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Reagan, Sarah And The Leakers
The Philadelphia Bulletin ^ | Dec. 11, 2008 | Dr. Paul Kengor

Posted on 12/11/2008 7:16:17 AM PST by Al B.

The trashing of Sarah Palin continues. Some of the shots have been downright ugly, such as the "Retarded Republican Babies for Sarah Palin" t-shirts. Equally notable, however, is the odd one-two punch of liberal journalists and moderate Republican leakers pounding Mrs. Palin as a right-wing extremist and dummy. This tandem is responsible for some of the phony smears, including ridiculous claims that Mrs. Palin doesn't know Africa is a continent, or that she refused to appear with "pro-choicers" like Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H. (Sununu is pro-life).

These smears place Sarah Palin in good company. My mind races back to what Ronald Reagan endured: the same kind of leaks, by the same kind of moderate Republicans, to the same kind of liberal journalists, and with the same kind of allegations. Reagan, too, was portrayed as a Midwest dolt, a conservative zealot, a rube from a backwoods college in "fly-over" country.

After recently reading a remarkably unfair Newsweek hit on Sarah Palin, I thought of a piece in Time magazine in December 1986, titled "How Reagan Stays Out of Touch," by reporter Richard Stengel-a product of a leak by one of the "pragmatists" in the Reagan White House. Mr. Stengel wrote this on the dawdling old fool in the Oval Office:

(Excerpt) Read more at thebulletin.us ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: palin; reagan
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Some good advice for Sarah at the end of this column.
1 posted on 12/11/2008 7:16:17 AM PST by Al B.
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To: Al B.

Libs are so immature.


2 posted on 12/11/2008 7:18:20 AM PST by Sig Sauer P220 (The Big 3 Auto Makers - Where Attention to Kwality is Jobe Won.)
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To: Sig Sauer P220

If Sarah can’t beat the anti-Republican press then maybe she shouldn’t be president. I’m interested to see how she runs on her own, without being weighed down by John boy.


3 posted on 12/11/2008 7:20:07 AM PST by Troll_House_Cookies (Ironically, Chancellor Obama's first re-education camp will be in Alaska.)
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To: Al B.

Sarah will be back and I will be doing everything I can to support her in her run for President!


4 posted on 12/11/2008 7:20:38 AM PST by seekthetruth
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To: Al B.
The democrats are so scared of Sarah Palin they keep at her..They know if she ran for president that she will win..So Sarah hang in there we all know what filthy PIGS these morons are..
5 posted on 12/11/2008 7:21:55 AM PST by PLD
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To: Al B.
Other than the leaks that jeopardized national security, which rightly upset him, Reagan took the insults in stride. When he read anecdotes about how he snoozed through NSC meetings and spent afternoons watching reruns of "Bedtime for Bonzo" - and was generally incapable of functioning without his "brilliant" moderate Republican handlers - he laughed.

The more power you have, the more people are going to be envious and try to tear you down. The more goodness you have, the more people are going to try and tear you down. Power and goodness together is like sticking your hand in a beehive. You're a threat and they'll do anything in their power to destroy you.

The article is right. Sarah needs to remember who she is and what got her there and ignore the stings of the insects that are harassing her.

6 posted on 12/11/2008 7:24:25 AM PST by DouglasKC
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To: DouglasKC

Intersting to read how the moderates tried to blame the defeat of the moderate GWHB on Dan Quayle, the conservative and how the Reagan leaks were orchestrated by ‘moderates’. I never heard that before and perhaps I have been a little naive about ‘moderates’ in general, but I still contend that the GOP cannot win elections without the votes of both moderates and conservatives. Even Rush Limbaugh has admitted that-all he wants is for the top person on the ticket to run on conservative principles, not a mishmash of Democrat Lite.


7 posted on 12/11/2008 7:31:01 AM PST by techno
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To: Al B.

The one ray of hope is that the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe and New York Times will all be bankrupt by 2012 if not 2010. NBC may not be far behind. DIE MSM DIE!!!


8 posted on 12/11/2008 7:31:02 AM PST by FastCoyote (I am intolerant of the intolerable.)
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To: Al B.

Link borken.


9 posted on 12/11/2008 7:39:11 AM PST by LiberConservative ("I would have looked forward to debating anybody." -Sarah Palin)
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To: Al B.

Totally amazing just how nasty and demented Democrats are.


10 posted on 12/11/2008 7:39:35 AM PST by Dustbunny (Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged. The Gipper)
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To: Al B.

if insanity is doing the smae thing over and over again expecting a different outcome,. why do libs and dems always attack strong republicans as dumb?

they did this to Reagan, Bush II, and who knows else?

seems like since the strategy doesnt’ work, why keep doing it?


11 posted on 12/11/2008 7:39:44 AM PST by camle (keep an open mind and someone will fill it full of something for you)
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To: camle

Doesn’t the Dems and moderate accusations of Reagan being dumb make one think of the Spanish Inquisition where all non-Roman Catholics were considered ‘dumb’ and like the discovery of cancer in its initial stages had to be utterly destroyed and obliterated?


12 posted on 12/11/2008 7:46:45 AM PST by techno
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To: camle

Who said it didn’t work with Bush II? We got Obama, didn’t we?


13 posted on 12/11/2008 7:48:09 AM PST by techno
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To: GunsareOK

I think some of these moderates were at the party last weekend.


14 posted on 12/11/2008 7:49:55 AM PST by sauropod (An expression of deep worry and concern failed to cross either of Zaphod's faces - hitchhiker's guid)
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To: techno

oh it didn’t keep mini-me from being elected and re-elected, and from having his way with congress throughout his term. it wasn’t until the economy tanked that he started acting like a lame duck.

and we lost in november because we didn’t run the best candidate, period. a true conservative would have celaned the dems clock.


15 posted on 12/11/2008 7:55:59 AM PST by camle (keep an open mind and someone will fill it full of something for you)
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To: Al B.

Yes, excellent advise. So far, Gov. Palin has handled the attacks with amazing indifference. She’s pretty much dismissed them as a bunch of pajama clad bloggers.

For all you Sarah fans, I found this site last night

PalinFix
http://palinfix.blogspot.com/

Of couse, some pajama clag bloggers get it right.


16 posted on 12/11/2008 8:04:22 AM PST by euram
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To: euram

I agree...She will be stronger in 2012. We need strong individuals like SP in leadership positions.


17 posted on 12/11/2008 8:06:12 AM PST by Huddled Masses ("There you go again...")
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To: camle

You said it: the economy tanked and it took away all the dreams of the GOP and Palin supporters. I hate to admit it but no Republican, even Reagan, could have won this election; and that includes McCain. I will say this: Palin kept the game competitive. By the way, what is going unreported via Wikipedia is that the McCain-Palin ticket is 100,000 from attaining 60m votes, only 1.2m short of Bush’s total in 2004. As one pundit put it-the Reagan Democrats vote Democratic in bad economic times and Republican in good economic times; that’s what happened and they were joined by many independents and suburbam moms who voted with their pocketbook in mind rather than social issues. However you want to shake the vote down the deciding vote in this election was cast towards bettering the economy and punishing George Bush for the meltdown. That they think Obama will be a better ‘steward’ of the economy than George Bush who has a MBA degree, well that’s another story.


18 posted on 12/11/2008 8:07:04 AM PST by techno
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To: Dustbunny
"Totally amazing just how nasty and demented Democrats are."

From what I learned reading this article "moderate" Republicans are right up there with them. It will be hard for Palin to defeat the Democrats when she has to battle the "moderates" on a second front.

19 posted on 12/11/2008 8:13:00 AM PST by Russ (Repeal the 17th amendment)
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To: DouglasKC
... as a right-wing extremist and dummy.

This story was a leak by a moderate Republican, a Reagan aide, trying to impress liberal journalists by embarrassing his president.

This is SOP for the Left. Theirs are always the "Best and the Brightest" and ours are always hayseeds. Jimmy Carter was a graduate of the Naval Academy, a "Nuclear Engineer" and served on a nuclear powered submarine in the Navy. He was brilliant.

McCain was a graduate of the Naval Academy, a carrier fighter pilot and a genuine war hero. He was a dufus.

Al Gore flunked out of Divinity School at Vanderbilt. He was the brilliant inventor of the internet and an expert of climate control.

Bush has degrees from Yale and Harvard and is a fighter pilot. He is a dummy.

Hillary is the smartest woman in the world. Sarah is a hockey mom.

The more power you have, the more people are going to be envious and try to tear you down. The more goodness you have, the more people are going to try and tear you down. Power and goodness together is like sticking your hand in a beehive. You're a threat and they'll do anything in their power to destroy you.

A excellent thumbnail description of the Conservatives and Liberals. Yet, the think they are the good ones and will wield their power mercilessly to make you abide by their rules for what is "best".

Although I know these leakers exists I wonder how many are just made up by reporters and even then how accurately they are reported.

20 posted on 12/11/2008 8:14:43 AM PST by Mind-numbed Robot (Not all that needs to be done needs to be done by the government)
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