Free Republic

Sarah Palin's announcement of her resignation as governor of Alaska may be the end of her political career or, as some speculate, the real beginning. What seems clear is that Palin is not conservatism's new hope but its dead end. In recent days, this has been amply confirmed by the arguments of Palin defenders, focused less on her presumed merits than on her presumed injuries at her enemies' hands.Thus, Ross Douthat, the new conservative voice at the New York Times, hails Palin as Everywoman—living proof you can aspire to the White House without an Ivy League degree—and deplores her abuse...

[...] To me, one of the most interesting aspects of the story is how vehemently the Palin camp blames Barack Obama. From the story: For Palin, however, these aren't isolated incidents. She believes they grow from the same root, which is too big and too formidable to ignore. "A lot of this comes from Washington, D.C. The trail is pretty direct and pretty obvious to us," says Meg Stapleton, a close Palin adviser in Alaska. Awaiting a flight back to Anchorage from distant Dillingham, Stapleton adds that the anti-Palin offensive seems lifted straight from The Thumpin', which describes the political...

My guess is that she really doesn't know what she wants, or who she really is. It's probably dangerous to admit to a moment of empathy. I'll either get disqualified from ever becoming being a Supreme Court justice or asked to turn in my press card. But after watching reruns of Gov. Sarah Palin's resignation from the governorship, after hearing every grammatically challenged sentence and inconsistent paragraph dissected by some talk show host, I started to (blush) feel her pain. There was the frozen smile, the vulnerability, the odd grab bag of unfiltered, unedited, unintelligible un-reasons scattered across the lawn....

As a communication professional I have largely been at a loss to explain the judgments being drawn about Governor Palin by allegedly expert pundits. The general meme from pundits is that Palin is a quitter who cannot take the heat. It seems like the 'heat' has been more like hate -- maybe we are dealing with a simple spelling error? Journalism has gotten rather weak of late

On a 15 second show promo, David Letterman stated he will be commenting on Sarah Palin's resignation. Will he further attack her?

...they were upset that their 14-month-old brother Trig, who has Down Syndrome, was "mocked and ridiculed by some pretty mean spirited adults." I'd like to know the names of those mean-spirited adults who mocked and ridiculed her special needs child. I don't believe it for a second. I think what she is talking about is that she was criticized for the way she dealt with her pregnancy with Trig and her caregiving of him after his birth. Remember, Sarah Palin is a right-wing, evangelical Christian for whom "family values" and the role of the mother are paramount. Many right-wing Christians...

I watched the bizarre meltdown of a woman I’d never heard of before on the news last night. It was Shannyn Moore. A peculiar and insignificant individual who apparently has developed a cottage industry around abusing Sarah Palin. Merely on the strength of her vitriol and mania against the governor she got her thoughts posted on the Huffington Post, got her own local radio show and even finds herself persona grata on MSNBC!

Reihan Salam, an influential young player in the effort to revive the Republican Party, writes this weekend that Sarah Palin's resignation is another sign of the fading culture wars: What does seem increasingly clear is that Palin's collapse represents the end of a certain kind of politics. If the culture war really is ending, culture warriors like Palin will fade from the scene. I can hear many mainstream Republicans sharing Salam's sigh of relief. I think they're fooling themselves. It's wishful thinking by the GOP's non-social conservatives, who want the party to double down on fiscal conservatism—especially now that Democratic...

It's not clear why Sarah Palin resigned her position as governor of Alaska, but it must have been for one of the following reasons: (1) there is a scandal that would have made her position as governor untenable, (2) she couldn't take the heat that was coming her way, or (3) she concluded that it was in her best interests to do something other than fulfill the duties associated with the position the voters of Alaska entrusted to her. In all three scenarios, Palin is unfit for high office, and certainly unfit to be the vice president or the president...

When my daughter came to me and told me her friends on Facebook were saying horrible things about Sarah Palin, I told her to get back online and ask them specifically why they were calling Sarah Palin names. Not one of them replied—they had no answer. They don’t know why they hate her, but they just do. Sarah Palin did nothing wrong to these people, or to the rest of the United States. If she had a ‘D’ after her name, she’d be hailed a hero in the mainstream media. However, just because she stands for what’s right in America,...

The liberal Talking Points Memo website, which is deemed a respectable political site by the mainstream media which regularly quotes from their articles, published an article last night that speculated Alaska Governor Sarah Palin resigned because "she wants to spread Down syndrome." Palin's infant son Trig was born last year with Down syndrome.Amazingly, the article was published at 11:51 p.m., hours after the Huffington Post had issued an apology over a similarly themed article that the site pulled after it was highlighted by Free Republic.The TPM article, entitled Possible Reasons for Sarah Palin's Resignation and Other Schadenfreude, was written by...

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Some of Sarah Palin's former campaign aides are frustrated with the Alaska governor for remarking in a lengthy, freewheeling speech that she had refused to pray with them before last October's vice presidential debate. Palin told the story in a speech to a GOP dinner in Alaska last Friday. "So I'm looking around for somebody to pray with, I just need maybe a little help, maybe a little extra," she said of the moments before the debate. "And the McCain campaign, love 'em, you know, they're a lot of people around me, but nobody I could find...

We at SarahPalinforPOTUS.blogspot.com were recently graced by the typically obsessive and fearful smatter of a liberal, one who was eager to strain various lies about Palin through the tainted cheesecloth of his/her emoticon-propelled worldview. Here's the comment: Let's see: Outback beauty queen becomes mayor of one-horse town, then betrays her own friends and mentors to win the Governorship of a state with a smaller population than Allegheny County, PA...which she promptly turns into a socialist fiefdom living on oil company handouts.Plus, she's a babbling idiot and a Christian bigot. She's not a "life example" -- she's a born punchline. In...

There's a new flap involving Sarah Palin: In honor of Thanksgiving, she pardoned one turkey while other birds met their demise right behind her. Now the former VP hopeful's rep is speaking out to ET about the turkey pardon-gone-wrong! "The [Alaska] governor did not know it was going on behind her," Palin's spokesperson tells ET of the reportedly grisly scene at Triple D Farm & Hatchery outside Wasilla. Cameras captured Palin extending the annual Thanksgiving pardon to one turkey while a farm hand slaughtered the bird's feathered friends in the background. Palin's spokesperson tells ET the bird butchering wasn't going...

We have gone through the first round of internal recriminations with the recent excoriation of Governor Palin by those “unnamed” McCain staffers. But, as we all know, Gov. Palin was the subject of heated debate even among Republicans long before the election. One common complaint was that she was the "worst" VP candidate pick "ever." But, was she really? A look at recent history can only serve to deflate that ridiculous claim. There have been far worse picks than Gov. Palin and only the extremely emotional state of mind that this past election ginned up could obscure the historical record....

As Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin settles back into her job as the state's chief executive, a new ethics complaint filed Tuesday after her interview with Fox News' Greta Van Susteren says Palin already is improperly mixing her official duties and broader political ambitions. By Kyle Hopkins Anchorage Daily News ANCHORAGE — She's a national political figure and one of the world's most famous people. She's also governor of Alaska. As Sarah Palin settles back into her job as the state's chief executive, a new ethics complaint filed Tuesday says she's already improperly mixing her official duties and broader political ambitions....

"In which we bid a fond farewell to Sarah Palin, God's gift to journalism and feminism—sort of"(snip) People say she was a dingbat, but that is just sexist: The woman read everything, she said so herself; her knowledge of geography was unreal—she knew just where to find the pro-America part of the country; and don't forget her keen interest in ancient history! You can snipe all you want, but she was truly God's gift to Barack Obama(snip)Thanks to Palin, ladies, we can do just about anything we want as long as we don't have an abortion. (snip)So thanks, Sarah. And...

Yogi Berra famously observed that "you can see a lot by looking." I know exactly what the great New York Yankee meant. You can hear a lot by listening, too. Over the homestretch of the presidential campaign, I've been spending a lot of time at a rehabilitation hospital with someone very close to me as she recovers from back surgery. Much of the conversation in this microcosm of the urban health-care system is about Barack Obama and John McCain. Most of the doctors are white men, the physical and occupational therapists and nurses are mostly white women, and the aides...

Some aides to Sen. John McCain say they weren't happy that running mate Sarah Palin went off script Sunday...Palin deviated from her prepared remarks to talk about her wardrobe controversy Sunday. ... A senior McCain adviser told CNN those comments "were not the remarks we sent to her plane." ...A Palin aide said that the governor clearly felt like she had to say something to defend herself, because "that's really not who she is." ... sources told CNN that long-brewing tensions between Palin and key aides to McCain were on the rise. McCain advisers suggested that they have become increasingly...

CNN) -- With 10 days until Election Day, long-brewing tensions between GOP vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin and key aides to Sen. John McCain have become so intense, they are spilling out in public, sources say. Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin "going rogue." A Palin associate, however, said the candidate is simply trying to "bust free" of what she believes was a damaging and mismanaged roll-out. McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate....

With two polls released this morning showing Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain in the Garden State by between 17 and 23 points, former Gov. Tom Kean acknowledged that winning this state is a long-shot, and that Vice-Presidential Sarah Palin hasn't helped. "I think one of the problems is there hasn't been much of a campaign in New Jersey, if any. That's always a problem. It's uphill for any Republican to win in New Jersey, and the ones who have won are those who have spent a great deal of time here," he told PolitickerNJ.com from California in a...

In the early days of The Movement, as we ground-zero feminists were calling it then, we tried without much success to explain to the white men who were running things how affirmative action was supposed to work. "You don't run out and hire the first woman or the first black person you find on the sidewalk and call it a day," we said. "You spend the extra 10 minutes and the extra 10 bucks recruiting and interviewing until you find a woman or a minority who has the qualifications to do the job. "Trust us," we said. "They are out...

<p>Bless your heart, sir, my son is over in Eye-Rack, fighting for your right to protest. -- Sarah Palin, to a purported heckler at a rally yesterday.</p> <p>There's something doubly evil about a self-avowed Christian who prefaces almost every uncharitable remark she makes with a disingenuous "Bless your heart!" In any case, I say this without even the slightest amount of support or emboldening from the US military-- fuck you and your jingoistic blather, Palin. How's that for freedom?</p>

"If Sarah Palin is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, so am I!" These words spoken by my friend Janet were true. But Janet hasn't put herself in Palin's position by running for office. She's made films and renovated houses, cushioned by inherited money. And since she doesn't have any kids, it's hard to say what would have gotten in the way if she'd wanted to be in politics. She didn't, though, any more than 99% of my women friends and acquaintances; she believes in cultivating one's own garden. Most women I've talked with about Palin--all certified...

Sandra Bernhard is "terribly upset" to be dropped from a woman's shelter fundraiser following her controversial comments about US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. The comedienne allegedly shocked fans at a show in Washington D.C. last month when she said that Palin would be gang-raped if she ever set foot in New York. According to reports, the star said the Alaskan Governor could expect to be "gang-raped by my big black brothers" during the on-stage rant aimed at pro-life Palin, who has said she opposes abortion in cases of rape and incest. Organisers for Rosie's Place shelter in Boston, Massachusetts subsequently...

As much as we like to think otherwise, human behavior is fairly predictable, and sometimes ironically so. Muslims reacting to depictions of violence within the Muslim world (during the Danish cartoon controversy) with, well, violence, comes to mind. This time around, it's been Obama supporters responding to my SFGate column on Palin Derangement Syndrome with, well, Palin Derangement Syndrome. The avalanche of e-mails I received (not to mention the 913 comments at SFGate) was evidence of the collective nervous breakdown that has met Sarah Palin's arrival on the political scene. It was all there: the condescension, elitisim, sexism, paranoia, personal...

Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin is once again coming under attack because of her Christian faith. A recent Los Angeles Times story claimed that as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Sarah Palin espoused young-earth creationism. The report prompted liberal Internet columnist Robert Paul Reyes to brand Palin a "religious fanatic" with a "Neanderthal faith" who "thinks that 'The Flinstones' is a reality show." Reyes suggests that during tonight's vice-presidential debate, Palin should be questioned about her reported belief that God created the earth 6,000 years ago and that dinosaurs and men coexisted. Mark Looy is co-founder of the creation apologetics ministry...

For another candidate, it might have been characterized as a “passionate defense.” But for Senator John McCain, who has long battled accusations that he has a short temper, an interview today with The Des Moines Register could be more damaging. Some of Mr. McCain’s responses to questions about issues that have been prominent in the press for the past few weeks came across as sarcastic – sometimes testy. Furthermore, the Iowa newspaper put his interview with the editorial board online, leaving him vulnerable to unflattering mash-ups. “Really?” he responded to a question about possible concern from voters about Gov. Sarah...

1. The endangered species act is in jeopardy. Both McCain and Palin have voted against it and want to end it. Palin voted to have Polar Bears removed from the list, even as they are resorting to canibalism because their environment is melting. Palin dies not believe in global warming. 2. The ariel hunting is real and she voted it in. She has actually partaken in ariel hunting. She offered a bounty of $150.00 for every severed forearm of a wolf brought to her. Palin has shot bears, antelope, moose, wolves and who knows what else. There is a photo...

"She gladly accepted gifts from merchants: A free "awesome facial" she raved about in a thank-you note to a spa. The "absolutely gorgeous flowers" she received from a welding supply store. Even fresh salmon to take home" (YIKES. She took that fish gift willingly!)

Actress Anjelica Huston has become the latest star to take aim at US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, stating the fact the Alaskan Governor is even in the race for the White House is "depressing". The Witches star admits she's "terrified by the politics of Mrs. Palin" and disturbed by her love of hunting. Huston states: "This is a woman who is shooting caribou from the air, from helicopters. It's like going back in time to some kind of fantasy of the 1950s, and I find it very depressing. "I think people are looking at the election as a reality show....

<p>WASHINGTON–A conservative columnist who welcomed Sarah Palin's entry in national politics says she's proven to be a dud and should step aside as Republican presidential candidate John McCain's running mate.</p> <p>Kathleen Parker, writing in the National Review Online, says her "cringe reflex is exhausted" after watching the Alaska governor stumble through TV interviews and it's become clear to her that Palin is out of her league.</p>

I spent the past week in New York, helping my mother recover from surgery. It was a new role for me, taking care of my mom. It must, I think, have been somewhat destabilizing. Perhaps when previously untapped wells of care-for-others are accessed, there’s no stopping the flow. Or perhaps it was just that, after five days locked in stare-downs with my mother’s cat, my eyes were playing tricks on me. This may explain why, on Tuesday afternoon when I went to The Times Web site and saw the photo of Sarah Palin with Henry Kissinger, a funny thing happened....

A global financial crisis and a not-quite-suspended presidential campaign dominated newspaper front pages and television reports over the last couple of days. Bad news for America. But good news for Sarah Palin. The economic crisis and John McCain's surprising response have drawn attention away from the Republican vice presidential nominee just as she has started to answer more pointed questions from the media. Her third nationally televised interview, with CBS anchor Katie Couric, found Palin rambling, marginally responsive and even more adrift than during her network debut with ABC’s Charles Gibson. In a 40-minute session with Couric that aired Wednesday...

'There was a story in The Jerusalem Post recently about how Sarah Palin was driving a lot of the old Jews in Florida back into the hands of the Democrats. They still didn't particularly like Barack Obama, but they disliked Palin more, explained Steve Geller, a Jewish Democratic politician down there. It wasn't just the evangelical thing, he said. "Most of our South Florida condo people are appalled at seeing her standing over a moose." Finally. Thank God. I'd like to shake the hands of those South Florida condo people for saying what American Jews have been afraid to say...

VICE-President hopeful Sarah Palin has denied an affair with her husband Todd’s business partner. The Republican candidate is furious over claims she cheated on Todd — dubbed the First Dude — in 1996. The National Enquirer claims she had an affair with his snowmobile dealership partner Brad Hanson. The magazine said it took place when Palin was mayor of home town Wasilla and started because she was “lonely” while Todd was away working on oilfields. The alleged fling ended when Palin, 44, confessed to furious Todd. Palin denies ever cheating on Todd and Republican John McCain’s campaign has threatened legal...

On an earlier thread (Laura Bush: Palin lacks foreign policy experience (AP spin and not even close to accurate)), Freeper nuvista revealed that the Associated Press took a Laura Bush/CNN interview and deliberately distorted it to make a hitpiece they could spread all over the Net. Unfortunately, YouTube has a copy of the very same interview, proving beyond a doubt that the interview was distorted to make Laura Bush "say" something she didn't say: YouTube: Laura Bush: "Thrilled" About Sarah Palin Upon searching for the anonymous AP author of the hitpiece, I discovered that Dan Eggen of The Washington Post...

Remember what I wrote last week about the McCain campaign pulling back the curtain and finally allowing the press and the public to interact, however fleetingly, with its long-sequestered vice-presidential nominee? Um, nevermind. Knowing that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is currently visiting Manhattan, Father of Stumper a . . . .

Two weeks ago, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation published a piece by Toronto writer Heather Mallick that sprayed far Left elitism like blood from a cleanly-severed carotid artery. In it, she described supporters of Republican vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin as “white trash” and ascribed more insulting terminology to the Alaska governor and her family. Which presumably makes this black columnist “white trash.” Curious… ... cont.

It's no secret that everyone is weighing in on politics these days, from David Letterman to Barbara Walters and the esteemed ladies of "The View," who, as the New York Times pointed out today, have had Barack Obama, John McCain and even Bill Clinton on their couch, with McCain clearly getting the toughest grilling. But should film critics be weighing in on the presidential race as well? It's no secret that America's leading film critic, the Chicago Sun-Times' Roger Ebert, has been on quite a roll lately, writing a series of barbed commentaries about GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin....

We’re always searching the WWW to bring you choice morsels of fact-like news stories, photos and videos, and tonight’s discovery is sure to delight: Sarah Palin is a Jewess says the headline over at the Jewish Conspiracy Exposed blog. We need help publicizing the conspiracy, so good on you guys. Attendance at the Elders of Zion meetings is way down. Is it the economy, do you think? Anyhow, the story includes helpful hints on how to categorize the post: Filed under: israel, jewish conspiracy, jewish crime, media control, mossad | Tags: crypto jew, jew, jewess palin, libertyforum, LibertyForum.org, LibertyForum.org shutdown,...

The media love covering grassroots attacks on major political candidates. The attacks signal a large base of Americans disturbed by a particular candidate or issue. When those grassroots attacks are manufactured by public relations firms, they aren’t real: they’re astroturfed -- fake attacks designed to look like a grassroots movement. David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s chief strategist, is a master of astroturf campaigns. It should come as no surprise then that Axelrod and the Obama campaign appear to be behind anonymous attacks against Sarah Palin surfacing on the internet. The attacks on Palin started online shortly after McCain named her his...

On to the propaganda piece statement: Statement of Ethan Winner The following is in response to questions I have received regarding the post on the Jawa Report website. I produced and posted on the Internet the video entitled "Sarah Palin: A Heartbeat Away." The idea for the video was mine. No one paid me to produce it. The only out-of-pocket cost will be the fee for the voice-over narrator, which I will pay personally when I receive an invoice. Contrary to the allegation in the Jawa Report, the voice-over artist has never done any work for the Obama campaign. I...

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is reviewing complaints from both Americans and Canadians about a Web site columnist who recently described Sarah Palin’s supporters as “white trash,” compared the vice presidential candidate to a “porn actress” and called her daughter’s boyfriend a “redneck” and “ratboy.” The incendiary column by Toronto-based writer Heather Mallick appeared on the CBC News site on Sept. 5, after the close of the Republican National Convention. On the same day, Britain’s Guardian newspaper published another column by Mallick in which she trashed Palin’s home state of Alaska as a “frontier state full of drunks and crazy people.”...

Fox News recently picked up on a piece by the National Post’s Jonathan Kay which takes on the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) because one of its columnists, Heather Mallick, recently included incendiary comments in her September 5 column, on CBC's Web site, "A Mighty Wind blows through Republican convention," about Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, contending that Palin has the "toned-down version of the porn actress look," and attacking people in small towns as she charged that Palin "added nothing to the ticket that the Republicans didn't already have sewn up, the white trash vote, the demographic that sullies...

NEW YORK (CBS) ― Already under fire for his tax troubles, Manhattan Congressman Charles Rangel really put his foot in his mouth on Friday. In a CBS 2 HD exclusive interview Rep. Rangel called Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin "disabled." The question was simple. Why are the Democrats so afraid of Palin and her popularity. The answer was astonishing. "You got to be kind to the disabled," Rangel said. That's right. The charman of the powerful House Ways & Means Committee called Palin disabled -- even when CBS 2 HD called him on it. CBS 2 HD: "You got...

Sources: Intense Pressure Led To Palin UN Snub CBS 2 HD Has Learned Democrats Threatened To Attack Jewish Groups' Tax Exempt Status Over VP Nominee Invite Reporting Marcia Kramer NEW YORK (CBS) ― Hillary Clinton won't be speaking at Monday's anti-Iran rally at the United Nations -- and neither will Republican Sarah Palin or any other politicians for that matter. The reason? A heated behind the scenes tug-of-war. Sources tell CBS 2 HD that a decision to disinvite Palin from the high profile rally after Clinton pulled out in a huff came as the result of intense pressure from Democrats....

Katie Paul at Newsweek alerted me that Newsweek printed a correction to their story claiming that Palin cut funding for teen mothers and the state WIC program. I blogged about it here and had extensive conversations with Alaska officials about the claims. Ms. Paul was also diligent to work with Alaska officials to correct the story once I made her aware of the facts. Here is the correction (at the end of page 2): Clarification (updated Sept. 11, 2008) : A number of readers have challenged the assertion in this story that Gov. Palin “cut by 20 percent the funding...

You'd think Chris Matthews would learn his lesson. First he insulted Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell as "showcase appointments," only to apologize for it later. Then, on Tuesday's "Hardball" he essentially called Sarah Palin an empty "vessel" with no "independent thinking" of her own, just "like a Clarence Thomas." [audio excerpt available here] Matthews made the following gaffe during a discussion about Sarah Palin's readiness, on the September 16, "Hardball":

Scully wrote the speech [Palin's acceptance speech] largely before Palin was selected. Which makes sense. But the parts that seemed tailored specifically to her? Who wrote those? Specifically, the line about small towns, and how they grow great people? That line, as was revealed this week, was written by a very bigoted columnist named Westbrook Pegler. That line seems like a landmine of unintentional readings: it was written by a racist, about a man who became president when the old man before him died. Not really a single good interpretation there, right? Well either someone more wacky and right-wing than...