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Depictions ‘took place entirely in her imagination,’ says Wallace. NBC NEWS and NEWS SERVICES NEW YORK - Former McCain campaign senior adviser Nicolle Wallace says Sarah Palin's book "Going Rogue" is "based on fabrications," and that the basis for Palin’s depictions of her and former McCain campaign director Steve Schmidt as villains "took place entirely in her imagination." In a statement to The Rachel Maddow Show, the former McCain spokesperson repeatedly used the word "fiction" to describe Palin's narrative and echoed criticisms by other former McCain staffers. "She [Palin] probably has a legitimate complaint that things could have been better...

In an earlier post today, we noted Andy McCarthy's minority opinion in a dissent from an NRO editorial which complained about "hysteria" surrounding former Governor Sarah Palin's characterization of "death panels" in proposed health care reform legislation. The Conservasphere is beginning to erupt over the editorial also, and National Review editor Rich Lowry has to be feeling the heat . Here are five prime examples... Robert Stacy McCain: National Review contributes more evidence for the prosecution in the continuing case of Why Rich Lowry Should Have Been Fired No Later Than 2001. [...] Lowry's stayed too long at the dance,...

Kathleen Parker has an interesting little shtick. Few noticed her when she was writing from a conservative point of view...until she started attacking conservatives about a year ago. Then she went whole hog and has made a lucrative new career of attacking conservatives...while still going through the motions of pretending to be conservative. Parker's latest column on the topic of townhall protests is but the latest in her role of pretend conservative. Here is how "conservative" Parker refers to those protesters: Generally considered a fringe group, the demonstrators have been described derisively by Democratic leaders. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed...

Detroit was the Silicon Valley of the 1920s — the booming home of a glamorous new industry, a place where huge fortunes were conjured in years, sometimes months. But while the creators of the computer industry have as yet bequeathed very little to the built environment, the automobile industry piled up around it an astounding American city, in astoundingly little time. The Detroit of 1910 was a thriving Midwestern milling and shipping entrepot, a bigger Minneapolis. The Detroit of 1930 had rebuilt itself as a grand metropolis of skyscrapers, mansions, movie palaces and frame cottages spreading northward beyond the line...

The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan, who famously wrote for President Ronald Reagan but slowly become a RINO thanks to spending way too much time in the Beltway (see this embarrassing clip of Ms. Noonan from September of last year declaring the GOP dead meat) is no longer a must-read. In her post today, she bashes Sarah Palin one final time, just to make sure that the almost former Alaskan governor knows what the main streamers think about her and her policies. Among the pathetic quotes: Her history does not need to be rehearsed at any length. Ten months ago...

David Frum has done conservatives a great favor, and we should be thankful. The favor is not that he has written another negative piece about Gov. Palin. No, that's nothing new for Frum, who has been bashing the governor since she stepped up onto the national stage. Frum's gift to conservatives is that in the article, he clearly demonstrates why Vichy Republicans cannot be trusted to act in the GOP's best interests. Referencing Todd Purdum's VF hit piece which has caused such a stir, Frum itemizes Purdum's anti-Palin talking points from the VF smear job, and then he makes this...

Let’s say that you are President Obama. You’ve inherited a health care system that is the insane spawn of a team of evil geniuses from an alien power. Pay is divorced from performance. Users are separated from costs. Rising costs threaten to destroy your nation and everything you hold dear. Because you have a lofty perspective on things, you know there are basically two ways to fix this mess. There is the liberal way, in which the government takes over the health care system and decides who gets what. And then there is the conservative way, in which cost-conscious consumers...

I wish Sarah Palin would just go away. During the 2008 presidential campaign, I wrote about the unfair personal treatment to which the political press corps subjected Palin and her children. Now I just want her to stop milking her role as GOP martyr. Palin should stick to her day job -- by which I mean, governing Alaska, not being fodder for talk-show humor. Both parties have their umbrage industries -- thanks to true believers, who love nothing better than to see themselves as victims of a perceived double standard. Last week, comedian David Letterman's two off-color jokes about a...

Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny has sat atop the bestseller lists for many weeks. Clearly, conservatives across the country are finding meaning and value in this book. But what? Unlike Ann Coulter’s books, Liberty and Tyranny is not an exciting read. To his credit, Levin on the page eschews the vituperative style of his radio program. In his serious mode, he expresses himself in the sonorous style of the conservatives of the 1950s and 1960s. The tone of L&T owes a lot to the elder Brent Bozell. But Bozell coined lapidary phrases as elegantly and abundantly as the Mint strikes...

Sarah Palin has begun to get on the nerves of Republican senators who say the former GOP vice presidential nominee is taking her own White House aspirations entirely too seriously. But those same senators may have their eye on a 2012 White House run or be friends with senators with presidential ambitions. And Palin, who does not have a lot of Washington connections, energized the party’s grass roots in 2008 while bucking the D.C. establishment, leaving much of the party’s elite grumbling about her appeal to the conservative base. Several GOP senators offered searing criticism of the Alaska governor when...

Listening to President Obama and former Vice President Cheney give their respective national security speeches Thursday put me in mind of John Gray, author of "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus." Different men, different planets. Or are they?

In a column for Townhall.com, The Quayling of Sarah, David R. Stokes lays out the strategy being used by the Democrats and their Vichy Republican fellow travelers to shoot down former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's national political possibilities: Any nine-year-old child or MSNBC show host (pardon the redundancy) understands that the idea is to vex and therefore hex Sarah Palin. The goal is to click repeatedly on her image and drag her into a folder marked either "too dumb to lead," or "demonize by caricature."The strategy is nothing new. It has been tried in the past, without success against Ronald...

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell blasted Rush Limbaugh Monday during a speech in which he said the Republican Party is in a state of collapse. SNIP Powell lashed out at Limbaugh and conservative icon Ann Coulter. Neither serves the party well .... SNIP “The Republican Party is in deep trouble," he said, according to the Journal. “The party must realize that the country has changed. Americans do want to pay taxes for services. Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less."

From calling on members of her district to be “armed and dangerous” over cap-and-trade spending to stirring up fears of liberal “re-education camps” that would indoctrinate young people, Rep. Michele Bachmann’s recent statements have drawn the ire of Democrats and energized Republican activists. But at least one Republican analyst thinks she might be taking the party in the wrong direction. Tom Horner, Minnesota Public Radio’s (MPR) Republican analyst and an adviser to Republicans including former Sens. Norm Coleman and Dave Durenberger, told “Midday” that Bachmann is sending the wrong message. “She is an embarrassment to some republicans, myself included,” he...

"Where is she heading? She is going to get her own reality show, not the White House," said John Feehery, a Republican consultant. "There a lot of big challenges in this country and how can she handle them if she can barely handle her own family?" And there we have it – those powerful Republican circles, none more influential than John Feehery. Mr Feehery was, of course, a staffer for former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who endorsed Mitt Romney last year. Though retired from politics he is still the Don Corleone of the GOP, a man who can make or...

The 79-19 roll call by which the Senate voted Thursday to triple the size of the AmeriCorps and broadly expand incentives for students and seniors to give back to their communities. On this vote, a "yes" vote was a vote to pass the bill. Voting "yes" were 55 Democrats and 22 Republicans and 2 independents. Voting "no" were 0 Democrats and 19 Republicans.

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...

The GOP's identity crisis just got more interesting with the recent media splash of Meghan McCain. Young McCain, who began blogging during her father's presidential campaign, recently made waves at The Daily Beast when she picked a fight with conservative media mavens Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham. McCain, just 24, is one smart cookie. In a matter of weeks, she has created a brand, presenting herself as a fresh face of her daddy's party and a voice for young conservatives. Strategically speaking, what better way to launch herself than to challenge the reigning diva herself, Miz Coulter? McCain jammed traffic...

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. bests controversial conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh in a new national poll about the direction of the Republican Party. The Democratic strategy and polling group Democracy Corps found that more Americans prefer Huntsman's moderate approach to Limbaugh's premise that the GOP must move further to the right, 57 percent to 37 percent, according to Politico.com. As the GOP struggles to recover from last November's loss of the White House, Limbaugh is increasingly being seen as the party's leader. He was cheered at the recent annual meeting of the national Conservative Political Action Committee for...

When I wrote about Rush Limbaugh last week, I got hundreds of responses from so-called "dittoheads." They assured me that they take him seriously when he asserts his status as the spokesman for American conservatives. This is ridiculous. I know conservatism. I was writing groundbreaking conservative commentary back when Limbaugh was spinning vinyl records. Limbaugh is no conservative. So then what is he? Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele recently termed him "an entertainer." For that, Steele is said to be in danger of losing his job. But that term seems a bit too polite when you consider what Limbaugh's...

"To see what is in front of one's nose," George Orwell famously asserted, "needs a constant struggle." Congratulations this week to three journalists who have finally taken up that constant struggle: Christopher Buckley, David Gergen and David Brooks. All three used to insist that Obama was some species of centrist or moderate. Now that Obama has proposed the most massive expansion of government in the history of the republic, each has recognized that just conceivably he might have been mistaken. A humorist--and, I should disclose, an old friend--Christopher Buckley exercised his acute comic sense during the presidential campaign, judging John...

"General" David Brooks, the very compliant house conservative of the New York Times, after just three days of bravely volunteering to lead a mighty "moderate" army against the "ideological outrages" of the Barack Obama administration, has now called a hasty retreat with a column that borders on outright apology for daring to oppose the very liberal budget. First let us take trip down memory lane to three days in the past to take a look the battle plan presented by General Brooks following his astounding revelation that most of the non-house conservatives discovered long, long ago:

You can’t help but admire Rush Limbaugh’s talent for publicity. His radio talk show is probably—reliable figures only go back to 1991—in its third decade as the number-one rated radio show in the country. And here he is in the news again, trading verbal punches with the president of the United States. Limbaugh remarked on Jan. 16 that to the degree that Obama’s program is one of state socialism, he hopes it will fail. (If only he had said the same about George W. Bush.) The president riposted at a session with congressional leaders a week later, telling them, “You...

You wouldn’t know it some days, but there are moderates in this country — moderate conservatives, moderate liberals, just plain moderates. We sympathize with a lot of the things that President Obama is trying to do. We like his investments in education and energy innovation. We support health care reform that expands coverage while reducing costs. But the Obama budget is more than just the sum of its parts. There is, entailed in it, a promiscuous unwillingness to set priorities and accept trade-offs. There is evidence of a party swept up in its own revolutionary fervor — caught up in...

President Obama and Rush Limbaugh do not agree on much, but they share at least one thing: Both wish to see Rush anointed as the leader of the Republican party. Here’s Rahm Emanuel on Face the Nation yesterday: “the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican party.” What a great endorsement for Rush! (And we know Rush is fond of compliments – listen to his loving account in his CPAC speech of the birthday lunch given him by President Bush just before Inauguration Day.) But what about the rest of the party? Here’s the duel that Obama...

Please stop telling us what is wrong with… well, US. Seriously, I just cannot take it any more. It’s like Yankees who come South because it’s generally such a nice place to live and then tell us we’re all a bunch of idiots and that we need to “do it like they used to do it back in Detroit.” Spare me – move back to Detroit and leave me alone. We all recognize the problems we face as a nation, and as a Party. You want a frigging medal because you, too, can read polls and recognize that we need...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican Senator John McCain said on Tuesday night he believed an overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system was possible this year after President Barack Obama called for such a timetable. In his speech to a joint session of the U.S. Congress, Obama said that due to rising costs, revamping the healthcare system "must not wait, and it will not wait another year." McCain, who is a member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said in an interview after the speech that he felt an accord was reachable this year. "I do think it's...

The only thing scarier than the Christian Right are pundits who believe that they cost the GOP the election. Without anything constructive to do, Republicans have apparently decided that being destructive might not be the wisest course of action but is a far sight better than sitting around and twiddling their thumbs. And that brings us to Kathleen Parker, conservative columnist with the Washington Post Writer’s Group and, lately, the bane of the GOP base. Parker, who became the model for thousands of conservative voodoo dolls when she wrote a few weeks ago that Sarah Palin should resign from the...

Strategic moves, rather than political ones, have helped U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter become the longest-serving senator in Pennsylvania history. A conservative Republican will undoubtedly challenge Specter in the primary next year, said Keystone College political science professor Jeff Brauer. In Brauer’s estimation, Specter’s vote was strategically sound and can be used as a future talking point about how he put the good of the economy and Pennsylvania ahead of any political party. Tom Baldino, political science professor at Wilkes University, agreed with Brauer that the vote was “a very smart thing to do.” Brauer said Democratic gains have been made...

Political analyst G. Terry Madonna said Specter's rejection of his party's leadership isn't surprising. "He's a moderate Republican who wins with crossover votes," said Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College. "He's not an ideological conservative." Madonna said Specter risked alienating people in his party on the eve of his re-election bid. "There are Republicans that will be really upset with him over the stimulus package," Madonna said. He noted that Specter's re-election might hinge on the success or failure of the stimulus. Specter said he wasn't married to his party's interests....

The Gang System Barack Obama is a potentially transformational figure. In political style and intellectual outlook, he is unlike anything that has come before. On matters of policy substance, however, he’s been pretty conventional. The policies he offered during the campaign matched those of just about every other Democrat. So an important question for the Obama presidency is this: Will his transformational style eventually lead to transformational policies, or will his conventional policies eventually force him to shelve his transformational style?

It may be time to take a closer look at karmic justice — that mysterious quid pro quo by which good and bad acts are rewarded in kind. One needn't believe in past lives and reincarnation to note that there's a whole lotta shakin' goin' on. Put another way: What goes around comes around. The most obvious manifestation is the 44th president of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama. I mention his middle name only because Chief Justice John Roberts did during the swearing-in ceremony, a proper time for proper names. It was wholly karmic that those who have been...

Gallup's latest polling reveals the continuing collapse of the Republican party's base vote. The news is so very bad that there will be only one possible response from GOP party leadership and our radio talkers: Ignore it. --SNIP-- Instead, our congressmen talk to and about Rush Limbaugh like Old Bolsheviks praising Comrade Stalin at their show trials. Rush is right! We see eye to eye with Rush! There is no truth outside Rush! Rush and Hannity and O’Reilly and Ann Coulter and the others have their place and their role. They spoke for an important section of public opinion, and...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. John McCain said Sunday the confirmation of President Barack Obama's choice for deputy defense secretary should move forward despite concerns about the nominee's role as a former defense lobbyist. The Obama administration considers William J. Lynn, Obama's pick for the No. 2 job at the Pentagon, to be an exception from its own ban on hiring lobbyists. As a lobbyist for Raytheon, one of the military's top contractors, Lynn worked on matters with far reach across the Pentagon. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has said that even the toughest rules require "reasonable exceptions" for "uniquely...

BY SHAILAGH MURRAYThe Washington Post WASHINGTON - A joke made its way around the Capitol Thursday: How do you know the 2008 election is really over? Because John McCain is causing trouble for Republicans again. Two and a half months removed from his defeat in the race for the presidency, colleagues say, McCain bears more resemblance to the unpredictable and frequently bipartisan colleague they have served with for decades then the man who ran an often scathing campaign against Barack Obama. In some instances, he's even carrying water for his former rival. . . . . . Sen. Lindsey Graham,...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and John McCain (R-Arizona) today issued the following statement regarding the executive order put forth by President Obama calling for the closure of the prison at Guantanamo: “We support President Obama’s decision to close the prison at Guantanamo, reaffirm America’s adherence to the Geneva Conventions, and begin a process that will, we hope, lead to the resolution of all cases of Guantanamo detainees,” said Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator John McCain. “The executive orders issued today constitute an important step in the right direction but leave several major issues unaddressed.” “Numerous...

"Neoconservative" and "neocon" have become terms of abuse, denoting right-wing extremism. But the original neoconservatives began mostly as left-leaning intellectuals who only deserted the Democratic Party after it fell under the influence of the counterculture during the Vietnam War. With Barack Obama about to become president, is there any chance neoconservatives will finally return to the roost? A month or two ago, the question would have seemed preposterous. Mr. Obama, after all, was the most left-wing member of the U.S. Senate -- not to mention a former pal of Weatherman Bill Ayers and other extremists. Yet in his presidential campaign,...

President-elect Barack Obama’s outreach to Republicans may be generating goodwill on the other side of the aisle, but the honeymoon is likely to be short-lived. There’s just too much distance between Obama and congressional Republicans on too many key economic, social and foreign policy issues. There are, however, some Republicans who stand to have a less adversarial relationship with the new administration. Either their past history or present statements put them at the top of the list of GOP members who are expected to work closely with the White House, even if it means bucking their own party. Here is...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama honored his vanquished Republican rival John McCain on Monday, describing the Arizona senator as an "American hero" while the Democrat prepared to assume the office that both men fought bitterly to attain. Obama and McCain clashed repeatedly on the campaign trail over foreign and domestic policy in sometimes heated exchanges that occasionally veered into the personal. But Obama made clear that period had passed even as he predicted the two would not always get along in the future. "John is not known to bite his tongue and if I'm screwing up, he's going to...

BY DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK WASHINGTON — Not long after Senator John McCain returned last month from an official trip to Iraq and Pakistan, he received a phone call from President-elect Barack Obama. As contenders for the presidency, the two had hammered each other for much of 2008 over their conflicting approaches to foreign policy, especially in Iraq. (He’d lose a war! He’d stay a hundred years!) Now, however, Mr. Obama said he wanted Mr. McCain’s advice, people in each camp briefed on the conversation said. What did he see on the trip? What did he learn? It was just one...

You know that I've written and said a number of things since the election about how hopeful I am that Barack Obama can do exactly what he promised to do in terms of leading us past the stupid, pointless partisan bickering of the Clinton-Bush years. As you know, that was probably my biggest motivation for endorsing him in the primary here -- and for endorsing McCain as well, as the one guy on the GOP side able to transcend the partisan garbage that has so sapped our nation's ability to cope with anything -- from war to peace, from foreign...

KUDLOW OFFERS DETAILS OF OBAMA DINNER Wed Jan 14 2009 12:15:47 ET CNBC’s Melissa Francis: I HAVE TO ASK LARRY, I'M DYING TO HEAR ABOUT IT, YOU HAD DINNER LAST NIGHT WITH PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA. WHAT WAS THE TONE LIKE? WAS HE TRYING TO WIN OVER THE CONSERVATIVES? IS THAT WHAT IT WAS? THERE WERE ABOUT TEN OF YOU THERE, RIGHT? CNBC’s Larry Kudlow: THIS WAS AN OFF-THE-RECORD DINNER AND I'M GOING TO KEEP IT OFF THE RECORD IN TERMS OF DEEP CONTENT, BUT PEGGY NOONAN WAS THERE, PAUL GIGOT OF THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, BILL KRISTOL, MYSELF, CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER,...

Conservatives sworn to dinner secrecy By: Jonathan Martin January 14, 2009 12:40 PM EST Call it a charm offensive or a high-level “Listening Tour,” but Barack Obama is already signaling that he intends to break with the current president in one obvious way: hearing from his critics. Obama Tuesday night trekked to the Chevy Chase, Md., home of conservative columnist George F. Will to talk politics and get to know some of his fiercest intellectual adversaries: Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, Larry Kudlow, David Brooks, Rich Lowry, Peggy Noonan, Michael Barone, and Paul Gigot. The two-and-half-hour dinner, which came at Will’s...

Sarah Palin has complained repeatedly that she was given unfair treatment by the media during her rapid political ascent last year. But Mike Huckabee – a potential rival for Palin in 2012 should they both decide to seek the White House – apparently doesn’t agree. In an interview in the current issue of Esquire, Huckabee speaks sympathetically of Palin, saying she had been subjected to “sexist things that would never have been asked of a male candidate.� But he pushed back against Palin’s assertion that high-profile journalists – particularly Katie Couric of CBS – were biased in their interviews with...

This could ruin their reputation: President-elect Barack Obama Tuesday evening attending a dinner party at the home of conservative columnist George Will, attended by fellow conservatives William Kristol and David Brooks.

As President-Elect Obama readies his ascent to the White House less than two weeks from now, it appears that his political acumen extends not only to those in all parts of the Democratic party, but in no small part to Senator John McCain as well. Just three short months ago we were inundated with McCain's talk of Bill Ayres and 'That One,' but an easy détente appears to have developed between the former rivals. To that end, President-Elect Obama has committed four distinct acts that telegraph his political savvy when it comes to Senator McCain.. . . . .With Napolitano...

The Battle for the GOP Is On - Palin, Romney or JindalNovember 30th, 2008 By: Michael van der Galien | Tags: Leave a comment | Trackback The latest polls of Republican and all voters indicate that the conservative Republican base favors candidates voters in general do not think too highly of. For instance, 24.4% Republican voters want Governor Sarah Palin to be the Republican candidate for president in 2012. Only 13.4% of all voters agree. At the same time, Governor Mitt Romney ranks second among all voters, six points behind Palin, but leads among all voters (be it barely). Among...

Every time the GOP takes a beating at the ballot box there are calls to get rid of those doggone social conservatives -- or as Kathleen Parker refers to them, the "oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP." This is a fascinating argument -- well, fascinating if you like watching people who don't even realize that they're doing little more than projecting their own personal biases onto the Republican Party and calling it political strategy. Atheists, agnostics, Elvis worshippers, Jedis, Satanists -- it doesn't matter; they're all welcome in the Republican Party (Ok, not the Satanists so much. They're creepy losers). However,...

As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit. Three little letters, great big problem: G-O-D. I'm bathing in holy water as I type. To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn't soon cometh. Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth -- as long as we're setting ourselves free -- is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among...

Door, meet Hagel. That's how many Republicans are likely to react after the retiring Nebraska senator blasted Republicans in general and Rush Limbaugh in particular, claiming Rush and fellow conservative talkers "don't have any answers." David Shuster, subbing for Olbermann on tonight's Countdown, highlighted Hagel's remarks of today. View video here.