Posted on 01/13/2011 10:24:25 AM PST by Kaslin
This is a free country. If Sarah Palin wants to run for president in 2012, she is free to try. But she will not win the GOP nomination because Republican voters are not going to choose a middle-aged version of Britney Spears -- a figure whose most evident talent is to attract attention to herself -- to challenge Barack Obama.
It's this simple: Republicans are too smart to nominate a candidate with a 50 percent unfavorable rating, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll, before she has declared for office.
Cue to Palin's latest video, in which she countered left-wing nuts who, with no proof whatsoever, tied her to the Tucson shootings.
"Journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence that they purport to condemn," she said.
For close to three days, Palin had handled the brouhaha tastefully. On Saturday, she issued a short statement offering her condolences to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the other victims and their families; then she kept her mouth shut. By Tuesday, cooler heads prevailed. News coverage rightly focused away from the blame game and turned to reporting on Giffords' recovery, the other victims and information on the man -- I won't name him; that's what he wants -- charged in the crimes. Without saying a word, Palin had won that round.
That is, until Wednesday, when Palin released her video, which turned the spotlight back on her and added a new element. Now cable TV news can noodle over whether Palin was deliberately provocative or clueless in using the words "blood libel" -- a term coined to describe the spurious and ancient charge that Jews murdered non-Jewish children and then drank their blood in rituals. (And yes, I know a Wall Street Journal opinion piece used the same term Monday.)
The sorry episode confirmed the suspicion that Palin is addicted to getting attention, while her boosters are addicted to defending every thoughtless utterance she releases. And even her boosters know what most Republicans know: Palin is not a serious thinker.
It always makes me sad to think about what Palin might have been. What if, knowing she might be chosen, she had done a better job of preparing to be a presidential running mate? What if John McCain had not asked her to join the GOP ticket? What if she had entered the spotlight without having her personal life smeared on the Internet?
I think back on her as the Alaska governor, with a 90 percent approval rating and a maverick's commitment to taking on the corrupt elements inside her own party. I think of the pragmatic Wasilla mayor who championed a sales tax to pay for law enforcement. If McCain had chosen someone else, in a couple of years, Palin might have become a seasoned politician, a smaller target and more surgical debater.
Instead -- as pundits dissected Palin's performance as a mother and feasted on her daughter's teen pregnancy -- an ugly trial-by-fire brought out the worst in Palin. With her tweets and Facebook pronouncements, she's become a virtuoso at pressing liberal buttons. It's too bad that, like the people who live to hate her, she doesn't know how to stop.
But I DO have an “off” button for Debra Saunders and her ugly-@ss gingerkid face.
Love Sarah, but she absolutely is suffering from over-exposure. One of the things that made her exciting in 2008 was that she was a breath of fresh air, particularly for the GOP. At the rate she is going, there will be Palin fatigue long before the 2012 primaries. I really do not expect her to run, which doesn’t mean she cannot be a help to the conservative cause. Just look at her impact on 2010.
It’s the media that mentions Sarah at every turn, it wouldn’t matter if Sarah stayed at home and shut the blinds.
This is the advise she gave GWB...as did all the Rino opinion makers and journalists. Don’t fight back...you will just make them mad again.
They are FAILURES.
Time to retire.
whose husband, Wesley J. Smith is "a senior fellow on animal-rights issues"
THIS????
After years of such incessant, excruciating, mind-numbing, nauseating, wall-to-wall Evita you could you cry!!!!!!!!!!!!
The media is fixated on Sarah, but you cannot deny that she seeks the spotlight. From DWTS to Facebook to reality TV, she is promoting herself everywhere. And that does not include her campaigning for others, which I applaud. After the fiasco of a resignation as governor, she needed a lower profile.
You should read the comments after the column. The majority disagree with Saunders, and there are some who call for her dismissal from Townhall.com
NO OFF BUTTON ON DEBRA SAUNDERS ABOUT SARAH PALIN!
That’s politics today, campaigns now start years in advance, you can no longer wait until the primary season to kick off a campaign.
Blood Libel means the awful tract that accuses the Jews of an untruth.
To say those two words are forever off limits is idiotic. That is why we have capital letters in the English language to differentiate between things.
That's what most of the made up outrage revolves around... that suddenly a blood libel means The Blood Libel.
Wow, we are really dumbing down the nation.
Just read them. I glad that the readers are taking her and Townhall to task for publishing this drivel.
Dear mizzzzzzzzzz saunders... go **** yourself wh0re!
LLS
Fixed.
The resignation was NOT a fiasco, it was absolutely the RIGHT thing to do under the situation. Supposedly this resignation was to cause Sarah to go into obscurity and she would have had the media simply ignored her. However, they are unable to because of their hatred for her. It is the Sarah obsessed media that keeps her in the spotlight. They have a choice, they can either cover her or they can ignore her, they ALWAYS choose the former.
God bless Sarah Palin, and may she keep bashing the communists while most other conservatives shy away in abject terror. Your prescription that she keep silent is the worst thing for her to do, and the worst thing for conservatism.
I'm not sure if we can survive many more "serious thinkers".
LLS
I believe that gun was made famous by the Son of Sam serial killer... fits that pos gangster perfectly.
LLS
No “off” button for hateful people like this author either.
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