Posted on 07/23/2010 2:30:03 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Sarah Palin can't expect anyone to take her seriously as a presidential candidate--not after what she said this week.
In recent days, the former Alaska governor and Tea Party fave has been on a tear against Journolist, a listserv for nearly 500 journalists, policy wonks, and academics, most of whom are self-identified liberals working for self-identified liberal outfits. The participants on this off-the-record email chain promoted their work, debated politics and policy (occasionally quite sharply), and traded and tested ideas for articles and columns. Last month, The Daily Caller, a conservative website, began running articles based on Journolist archives it somehow had obtained. Some conservatives immediately denounced Journolist as a secret cabal that established a party line for the dreaded liberal media.
Palin was one such rightwinger. On Tuesday, citing a Daily Caller article that focused on how several liberal opinion journalists in 2008 were pondering how to respond to stories about Jeremiah Wright (Barack Obama's controversial reverend), she contended that Journolist was proof that the mainsteam media--or, as she calls it, the "lamestream" media--is biased, characterizing Journolist members as "'prominent' mainstream media personalities." That was a misrepresentation: writers and bloggers for The Nation, The American Prospect, Mother Jones (my home base), the Center for American Progress, the New American Foundation, and other liberal media organizations and think tanks are not usually considered mainstream media leaders. (The founder of Journolist, Ezra Klein, did move from The American Prospect to The Washington Post, but he was knowingly hired by the newspaper as a liberal blogger.) It's hardly surprising that out-of-the-closet progressives would share progressive ideas with colleagues. Journolist was no conspiracy; it was a community--a virtual bar, without booze. I explain all that here. (Membership declared: I was a mostly nonactive member of Journolist; I haven't used it in years.)
Palin's blast revealed deep ignorance. Journolistas were generally not prominent MSMers. And the few prominent journalists who were part of Journolist were mostly already known as commentators of a liberal bent. Yet Palin was pretending that Journolist was evidence of an MSM cabal. Worst, she tweeted, "forget freedom of speech and freedom of the press if these yahoos ever get their way in America."
During an interview with The Daily Caller, she went further, calling Journolisters "sick puppies"--as she reacted to another article on the now-defunct listserv revealing email messages sent the day John McCain surprisingly picked Palin to be his running mate. In these emails, several participants--including two Mother Jones reporters who worked for me at the time--pondered why McCain had picked Palin and what would be an effective critique of her. That liberal reporters would privately discuss how best to criticize a conservative politician whose policies they oppose does not strike me as shocking. In fact, I am certain that during the 2008 campaign journalists at conservative media outfits talked among themselves about how best to puncture Obama.
But Palin was offended. In responding to The Daily Caller piece, though, she conceded a major point about herself: she does not posses a hardy enough constitution to be president. In that interview, The Daily Caller reports, Palin said the media became a key reason she decided not to finish out her term as governor.
Consider that for a moment. Eight months after the grueling 2008 campaign was over, Palin, by her own admission, was not tough enough to handle the media and had to quit her job as Alaska governor. After confessing that, how can she possibly present herself as presidential timber? If she allowed herself to be hounded out of office in Juneau by the big bad press, could she withstand the slings and arrows of the media while under pressure in the White House?
This part of her reaction to The Daily Caller article is a tell. Looking to scapegoat the media for her decision to quit--a decision widely described at the time on the left and right as bizarre--she displays her own weakness. Does a true commander in chief turn tail when "sick puppies" bark?
I wonder if Palin meant to reveal this much. Possibly, she was lazily exploiting the latest Journolist revelation. Bashing the liberal media is good for Sarah Inc. It sells books and six-figure speeches. And it's good politics, for this theme is an oldie-but-goodie relished by the GOP base and tea partiers--the sort of voters who will dominate the Republican Party's 2012 presidential primaries. Still, saying that she could not do her job in Alaska because of pesky reporters is a true admission of weakness. If you can't stand the heat from reporters (including the ferocious liberals of Journolist), how can you be strong enough to deal with the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Iranians, the Taliban, and, oh yes, the terrorists? They're a bit more fierce than Katie Couric.
****** One of my Twitter followers, Greytdog, sent me this tweet on Thursday: "perhaps the question should be why is the media obsessed w/Sarah Palin who hasn't done anything except quit & twit." Good point. But given that there is a chance she will run for president in 2012--and be a credible candidate with a base of supporters and fundraising potential--that means there is a chance she will become president. (I'm not handicapping the odds of either possibility.) Consequently, she deserves to remain under close scrutiny from journalists. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Ronald Reagan was regarded by some as a joke: a Grade B movie actor pitching for GE and then Barry Goldwater. He certainly warranted watching.
Okay, let's. Tell us about stupid.
She actually left to escape the lawsuit/ethics-complaint hammerlock that Rahm had engineered employing local Alaskan "ankle-biters" (they called themselves that). They intended to tie up Palin and her officers in endless "ethics complaints" using Alaskan law and basically harass them into immobility.
Leaving was a good idea under the circumstances. Now the Netroots and "ankle-biters" don't have a lever.
Neither was Theodore Roosevelt, at least in the opinion of "Dollar Mark" Hanna and the rest of the boys in the Smoky Back Room. Neither was Lincoln, for that matter, or Ronald Reagan, or Harry Truman. Certainly not Chester Arthur, who killed off the "spoils system".
I'm not sure you have a point there.
You're a very good brawler and show every sign of being a DU troll -- I've tangled with you before.
So, wtc911, whom do you want to see in the White House? Who's your man? Barack Obama? John McCain?
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Yeah, I'm a DU troll who's been here for nine years.
Face it, when confronted with hard facts about palin's real-world record and chances you guys (her freeper fans) can do nothing but devolve to name-calling.
This exchange was about freepers who compare Palin to Thatcher. I pointed out how ridiculous that is. That's all it takes to start the name-calling.
Maybe you can tell us....
Exactly how is quitting in the face of press 'abuse' and lawsuits the same as finishing your chore within hours of being the near-miss target of a bomb that killed five? Who is the courageous one? Here's a hint - it's not Sarah.
She said that before. But yesterday when she was criticizing McCain for not supporting her enough during the campaign she said the media was a key reason she decided not to finish out her term as governor. So which one was it?
Ellen Brown and her idea that
1) State banks are a good idea
2) State banks would allow states to borrow at the Fed Funds rate
3) State banks should borrow in the overnight market to fund "infrastructure and other sorely needed projects"
4)The loans could be repaid from the profits generated by the (public works) projects themselves.
5)We can “spend” our money while conserving it, by leveraging it into the credit urgently needed to get the wheels of local production turning once again.
6)The government takeover of student loans will allow the Education Department to keep its 4% spread as profit
7)In the laboratory of the market, direct lending from the government has proven to be a superior alternative for both taxpayers and borrowers.
8)If the government were to set up a government-owned bank that simply lent “national credit” directly, without borrowing the money first, it could afford to lend to students at much lower rates than 6.8%. In fact, it could afford free higher education for all. Such a program could actually pay for itself,
Split the difference: both. The media has been a problem from the minute she walked out on stage at the GOP convention and Maureen Dowd yowled her air-rending shriek of recognition (sort of like the raptor in the climactic scene of Jurassic Park).
So what would be the entailed consequence of her belatedly including MSM polemicism among her reasons for executing her "Austerlitz maneuver" in leaving the Alaskan statehouse?
You've ignored a hell of a lot of posting, to throw that horse-apple out there. There are plenty of ways and reasons to compare the two.
Yeah, I'm a DU troll who's been here for nine years.
Hey, I believe you. You don't have to argue.
Exactly how is quitting in the face of press 'abuse' and lawsuits the same as finishing your chore within hours of being the near-miss target of a bomb that killed five?
You use the word "quit" and "quitter" exactly the same way the DU and MSM trolls use them -- as a taunt, and to denigrate Gov. Palin. My comparison of you to DU trolls stands.
She resigned her office to avoid being bankrupted by a White House strategy that amounted to using SLAPP suits to drive her from office or reduce her to ineffectual clinging to office, defending an endless stream of bogus complaints. Alaskan law being what it was, there was no cure for the situation.
What would you have had her do in that situation? Mind you, if you insist -- as Rahm Emanuel and Barack Obama wanted her to do -- that she stay there and take the beating they were preparing for her, I'm entitled to draw the fair conclusion that you are of one mind with them and share their political objective with respect to the denigration of Sarah Palin and the deprivation of conservative America of a leader. Which has been the secret and not-so-secret agenda of the homosexual PACs that have been identifying "family values" conservatives and using queer wealth to obliterate them at the municipal and county level before they ever attract attention as state, much less federal, candidates. Are you d'accord with that Queer Agenda? Rahm and his boss are. How about you?
Oh, and that's not name-calling. That's analyzing your position to draw the logical inference that you are, in fact, a troll.
You still haven't named your man. Which is also troll SOP, since the troll agenda is to disrupt, not to advocate.
Who is the courageous one? Here's a hint - it's not Sarah.
Ah, an accusation of cowardice. Okay, let's consider. Margaret Thatcher and Sarah Palin both engaged powerful left-wing forces at the height of their fortunes, and they did so out of conscience and not as part of some little RiNO-esque "strategerizing" a la the men of Manor Bush, to challenge liberal leaders and interest blocs at the national level.
Sarah additionally, like Baroness Thatcher in her time, also had to deal with a gaggle of trimmers and calculating backbiters who were engaged in corrupt little "gentlemen's agreements" in her home hustings. Her opposition to them on principle and her public dusting of them was very Thatcheresque in that character and honesty, for her, trumped their nominal identification as members of her own party.
Sarah knew that by accepting John McCain's invitation to run for national office, she would engage and inflame the prejudices of the Permanent Ruling Class (or so it deems itself, as per the current American Spectator article, which read and get back to us -- it seems to be talking about you), and for her to proceed nevertheless knowing that they might try to drag out details of her family's history and use them against her (they did) shows a very great deal of personal courage, and it shows courage on the part of her old man as well. Could you do as much or say as much?
Baroness Thatcher could. A greengrocer's daughter and corporate wife, she could have been dismissed as a joke by the British political establishment -- and they tried to do that. It was her force of character and courage in standing up for her principles that made her as serious as a heart attack. Same deal for Sarah. Or do you have another beef with that assertion?
At the time of the terrorist attacks in Brighton and Horse Guards Parade, Margaret Thatcher was already PM, and it behove her to press ahead with her discharge of her office. I'm quite confident that, in national office, Sarah would do the same under similar circumstances.
By the way -- where did you go to college? Just curious.
If you want to use your type of spin, she quit being prime minister because it was too hard to fight.
From BBC On This Day
: 1990: Thatcher quits as prime minister
Margaret Thatcher is to stand down as prime minister after her Cabinet refused to back her in a second round of leadership elections.
She will remain in office until a successor is elected, but will not continue to fight Michael Heseltine for the Conservative Party leadership.
Not the same? Why?
If the press coverage was bad enough to get her to quit as governor, it's going to be even worse if she runs for president. And since, by her own admission, the press drove her out of one office you can be sure they'll redouble their efforts should she run for another office.
She will remain in office until a successor is elected, but will not continue to fight Michael Heseltine for the Conservative Party leadership.
Not the same? Why?
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No, not the same at all. The Brirish system is Parliamentary, not a representative republic. When the PM loses a vote of confidence he/she resigns. That is the way they do it.
I am constantly disappointed at the lack of general knowledge here.
btw...palin did quit. That is the fact . That is the word. It matters not who says it.
Again I'm using the arguments of the Palin detractors. And using those arguments, Thatcher quit. She COULD have kept fighting and possibly gained the support she needed to win the second ballot. The article says as much. But she QUIT. It was too "tough" for her.
Now if you want to make excuses for Thatcher than that's fine. But she's a quitter.
Now clearly YOU don't think she's a quitter.. You think that under the circumstances she made the right choice. Why do YOU think she made the choice to quit?
It totally mirrors what the FR ostrich (head in the sand) flock writes about Palin.
Proof, yet again, that the FR Ostriches get their talking points straight from the DNC....just like Corn! LOL
For Thatcher to remain in place after a vote of no confidence by her party would be akin to any POTUS refusing to vacate the WH after losing the election.
Educate yourself before arguing as if you know something.
Goodness, Ezra Klein himself!
iow....you have no answer. typical.
Of the 400 “no-name nasty journOlist bloggers” what are the chances some are here?
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