Free Republic

Each are Reaganest, in how they speak.

Was Steve Schmidt Qualified to Be McCain’s Campaign Manager? by WHITNEY PITCHER www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/05/07/was-steve-schmidt-qualified-to-be-mccains-campaign-manager In a recent article at the National Review, John McCain’s failed 2008 campaign manager Steve Schmidt is quoted as saying “it will be a very long time before questions about capability and preparedness are not a part of the process.” The implication is that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was neither “prepared” nor “capable” to be vice president in the 2008 cycle, and that now hangs over the current vice presidential selection process.  In his comments about the VP selection process, Schmidt indicates a pretty simple concept--...

Well, it is both but it started with Team Romney. They started the attacks as early as the convention. It wasn’t until later on that Team Rove saw it as an avenue to also clear the path for Jeb. Team Romney? or is it Team Rove/Bush? With the primary season in full swing and the HBO movie coming out, we have gotten a very clear view of how each candidate conducts their campaigns. There is only ONE candidate who has a clear MO of nasty, dishonest attacks and rumors using a tactic that overwhelms their opponents to not just have...

You’ve got to admire Sarah Palin’s cunning — even if your eardrums can’t take her squeal. If Newt Gingrich wins Saturday in South Carolina, she can claim total credit. She just endorsed him — sort of. If he even gets close — and he’s closer to Mitt Romney in two new polls — she can point to her last-minute vote of confidence. “If I had to vote in South Carolina,” she told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Tuesday, “in order to keep things going, I would vote for Newt.” If things don’t go well, hey, she’s got lots of wiggle...

Sarah Palin’s husband is endorsing Newt Gingrich for president, Todd Palin told ABC News today. But Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and John McCain’s 2008 Republican running mate, has yet to decide “who is best able to go up against Barack Obama,” Todd Palin said. Palin said he has not spoken to Gingrich or anyone from the former House speaker’s campaign. But he said he respects Gingrich for what he went through in the 1990s and compared that scrutiny in public life to what Sarah Palin went through during her run for the vice presidency.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012 Editorial by John Ziegler Sarah Palin: Selfish, Hypocritical, Sellout 1/3/2012 As surreal as it may be, after spending over two years and several thousand dollars defending Sarah Palin at great personal cost, I now find myself in the bizarre position (three years to the day from starting the journey to Wasilla to do the interview of record on her 2008 VP run) of being perhaps the only conservative commentator willing to point out that Palin has now clearly revealed herself to be a selfish, hypocritical, sellout. While she was doing her presidential tease (an act that...

She's got a good family, she's got a good husband, she's got awesome support, she's got God on her side, and I think people are envious of that. They're envious that she carries herself so well, that she's smart. There are lots of vicious people out there. ~ Bristol Palin

Sarah Palin wasn’t ever really going to run for president, was she? That’s Donald Craig Mitchell’s guess. In an Op-Ed that discusses Palin’s decision not to run, Mitchell says she’s long prioritized her celebrity career over her commitment to public office, reminding us of Palin’s lucrative deals that followed after she quit as Alaska’s governor, including a seven-figure contract with Fox News. After three years of tweeting, hinting and eyelash-batting, on Wednesday Sarah Palin announced that she was not running for president. Her Facebook friends are disappointed. But for Sarah-watchers in Alaska like me, the announcement was long expected, old...

Since Governor Palin’s On the Record appearance Tuesday night, the blogosphere and media outlets have been buzzing with opinions that she’s not running for president in 2012. Her conversation with Greta Van Susteren left some to ponder, perhaps more than ever, if she has decided not to relinquish her freedom–not to be shackled–for the sake of a title. Comments left in various and sundry places revealed that some people were angry, some were confused, some were frustrated, while some remained encouraged. No one was unmoved, however. No one was without some type of reaction. No one was neutral. It was,...

Attorneys representing former Alaska governor Sarah Palin have written to Crown Publishing, a division of Random House, serving notice of possible litigation for defamation in connection with Joe McGinniss’s recent anti-Palin biography, and warning the company not to delete or destroy relevant documents. The letter (see below) reads, in part: Enclosed is an e-mail by your author Joe McGinniss. In this e-mail, Mr. McGinniss admits that your own lawyers instructed him that “nothing I can cite other than my own reporting rises above the level of tawdry gossip.”….Indeed, Mr. McGinniss admits that the allegations are false unless he can find...

Hmmmmm.....

Complete Headline: Sarah Palin snorted cocaine off 55 gallon oil drum and had affairs with NBA star and husband's business partner: Sensational claims in new book Sarah Palin snorted cocaine off a 55 gallon oil drum while snowmobiling with friends and had elicit affairs with a top NBA star and one of her husband's business partners, a new book sensationally claims. In revelations which could strike a devastating blow to the controversial politician's hopes of joining the 2012 presidential race, Mrs Palin is said to have snorted the class A drug off an oil drum with her husband. Joe McGinniss's...

It’s been three years since former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin made her splash onto the national stage as Sen. John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential election. And since then she has acquired a very loyal following. But is that helping or hurting her? On Tuesday’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” conservative columnist and author of “Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America,” Ann Coulter expressed her concern over the Palin phenomenon. She was asked by substitute host Laura Ingraham if Palin can maintain her status as a tea party favorite by stringing people along about her potential 2012 candidacy....

Interesting segment, not because Coulter’s advancing any new criticisms of Palin but because she’s willing to acknowledge openly the political risk on the right in criticizing her in the first place. According to Coulter, conservatives refuse to challenge Palin publicly because they don’t want to deal with the hate mail from her supporters. That’s part of it, I’m sure — by now, all columnists and bloggers know what awaits after criticizing Palin or, say, Ron Paul — but I suspect the better part is that there’s simply no faster ticket to RINOville among some grassroots conservatives than uttering a discouraging...

Former Gov. Sarah Palin is playing hide and seek with the media. Will she run for office? Will she vie for the presidency in 2012? Rather than stating her intentions, she is deliberately flirting with the media, indicating she may jump in at any time—or perhaps not. This strategy is tarnishing her image: Again, she appears to be more interested in bolstering her celebrity status rather than being a serious political figure and doing what is best for the nation.

This week, Sarah Palin stoked a late, brief flurry of speculation that she might enter the 2012 presidential race. I wont try to predict the former Alaska governor's decision. But I will predict this: If Palin does enter the race, she won't be any kind of factor. Over the past three years, Palin has systematically laid waste to the basis for a presidential campaign. By her own words and actions, she has discredited herself and alienated her one-time supporters. But before Palin vanishes into her hard-earned obscurity, Republicans need an assessment and an accounting. Had John McCain won in 2008,...

Turns out she didn't try the fried butter after all. But there was plenty of waffling to go around when 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin visited the Iowa State Fair on Friday. Upon arrival, Palin immediately headed to the livestock barns and the media cattle call ensued. Were there more cameras than cows? Maybe not (this is the state fair after all), but the scene was surreal. Palin and her husband, Todd, feigned amusement and surprise that the "lamestream" media was making such a spectacle of her return to the Hawkeye State. She merely accepted an invitation to...

Earlier today the Perry cheer-leading website ran with a post titled “Palin is not going to run“. That post is based on a response Governor Palin gave to David Brody on when she will make her decision whether she will be running for president. This is what the Governor said:

The latest trend in the media world is “trending.� That is, monitoring what people are buzzing about and directing coverage accordingly. Just as the unspoken sometimes reveals more than the spoken, what’s not trending suggests more than what’s trending. In all the many thousands of words written in the immediate aftermath of the Republican debate in Iowa, two words were scarce: Sarah Palin.

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has welcomed her second grandchild, Radar Online reported Monday. Palin's son, Track, and his new wife Britta (nee Hanson) became parents over the weekend to a baby girl, name Kyla Grace. Track, 22, married his 21-year-old high-school sweetheart in May in a small ceremony in Hatcher Pass, Alaska.

Nothing is quite so damaging to the mainstream media as publishing their own words in context. In her new book, Bring Her Down: How the American Media Tried to Destroy Sarah Palin, conservative author and C4Per Gina Dalfonzo does just that – in chilling fashion. Ever wanted to compare ABC News anchor Charles Gibson’s fawning interview with Obama to his condescending inquisition of Palin? Dalfonzo has it for you. Here’s a fair representation of the questions which Dalfonzo has in longer form … I can’t think of a better way to illustrate liberal media bias than this. Gibson to Obama:...

In her new tell-all memoir, Bristol Palin, daughter of former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, talks about her life and her loves. And apparently the 20-year-old has no love lost with Middletown. Palin’s autobiography, “Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far,” hit stores June 21. In the book, she dishes on everything from her early brushes with sex and alcohol to her on-again, off-again relationship with the father of her child, Levi Johnston and her drama with Meghan McCain, daughter of former presidential candidate Sen. John McCain. But tucked amidst those revelations are a few jabs at the town...

The Sarah Palin email saga produced exactly one bombshell: The mainstream media actually managed to elicit sympathy for Sarah Palin from the showbiz elite. From Jon Stewart’s brilliant rant to the supportive tweets from Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, Palin found defenders in quarters where she had previously found nothing but ridicule and scorn. For those of you who were focusing on more important things over the last few days (such as the debt ceiling or the Weiner photos), here’s a quick recap of the Palin email story: After almost three years of legal haggling, the state of Alaska on...

Among the emails Sarah Palin fielded while she was on the campaign trail were a batch of vicious threats against her life. On Sept. 12, 2008, she received a message through the state of Alaska's website that accused her of being racist and suggested that she would have joined the Ku Klux Klan if she were a man. "She doesn't belong to the NRA to support the right of each citizen to have weapons in an aim of self-defence, but just to support the right of every Southern white citizen to shoot all non-white people legally!" wrote the sender, identified...

Michelle Bachmann's new top consultant, Ed Rollins, began his tenure with scathing criticism of potential Bachmann rival Sarah Palin. "Sarah has not been serious over the last couple of years," Rollins told Brian Kilmeade on his radio show, Kilmeade and friends. "She got the Vice Presidential thing handed to her, she didn't go to work in the sense of trying to gain more substance, she gave up her governorship." He suggested that the contrast would favor Bachmann. "Michele Bachmann and others [have] worked hard, she has been a leader of the Tea Party which is a very important element here,...

The mark of any successful political venture by Governor Palin often results a misrepresentation of her words that only leaves the media with egg on their faces. Governor Palin’s bus tour has been successful in allowing her to highlight the greatness of the history of America, meet everyday Americans and fellow politicians, and share her policy stances on everything from fishing regulations in New Hampshire to ethanol subsidies to the debt ceiling. Such successes leaves the media grasping at proverbial bendy straws. Today’s news is no different. Poised with the opportunity to more appropriately address political stories essentially pre-written for...

Coming off her week-long One Nation bus tour that was widely seen as a test-run for a presidential campaign, Sarah Palin says she’s starting to see that running for president might not be the best fit for her. “Not only do I love my freedom of not having a title and being a declared candidate — that is liberating — I know you can make a difference as an individual,” she said. “Hopefully, I can inspire others to know that you don’t need a title. You don’t need to be in office to effect positive change.”

Someone posted an unfriendly sign on Sarah Palin’s tour bus earlier today. The villain’s message, pasted directly over the words, “We the People” on a picture of the Constitution, read, “I, The Media Whore.” Gawker has more: [the sign] was sacrilegiously placed over a monster image of the preamble to the United States Constitution for nearly 15 minutes. The bus was parked outside Fox News headquarters.

RUSH: I want to move on to Sarah Palin now. You know the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour? You know the...? That was actually, ladies and gentlemen, an experimental movie that the Beatles made about a bus tour, and nobody could figure out what the Beatles were up to, either. By the same token nobody knows what Palin's up to. They're all trying to figure it out. The Drive-Bys are trying to figure out what Palin is up to. Now, the interesting thing is that whatever it is she's doing, she is doing it bypassing the media. She's doing an end-around...

Palin is rubbing the media mob’s sense of entitlement right back in its face. In the 1970s, The Boys on the Bus exposed how a clubby pack of male political reporters ruled the road to the White House and shaped the news. Four decades later, an outsider gal from Alaska has commandeered the 2012 media bus — and left Beltway journalism insiders eating her dust. We’ve come a long way, baby. Amid frenzied speculation over her potential presidential-campaign plans, former GOP Alaska governor Sarah Palin launched an all-American road trip with her family this Memorial Day weekend. Establishment media types...

Has anybody else been told not to run for President, besides Palin, ever? Palin been told not to run by the media and by Conservatives. In the last 40 years, who else has been told they would be a better kingmaker?

<p>Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (CNN) — Sarah Palin pulled a clever bait and switch on reporters in Gettysburg on Tuesday, as her “One Nation” bus tour rolls into its third day.</p> <p>The Palin family and a few members of her staff snuck out of their hotel early, leaving their flashy bus behind in the hotel parking lot to give reporters chasing her the impression that she was still readying for the day.</p>

When I disparaged you before, I didn’t take into account what you mean to the people of Alaska, where despite your approval rating being around 36 percent, many would follow you to Scottsdale, Arizona, where you might be moving away from them. Nor did I consider what you mean to this country. So that it makes sense that you would tour it by riding across it in a bus. Probably in the front of the bus. Just like Rosa Parks. Because you’re kind of like a white Rosa Parks. Except you’ve taken it so far beyond what Ms. Parks ever...

"The bottom line is Sarah Palin is not going to run for president," says a Republican adviser close to front-runner Mitt Romney. "She's making money, she's moved on, she's kind of an entertainer rather than a politician. She still has some sway with the grass roots, but she is not going to run." "I don't think she's going to run," says a Republican close to Tim Pawlenty. "She has faded a lot in the last few months. I look at what she's doing now and say that she's found a way to get back in the story." Maybe these representatives...

A series of messages forwarded to The Daily Caller show a top aide to former Alaska Gov. and possible presidential candidate Sarah Palin mocking top political figures and even her boss’s own daughter, Bristol Palin. RedState.com founder and CNN contributor Erick Erickson is “a total douchebag,” wrote Palin speechwriter and domestic policy adviser Rebecca Mansour in a May 22, 2010, message. “Greasy dumb ass with a talent for self-promotion. He threw himself in at the Gov’s SC rally. Self-promotion.” (Erickson said South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley invited him to the rally). Mitt Romney supporters are “wacky as hell,” Mansour wrote,...

July 7, 2009 4:00 A.M. I Still Hate You, Sarah Palin The Republicans bring a knife to a gunfight, and lose again. One of the most terrifying moments of my political life came last summer at the Republican convention in St. Paul. No, I don’t mean seeing John McCain careering around the Xcel Energy Center like Eyegore in Young Frankenstein, his face frozen in a Lon Chaney Sr. rictus grin as he reached across the aisle to his erstwhile friends in the media and got his hand bitten off. Rather, I’m referring to the aftermath of Sarah Palin’s outrageous...

Conservatives for Palin is rejoicing for the same reason some of you now have a dark cloud of fear hanging over your Saturday night. The fundie vote is up for grabs now that Huckabee is out and the second in line candidate is Sarah Palin. Yes, that’s right. Sarah Blood Libel Palin. One day years ago, after the sportscaster fill-in job didn’t work out, a young Sarah Palin told a friend she wanted to be President one day. Today she wants it so bad she chokes on her own bitterness every time she has to say “Obama”. Palin has still...

Some media commentary on Sarah Palin continues to amuse me quite a bit. There are those who love to talk about how irrelevant she is — usually in the midst of a lengthy blog post or column that obsesses about something Palin recently said or tweeted. There are those who continue to distort her record, despite the surplus her policies afforded Alaska and a list of accomplishments that includes substantial spending reductions, incentivizing and expanding drilling for oil and natural gas, investing in state savings, and a commitment to transparency, ethics reform, and tackling corruption. And there are an array...

The anti-Palin books headed our way are sure to delight the usual Palin-bashing keyboard addicts punching away until the wee hours of the night. On the other hand, they could serve as amusement to others as they become aware of the actual facts. Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin is set for release May 24, 2011 and bears the authenticity of being the only anti-Palin book co-authored by a former aide of the Governor. Frank Bailey served with Governor Palin during her election campaign and victory. Aside from that, it is quite predictable: the book's other authors are Jeanne Devon, a...

Sarah Palin continues to be a repository for the Left's paranoia. Ever since her arrival in St. Paul,Minnesota the self-motivated, good-looking, charismatic, conservative Governor has been subjected to all-consuming assaults coming from both genders and both parties. The carnivalistic orgy of insults and torrent of false accusations have not abated, despite the general consensus that she is "unelectable." While Palin's gender automatically makes her vulnerable in the race for the White House, (no female has ever been elected President or Vice-President), there's some deeper unknown that turned normal curiosity about an unknown candidate in 2008 into full-blown rage.

"The Mikado" ... comments made in such a cavalier and oh-so-humorous way were uncalled for. Now, I realize you play to a mostly liberal audience in Missoula and so, I am sure, felt comfortable in your calling for the beheading of Sarah Palin. I am painfully aware that most in the audience tittered with laughter and clapped because "no one would miss her" but there were some in your audience who took great offense to this "uncivil tone" about another human being. We are in the midst of a crisis that took place in Tucson ...and we have to hear...

A while back I laid out my "boxing the compass" premise that there were 32 different approaches or techniques Obama and the Left are using to throw Governor Sarah Palin off her game with the intention of eventually destroying her political career and chances of running for or being President of the United States in 2012. Well, since the 2010 midterms there has been a "ramped-up" MSM propaganda campaign launched against Sarah Palin but until now the reasons for the increased efforts on behalf of the Left have been offered in dribs and drabs. Well today I will endeavor to...

Swampland alum KT pointed out to a few of us this weekend something we’d missed in the already much-discussed Sarah Palin video that followed the Tucson shooting: the American flag placed behind Palin to add a presidential air to the recording is on the wrong side. Big deal, you say? Actually, yeah. The U.S. Flag code was passed by Congress nearly 70 years ago to provide exact rules for the use and display of the Stars and Stripes. One of the many rules dictates the positioning of the flag relative to a speaker: When displayed from a staff in a...

"If you want to know what someone's like, put him in charge." That old saying has a lesser-known complement: if you want to know what someone is like, watch him when he gets angry. What H.L. Mencken called the "purple moment" not only strips aside conscious self-control, but also whisks away built-up habits of politeness and consideration: civility, if you will. The hatred directed at Sarah Palin is as revealing as any other outburst. It gives a glimpse into the liberal mind. The Evolution Of Palin-Hatred When Mrs. Palin first stepped onto the national stage, there was actually little hatred....

<p>It was my online friend narciso, the pen name of a brilliant commenter on the day's events, who first summed up this week's folderol over Sarah Palin. "One is struck," he noted, " by how much Plato's 'Tale of the Cave' seems to fit this paradigm ... Those that only follow the networks, or the Times or USA Today, even, are always 'unexpectedly surprised,' when reality doesn't match the paradigm they've assimilated by osmosis."</p>

"It doesn't sound like her when you read the materials," former White House press secretary said on "FOX News Sunday" today.Dana Perino: Palin Doesn't Sound "Authentic"

Yesterday, the Oregonian featured an editorial and excellent hit piece called, “ A prediction for 2012: Sarah Palin will toss her hat into the ring.” The article written by featured columnist, Todd Huffman, a Eugene, Oregon pediatrician was entertaining to say the least. Sadly for Dr. Huffman, virtually everything he wrote about Governor Palin cannot be factually proven. Huffman is quite the dilettante writing on a plethora of topics. When he veers to his obsession, the need to assassinate the character, background and education of Sara Palin perhaps his time would be better spent in his office taking care of...

TLC and why Palin will never be president -- part 2 Last week I wrote a piece pegged to tonight's TLC pairing of Kate Gosselin and Sarah Palin on Palin's "Alaska" reality TV series. The core of my commentary was that Palin will never be president because she has sold herself too cheap to low-rent reality-TV venues like TLC, and now she is being perceived as another one of the channel's freak moms like Kate Gosselin or the women on the series "I Didn't Know I was Pregant." As the title so coyly suggests, that shows features women who gave...

Kathy Griffin hosted the VH1 Divas salute to the troops this weekend, but her “jokes” about Bristol Palin being “fat” fell flat. "She's the only contestant in the history of the show to actually gain weight," Griffin said in reference to Bristol's trip to the finals on “Dancing With the Stars.” Even after the troops' loud booing, Griffin continued the attack. "No, come on, come on. She gained like 30 pounds a week, I swear to God, it was fantastic,” Griffin said. “She's like the white Precious." (Actress Gabourey Sidibe played the role of “Precious,” a 350-pound black woman in...

Sarah Palin, The Left & “Palin Stockholm Syndrome”by GingerDecember 5, 2010 Much has been made of the Left’s obsession with all things Sarah Palin. Every little move she makes is a continual source of fodder for the left wing Palin pyres. In fact, there’s even a name for all this Palin bashing: Palin Derangement Syndrome. What makes our fellow Americans on the left quake with righteous indignation and hateful spew whenever the lady from Wasilla speaks? They claim to find her stupid, dull and unimportant, yet she dominates their press, their television and their blogs. The left believes the former...