and media sure as hell hasn't pointed many fingers at the Vice President for the decisions of his kids. With all the tabloid coverage of Palin and her family since 2008 her critics certainly act like they're vindicated, but it's telling they don't even try to make the argument that Joe Biden was a superior man for the job.
Anyway, like Matt, I wish Sarah Palin had been able to show more poise and grow as a politician amidst being hysterically accused of not giving birth to her own child and shooting a congresswoman. I wish she had fulfilled her term as governor instead of cashing checks on the lecture circuit making cornpone jokes and shallow observations.
But I still don't feel I was wrong about Sarah Palin in that I felt comfortable voting for her in 2008. The real problem lies not with Palin so much as our slanderous media pursued someone they found threatening to their myopic liberal consensus so doggedly and cruelly that they undoubtedly had a hand in creating the problematic, tabloid figure she's become all these years later. Maybe Palin isn't entirely a victim, but because she seems to be an unsteady figure in 2015 it is by no means vindication for what her critics said and did to her in 2008.
I have heard her speech derided.
Your “cringeworthy” is much less extreme than usually expressed.
Do us a favor.
Explain why you thought it was cringeworthy.
“Closely followed by a voice coach. “
Typical.
Never any substance in criticisms of her.
Just superficial stuff like this.
She is as God created her. What you see is what you get. You don’t like how she sounds, don’t listen.
I will certainly vote for her before I would vote for Romney, Bush, McStain, or Christie.
Not as much as a speaking coach. After my time at DINFOS my speech was transformed, and that part of broadcasting school with Mr. Runda was only a week or so long.
It wouldn’t matter if Palin was perfect, they would still want to crucify her.
It isn’t her wrongdoings that make them so angry. They are most angry when she is right.
20 of her 22 endorsements won last year. Anyone else have a record like that?
Meanwhile, the sainted Hillary’s endorsement record was 1-11. Ha!
(Check yer private mail)
Sorry I must be tired found this hard to follow. One guy is claiming to be Christian, certainly not anybody that would have a article posted at the anti Christian Daily Beast.
The writer is claiming to be Christian while trashing his supposed Sister in Christ.. Yes Sarah is a Christian this we know for certain.
The intelligentsia consider that a fatal flaw.
Not me.
WRONG!!!
When I say discipline, it's about a lot more than "dragging your kids door to door." That may be dedication, but has little to do with discipline. Discipline in a political sense is subordinating campaign decisions and delegating to people competent to do it. I heard directly from people close to her that she was terrible about delegating and wouldn't trust anyone to do anything. Decisions that should take minutes took days, decisions that should take days took weeks.
According to one person who was inside her group and intimately close for months, she wouldn't listen to anyone.
I agree with you that this IA thing was mostly meaningless . . . except for Palin. She had to come out and remake her image. She has been a political non-entity, reduced to Facebook posts. She may have swung a primary or two, but did have serious clout. Above all, she had to prove that in fact she was serious. Anyone else---Rubio, Paul, Cruz, could have blown this without much damage, but she had to reestablish herself and I think it's clear to everyone that she didn't.
In what sense?
...and that it was a “come to Jesus” moment...
I believe resigning the Governorship was a master stroke of political jujitsu.
I spoke to several people who were at the Iowa meeting. They like Sarah.
Their report was that she was surprised by the teleprompter not working and her unrehearsed speech was a little unfocused and less serious than the tone set by other speakers. They laugh off the idea that she was terrible. She just wasn’t as sparkling as usual.
It happens.
As a matter of fact, an early demonstration of the power of the telegraph occurred in 1844 whenThe Democrats nominated New Yorker Silas Wright for Vice President. A message was sent via telegraph to Washington to notify Wright. Wright then had Morse send his rejection. The convention responded by asking Wright to reconsider. Again Wright declined the offer. Eventually Wright refused the nomination four times. The National Register reported that the long-distanced political negotiating went on "with lightning speed.”
In the sense that the reaction to her speech is a witch hunt.
It is an irrational response, hysterical, visceral and Lynch mob mentality.
To not fall in with the mob, not subscribing fully to the groupthink, he himself faces being smeared as a Palin-lover and having all the attributes they throw at her attributed to him as well.
It is a group think in the Beltway Establishment milieu he lives in. It is like cliques in Junior High and he actually did not spit on the icky girl.
It is that immature.
It is scary because they are not Junior High kids.
The responses to her speech actually scare me.
Sarah Palin is a smart conservative with big ovaries. She took on the press and the liberal machine. She’s not afraid of Obama, and people fighting him could generously be given the right to be scared.
But she got Palinized. 3/4 of the American people think she is stupid. The media won.
And she has made some awful mistakes that make it hard to defend her self-aggrandizing actions as well as now becoming somewhat of her own caricature. I want to say, “What happened,” but maybe this was a side of Sarah all along.
She’s the real deal but not for elected office any more. I’m sad that my conservative friends who pooh-poohed her for years are more right than I am.
Remember never to get caught up in personality. Conservative constitutionalism is far bigger than any human being. We have a job to do, to restore this nation to a free republic. It matters naught what names our leaders have. Our leaders can change. It’s easy to get cultish but we must GUARD against that.
I think you are a bit off base in your posts about Palin, but want to thank you for actually providing an unemotional, thought out, rational, analytically presented and good willed criticism of Palin.
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