Posted on 10/07/2011 1:42:59 PM PDT by Yaelle
Editorial by John Ziegler
An Open E-mail to Sarah Palin
10/5/2011
The following is an actual e-mail "Media Malpractice, How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Targeted" Filmmaker John Ziegler sent to Sarah Palin's personal e-mail address after she announced she was not running for president.
Dear Governor Palin:
Wow. So, is this really how your political saga is going end? By letting down your remaining supporters and telling them, with a straight face, that you can do more to impact change as a Fox News Contributor than you can as President of the United States?
I was almost positive you would run because it appeared that your brand demanded it from a career maintenance perspective. I had even written a long letter blasting you for being either selfish or delusional in making a decision to run which could help President Obama get reelected. While I applaud you for making the right decision, thanks to the way you made it, I must also question your real rationale.
One of the many reasons (other than the conversation I had earlier this year with Todd about working on your campaign) I was so sure you would give it a shot was that I figured you were way too smart to go this far with a blatant tease without a legitimate exit explanation.
While you have used the “I don’t need a title to impact change” line before (to justify your politically inexplicable resignation as governor of Alaska), I never figured you would actually try to float that as a last minute reason for not pursuing the most important job in the world. It is hard to believe that even the most crazed of your fans will buy that, but I am sure at least some of the remaining lemmings will.
Of course, there is no way you actually believe it yourself. First of all, how is this “issue" new information? You mean to tell us that in the last year since you started talking openly about running for president that this never occurred to you before? If it was a decisive factor now, why wasn’t it that way several months ago before you started acting like a candidate? Why did you selfishly put your supporters through the long wait and stunt the process for the actual candidates?
Secondly, exactly what change have you impacted since resigning from office? Being generous, you raised legitimate questions about a healthcare bill which ended up passing, you may have helped energize a base that assisted in winning back the House, and you were heavily tied to three senate candidates who lost otherwise very winnable races (btw, if “titles” are so unimportant, why did you even bother trying to help those campaigns to begin with?).
Finally, what change do you think you can possibly “impact” in the future now that everyone knows there is no chance of you ever having real political power and your base of current support is sure to wither away? You do realize (as I warned you about after your resignation) that people/media will stop caring about what you say/write once they know for sure you are never going to be president, right? If you still don’t believe me, just ask any promising athlete whose career is cut down prematurely by injury (as yours was by an unfair kneecapping by the media) how they are treated once a comeback is no longer achievable.
It is certainly possible that you may not accept this premise because you are under the understandable delusion (thanks to the media’s obsession with you) that you are somehow special and not bound by the same rules which govern mere mortals. After all, if you didn’t think you deserved extraordinary consideration, you would never have had the audacity to even float the idea of a presidential run after resigning office in a way that was clearly designed to get rich and stay famous.
If this is indeed the case, you are finally in for a rude awakening.
The only reason the liberal media has been obsessing over whether you might run for president is that you would have added to the entertainment value of a Republican race with which they are already getting bored. As you recently accurately (and, given your family’s penchant for participating in such endeavors, rather ironically) observed that they see the whole thing as a “reality show” in need of a new wacky character to spice things up. Plus, they would love for you to have somehow been the nominee to insure Obama’s reelection.
The conservative media has been going along with this charade as well because they see their own ratings as more important than the cause of beating Obama and because they fear offending your fans who are some of their most important customers.
Now that you aren’t running you have made yourself almost totally irrelevant. Unlike with Chris Christie (did you notice how much more passionately the media pined for him than you?), no one with an actual chance will want your endorsement. Once the nominee and the new VP candidate are chosen you will be very old news, and with no elected office (or, thanks to you’re your incredible lack of popularlity in Alaska, even the theoretical chance of one), you will have no opportunity to alter your narrative or make any news.
My guess is that you won’t even end up speaking at the convention because you are too big for a minor slot and too dangerous for a prime one.
If the Republican ends up winning you will no longer have a purpose at all (unless you go really rogue and decide to be the chief conservative critic of the new president) and 2016 is obviously not an option, especially with no way to significantly enhance your resume. If they lose, by the time 2016 comes around a whole new wave of Republican superstars will be ready to take the plunge and you will have already shown yourself to be afraid of getting in the water even when people were still begging you to get in. By 2020 your name will be almost as remote as Dan Quayle’s and you will have been out of office for almost five times as long as you held it.
About the only way you could retain any semblance of political potency is to become the conservative Ralph Nader, constantly threatening a third party run. This would be roughly the “fall from grace” equivalent of Tiger Woods being reduced to doing a dating reality show for attention.
Now, if you realize all of this, then I praise you for making a selfless decision for the betterment of the cause. There was a time not long ago when I truly believed you when you said you were letting your principles guide you and, “If I die politically, I die.” You are now, clearly, about as politically dead as someone of your celebrity could possibly be.
However, based on my personal experience, I have lost my faith in your ability to correctly perceive reality or to be totally honest with yourself and the public. Therefore, I question whether this realization was truly the motivation for your decision not to run.
I sort of know the joy you felt on that election night in 2004. When they called Florida and then finally Ohio for Bush late that night.
I was like.. geez my vote really made a difference ! Ohio was the difference in the electoral votes.
He was such a great leader in his first term. Then his 2nd term ended being miserable.
He was such a great leader in his first term. Then his 2nd term ended being miserable.
****************************
From what has started coming out in the past couple of years, I think Cheney had great influence in the first term, and Karl Rove did in the second. Whatever the cause, he certainly lost his way.
I am sure it made you feel extra good that Reagan won Texas in 80 ! Wasn’t Texas really Democratic back in those days ?
Blood Sweat & Tears - I Can’t Quit Her
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqycvOTtnFU
I can’t quit her
She’s got a hold on me
She’s got her hand on my soul
I can’t quit her
“Wasn’t Texas really Democratic back in those days ?”
VERY much so! To this day the old LBJ machine is still in play. Much mutated and dispersed of course, but it still remains and still dominates Austin and Travis County. That is why Kinky Friedman’s recent slam of Obama is so remarkable. Obama has lost those people.
If Cain has a pubby Congress, yes I do believe he can get those things done, and I do believe he will try.
Look, I think you and I are of the same opinion on the current situation. I met Cain years ago, and he is the real deal. He is an honest human being who loves this country. I'll take my chances with him over some stupid law school politician ANY day.
Have you listened to him at all? Watch his speech from this afternoon...you might change your mind.
I'll look for it, and yes, I have been listening to him from the beginning.
He does strike me as the real deal as a businessman, but is he the ONLY qualified man the GOP can come up with? He has never been elected to any office, and now he wants the highest elected office in the land?
My real gripe is with the Republicans. They trot out Romney because it's his turn, and then Perry catches their eye for about 15 minutes, and now it's all about Cain.
Is there not one man or woman in this entire country with at least some political capability who could have stepped up?
Herman Cain might be just fine as president, and of course I will vote for anyone over Obama. But he strikes me as naive regarding what needs to happen and how things get done in the FedGov.
I want to believe, really I do. but at the moment, I don't.
I guess John knows how I feel.
Your loss must burn deeply!
But, no matter how cynical I've become, I never felt like Sarah Palin was in it for the money.
No, I don't feel sorry for Sarah Palin. If anything, I'm more likely to feel sorry for us.
I watched it just now. It was a great speech -- I loved what he said about Iran.
I want to believe. I'll listen to him more closely in the coming weeks and months.
I just don't see how he gets congress to dump the whole tax code. I guess that's where I get hung up.
Thanks for steering me to the speech though. It was really nice to listen to the plain language and straight talk. It made me think of the Honey Badger -- he don't care! He just says what he wants. Kinda cool.
You can't blame Perry for Palin not getting in the race. Anybody who was paying the least bit of attention in the weeks prior knew he was going to declare.
He'd hired his old team back when they left Newt, was talking to everybody and their dog about his chances should he decide to run. Was lining up donors and endorsements, all the things a serious candidate would do. His announcement when it came was hardly a surprise.
God bless the Palin family, may they heal from the mugging they took from all sides, may they prosper as He wills, and may He inspire Governor Palin to lead America down the road.
Indeed. I join in urgent prayer for our nation, dear brother in Christ!
I’m not blaming Perry.
I’m saying Palin seemed to say (or actually said, I can’t remember) that she was “surprised” — which I would take as “shocked” — that Perry got in to the race because he had told her personally that she wasn’t running.
If I’d been told personally by Rick Perry that he was not going to run, and he never told me he’d changed his mind and was thinking about running or had decided to run, I wouldn’t be putting a lot of stock in the externals you noted.
The fact is things were somehow coming together beautifully for Sarah Palin leading up to that weekend in Iowa. Even those who had dismissed her had begun to think, by Jove, the door just may open for her. Then Perry jumps in — and, despite the surrounding circumstances — it was, particularly in its timing, a surprise to a lot of people (remember the discussion about why didn’t he wait until after the weekend?). And Palin goes from being on a roll to having the wind completely taken out of her sails.
There’s no “blame” here. Anyone is free to enter the race whenever they wish. But there is the fact that Palin seemed blindsided by Perry’s entrance, that he had not told her he’d changed his mind and he had not told her of the timing, which was right before she was going to make a much-anticipated speech in Iowa.
Things happen. And for a reason.
Off the point here, but your tag line interests me. If payroll taxes were eliminated and replaced by a national sales tax, what would be wrong with that? You and I would pay less overall. A national sales tax takes in money from EVERYONE - rich, poor, alien, drug lords, hookers, etc. How is that a bad thing? I suspect that once a sales tax is in place people would fear an increase - a creep up later down the road. My suggestion would be - if we went with something like Cain’s 9-9-9 plan - to lock it in with an amendment to the Constitution along with a balanced budget requirement. Don’t you think that would be a good solution that would induce fairness to our present tax situation? Cain believes that under this type of plan the national debt would be paid off in ten years. That sounds like a good thing to me.
But just when I give up hope that the country can dig it's way out, Herman jumps in the race and I think well, maybe...he's turned around dying businesses and he's super smart, the public is sick and tired of politicians so maybe someone like him CAN get things done...
I don't know if it will work or not, but what I do know is that more of the same will seal our fate. What choice do we have?
In addition, when I hear someone who is running for office say be prepared because we are fighting a bunch of stupid people, I laugh and want to vote for him. :)
Well if you go back to Palin meeting with Trump on May 31 and then meeting with Roger Ailes on June 1, I think it’s safe to say the she knew for certain that she was not running then. Maybe the media exposure (bus tour/New York visit) helped with contract negotiations.
Heck. It’s now clear she had no intention of running since she left the Governorship.
No problem with that. She keep her power and influence up which helped in the 2010 elections.
Making money and supporting her family after the left set out to destroy her is fine. More power to her.
Where she screwed up was teasing the run out too long. Made her supporters feel like suckers.
RINO are now thrilled with her. That should bump up her popularity a bit.
Alas, life goes on. I just wish there was another candidate to vote for now. Jim DeMint? Too late? Anyone? Anyone?
Cain is selling snake oil. It's the same gimmick Huckabee tried, and for the same reason--it's a sucker magnet. 9-9-9 is total BS, and dangerous BS at that, because it advances the idea of ADDING a national sales tax to the existing income tax.
The rates will fluctuate with the makeup of Congress and White House. 9-9-9 today is 30-30-9 tomorrow. And then what's to stop the Congress from carving out exemptions? It's in their DNA to do it--it's a certainty they would.
And so how will companies get their products exempted? By the same methods they use today to get loopholes, subsidies, and special favors.
The plan sucks. The fact that so many "conservatives" are willing to latch onto it because a charismatic guy who talks perty is hawking it just shows how many suckers there are in conservative ranks.
I suppose I've become way too cynical in my old age, but yeah...what's UP with that?? Remember when politicians were just politicians?
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