They just can't let go of Sarah Palin - and it's her fault, just ask them

Today we have Dana Milbank of the Washington Post declaring a Palin Free Month.  Well, that's fine and dandy.  He goes on to say: "I have written about her in 42 columns since Sen. John McCain picked her as his vice-presidential running mate in 2008. I've mentioned her in dozens more blog posts, Web chats, and TV and radio appearances. I feel powerless to control my obsession, even though it cheapens and demeans me. "  I'm wondering why he doesn't mention what it might have done to her, after all that is his intent, to cheapen and demean her.

Further into his screed he tries to blame her: "The media obsession with Palin began naturally and innocently enough, when the Alaska governor emerged as an electrifying presence on the Republican presidential ticket more than two years ago. But then something unhealthy happened: Though Palin was no longer a candidate, or even a public official, we in the press discovered that the mere mention of her name could vault our stories onto the most-viewed list. Palin, feeding this co-dependency and indulging the news business's endless desire for conflict, tweeted provocative nuggets that would help us keep her in the public eye -- so much so that this former vice presidential candidate gets far more coverage than the actual vice president. " 

I find myself so disgusted with that statement.  She is fighting back so that makes it her fault!!  Bad, Bad Sarah.

Have you read Sarah Palin's new book?

I have not. But after reading this review by Melissa Cloutier I am planning to order it.
Sarah Palin: America By Heart, A Review
She starts with this:

Over Thanksgiving, I read Sarah Palin’s new book, America by Heart : Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag. My first thought after finishing it? Wow, that was good. My second thought? If someone gripes about her from now on, I’m going to respond,”Have you read her book?” When the opinionated person says, “No.” I’m going to say back, “Talk to me after you’ve read her book.”

After some talk of criticism, its meaning and purpose, she goes on to say:

Here is what I believe about Sarah Palin: She is a political force of nature. She should be taken seriously. She has a tremendous amount of political capital and would be a contender if she chooses to run in 2012.

In addition, Palin has driven the political debate since President Obama has taken office. She, more than any other Republican, has been a philosophical counter-point to Barack Obama, and really, to the establishment Republicans in Washington, D.C.

Her book deserves to be read on all these grounds. And anyone who claims to be an intellectual but refuses to engage intellectually by refusing to read her book deserves to be ignored.

To the book.

You know how your mom told you that in polite company one does not discuss sex, politics and religion, and for good modern measure, race? Evidently, no one had that conversation with Governor Sarah Palin. Her book covers all the unspeakables and takes the issues on in her characteristically direct manor.

The tone of the book is refreshingly open. That is, she addresses many challenging and politically incorrect topics with alacrity. Her opinions will make many people angry, once they summon the gumption to read them. Her opinions will force other politicians to answer difficult questions, should the press have the gumption to ask them.

At this point you need to go over and read it all. She has a listing of all the subjects covered and discusses why they are important.
Read the review and then buy the book.  N
Note: unlike many bloggers, I do not get any money from Amazon links.  On second thought, maybe I should work on that.

Is Sarah Palin the Lone Ranger

This is the last part of an editorial in the Washington Post
Has Sarah Palin saved the GOP?
By Paul Goldman

Simply put, Palin started as Tonto but has become the Lone Ranger. Instead of fading out last summer, she remained strong and stood by her party. She has become a bridge between the old Republican guard and the growing right-wing dissatisfaction with not just Democrats but also Republican officeholders. Palin's ability to advocate for using the GOP, not a third party, to channel this angst has allowed Republican voter anger to boil, yet not boil over.

Should Republicans run up the score in November, Sarah Palin will deserve a lot of credit she will never get.

Some Liberal Hypocrisy Exposed

by Abe Greenwald in Commentary Magazine.

What Objection to the Ground Zero Mosque Is Not

Liberals who two years ago abandoned their humdrum lives to become career alarmists about Sarah Palin’s Pentecostalism now wish to be taken seriously as misty-eyed champions of America’s tolerance of diverse faiths. Whatever the intent of the planned Cordoba House Mosque Community Center Bowling Alley Drive-in Imax Nail Salon and Day Spa actually is matters not at all. It is to be celebrated because it is Islamic and because America does not discriminate on the basis of religion. The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd laments that President Obama, in his muddled failure to partake in the festivities, has “allowed himself to be weakened by perfectly predictable Republican hysteria.” After all, says Dowd,“By now you have to be willfully blind not to know that the imam in charge of the project, Feisal Abdul Rauf, is the moderate Muslim we have allegedly been yearning for.”

Braille has come a long way. When I read that Rauf refused to call Hamas a terrorist organization and that he respects the doctrine of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini I could swear I took it in with my eyes. Just as I seemed to do when in 2008 I read that Dowd, the declared enemy of predictable hysteria, asked of Sarah Palin, “When the phone rings at 3 a.m., will she call the Wasilla Assembly of God congregation and ask them to pray on a response, as she asked them to pray for a natural gas pipeline?”

Feisal Rauf is A-OK with Khomeini-ism and he’s a welcome voice of reason; Sarah Palin prays and that makes her an unhinged zealot.

Religion is deserving of mockery at all turns—unless it is the Muslim strain to be practiced two blocks from Ground Zero. Of course, objections to the comparison are predictable. Palin was vying for the vice president’s office and Rauf is merely . . . the bridge-building embodiment of Muslim outreach that the post-9/11 world has been waiting for.

The Left’s shift from defamers of faith to champions of faith has come complete with the characterization of the Right as hateful bigots. That thousands of American liberals have in the past protested Papal visits, with some placards comparing Christianity to Nazism, is a testament to freedom of speech. That non-liberal Americans protest only the building of a specific mosque in a specific location is a testament both to prejudice and to indifference on religious freedom.

There is more. Go to Commentary to read the rest.

Sarah Palin Delivers the Goods

Relax, Andrew Sullivan, it isn't a baby I'm talking about.  It's votes.  Another post from Politco:

Palin's backing pays off for pals

by Andy Barr

Some of Sarah Palin’s riskiest endorsements scored major victories Tuesday for the former Alaska governor, showing off her power in Republican primaries.

Palin had four primary endorsements in play – Carly Fiorina, Nikki Haley, Terry Branstad and Cecile Bledsoe – and three won or moved on to a runoff.

Palin served different roles for each candidate – sometimes spotlighting conservatives not well known to the national scene while at others validating conservative credentials to an unsure grassroots and even stepping in to deflect nasty attacks.

Perhaps Palin’s most powerful demonstration came in South Carolina, where her endorsement propelled a major swing in the polls for Haley’s primary campaign for governor and sustained the state representative through accusations of two separate affairs.

While listening to Morning Joe on MSNBC this morning they were discussing how powerful her endorsement seemed to be.  Not a mention of her resignation speech where she said she could make a difference by not being a governor, "Told Ya!"

Read more here.

Sarah Speaks - People Listen

From the Daily Caller:

Sarah Palin speaks at Glenn Beck and country singer John Rich’s kickoff of the “Taking Our Country Back” tour

It’s not every day that people in America’s heartland hear “Redneck Woman” Gretchen Wilson sing Heart’s “Barracuda” to Sarah Palin.

On Saturday, nearly 5,000 people in Tulsa attended Glenn Beck’s and country singer John Rich’s kickoff of the “Taking Our Country Back” tour.

The three-and-a-half hour show featured Beck with his chalkboard and Palin with daughter Piper in tow heralding what’s wrong with America. The consensus? Washington.

Read it all.

Sarah Palin Does the Tonight Show

I didn't watch it. But if you want to see some of the video, you can watch this. It's from Politico.


As to what she had to say, here is some of it:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Tuesday night promised to keep writing notes on her palms “just to get the left all wee-wee'd up.”

Palin, appearing on NBC’s “The Tonight Show,” walked on stage to meet host Jay Leno with the note on her hand that read “Good evening and welcome to ‘The Tonight Show.’”

“Yeah, the poor boy's version of the TelePrompter,” she said of the notes she scribbled on her palm before speaking to the tea party convention last month.

“I wrote three things that represent a solution to challenges in America. I wrote ‘energy,’ energy independence. You know, there's an inherent link between energy and prosperity, energy and security. I wrote ‘tax cuts.’ That's the only way we're going to be able to create jobs is by allowing our employers to keep more of what they earn,” she said. “And then I wrote ‘look to the American spirit.’ And those are three things that I think our country needs today to get us back on the right track.”

Read more:

A Fun Sarah Palin Piece

From American Thinker
I Am Sarah Palin's Brain
By Stuart Schwartz

I am Sarah Palin's brain.

I'm here, I'm healthy, and I'm doing very well, thank you. Contrary to what you're told by the elites of both right and left, I exist.

And, unlike the brains of our beltway politicians and pundits, mainstream media and Hollywood grandees, my neurons are not stuck on "I" or kicking into hyperdrive at the thought of controlling every waking moment in the life of Joe the Plumber or Josie the Beautician.

No, I am an American brain, savvy and predisposed toward optimism, the kind of gray matter powering the doers of this country since our founding. Robin of Berkeley, the resident psychotherapist of American Thinker, says my "sunny disposition" allows me to "(glide) by like a majestic bird in flight."

This is one of the best things you will read all day.  I've just posted a snippet, go read it all, you will love it, too.

David Broder on Sarah Palin

He is giving a warning to those who would denigrate and write her off as a flake. If you like Sarah Palin you will like what he says. If you don't like Sarah Palin you need to heed his words. In the Washington Post:
Palin: a talented populist with a time-tested pitch
By DAVID S. BRODER

The snows that obliterated Washington last week interfered with many scheduled meetings, but they did not prevent the delivery of one important political message: Take Sarah Palin seriously.

Her lengthy Saturday-night keynote address to the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville and her debut on the Sunday-morning talk show circuit with Fox News' Chris Wallace showed off a public figure at the top of her game — a politician who knows who she is and how to sell herself.

This was not the first time that Palin has impressed me. I gave her high marks for her 2008 vice-presidential acceptance speech in St. Paul. But then, and always throughout that campaign, she was laboring to do more than establish her own place. She was selling a ticket headed by John McCain against formidable Democratic opposition and burdened by the legacy of the Bush administration.

Blessed with an enthusiastic audience of conservative activists, Palin used the Tea Party gathering and coverage on the cable networks to display the full repertoire she possesses, touching on national security, economics, fiscal and social policy and every other area where she could draw a contrast with Barack Obama and point up what Republicans see as vulnerabilities in Washington.

Go read it all.

Sarah Palin Headlines this Morning

From Breitbart:
Palin tells 'tea party': It's revolution time
By LIZ SIDOTI  Associated Press Writer

Palin whips up a storm at a Tea Party

From Townhall:
Palin Brings Tea Party Convention To Its Feet
by Jillian Bandes

From the Washington Post:
With speech before tea party activists, Palin once again steps on political stage
By Philip Rucker and Ann Gerhart

Much more but these are a good starter for you,

Sarah Palin, Fox News Analyst & Tea Party Activist

Sarah Palin is an over achiever. However much they (the MSM) tried to conquer her and paint her as an illiterate, trailer trash hillbilly, her star just keeps on rising.
This is from the New York Times:
Out of office, Palin reaching new heights as media superstar
By Mark Leibovich

WASHINGTON - Without leaving home, Sarah Palin will be able to reach much of her political base, courtesy of a soon-to-be be built television studio in her living room paid for by her newest media patron, Fox News. From her house in Wasilla, Alaska, Palin also sends missives to 1.3 million Facebook “fans,’’ writes newspaper columns, Tweets, and signs copies of her book for donors.

She reads daily e-mail briefings on domestic and foreign policy from a small group of advisers who remained loyal after her tumultuous vice presidential campaign in 2008. And though she has fashioned an image as an anti- establishment conservative, Palin also speaks regularly to a bipartisan nobility of Washington insiders who have helped enrich her financially and position her on the national political stage.

Palin is increasingly vocal and visible, with a series of events scheduled this weekend: delivering a paid speech to the Salina, Kan., Chamber of Commerce last night, headlining a national Tea Party convention in Nashville today, and appearing on behalf of the reelection campaign of Governor Rick Perry of Texas in Houston tomorrow.

This seems to be fair reporting on Sarah Palin.  Read the rest here.

Sarah Palin in her own words

In case you haven't had a chance to read much this morning, Sarah Palin had an op-ed column in USA Today  Feb 2 giving her reasons for speaking at the Tea Party event in Nashville. I also received it in an email this morning . So it is getting around in a really big way.  While I saw no reason she had to explain herself, I must get in on the fun and post part of it here.
Why I'm speaking at Tea Party convention
by Sarah Palin

Later this week I'll head to Nashville, where I'll have the honor of speaking with members of the Tea Party movement. I look forward to meeting many Americans who share a commitment to limited government, common sense and personal responsibility. This movement is truly a grassroots, organic effort. It's not a top-down organization; it's a ground-up call to action that already has both political parties rethinking the way they do business.

From the town halls last summer to the protests and marches in the fall to the game-changing recent elections, it has been inspiring to see real people — not politicos or inside-the-Beltway professionals — speak out for common-sense conservative policies and values. As with all grassroots efforts, the nature of this movement means that sometimes the debates are loud and the organization is messier than that of a polished, controlled machine. Legitimate disagreements take place about tone and tactics. That's OK, because this movement is about bigger things than politics or organizers.

The soul of the Tea Party is the people who belong to it — everyday Americans who grow our food, run our small businesses, teach our children how to read, serve the less fortunate and fight our wars. They're folks in small towns and cities across this nation who saw what was happening to our country and decided to get involved. Thank God for them. Many of these good Americans had never been involved in their government before, but now they attend town hall meetings and participate in online forums. They write letters to the editor. They sign up to be precinct leaders and run for local office and support other independent patriots. They have the courage to stand up and speak out.

 There is much more to the column, read the rest.

Sarah Palin Wins Again

Another one of those nusiance ethics lawsuits against Sarah Palin has been shot down.
According to the New York Times:
Ruling Backs Palin’s Use of Private E-Mail for State Work

An Alaska judge has sided with former Gov. Sarah Palin in a lawsuit over e-mail messages, finding that state law does not forbid the use of private e-mail accounts to conduct state business.

The ruling Friday by Judge Patrick J. McKay of Anchorage Superior Court stems from a lawsuit filed by a critic of Ms. Palin, Andree McLeod. Ms. McLeod argued that Ms. Palin and the governor’s office had a responsibility to save e-mail messages related to state business as public records, regardless of the accounts they were sent through.

The issue arose from a 2008 records request by Ms. McLeod that showed that Ms. Palin and members of her staff had been using private e-mail accounts. The traffic uncovered, though, was heavily redacted for what were deemed reasons of privacy. Ms. McLeod argued through her lawyer that use of private accounts obstructed the people’s right to inspect public records.

Her opponents have blinders on if they still do not understand why she had to resign to save the state for another Republican governor, further moneys spent on harrassment lawsuits and having a governor who had to spent time away from state business fighting said nusiance lawsuits.

Sarah Palin Calls them Out

Don Surber's blog in the Daily Mail:

Palin takes on Obamacare deal-making

She took on a corrupt mayor of Wasilla.

And won.

She took on a corrupt governor of Alaska.

And won.

Now she takes on a corrupt Speaker of the House, a corrupt Senate Majority Leader and as corrupt president.

My money is on Sarah Palin.

On her Facebook this morning was this post:

Last weekend while you were preparing for the holidays with your family, Harry Reid’s Senate was making shady backroom deals to ram through the Democrat health care take-over. The Senate ended debate on this bill without even reading it. That and midnight weekend votes seem to be standard operating procedures in D.C. No one is certain of what’s in the bill, but Senator Jim DeMint spotted one shocking revelation regarding the section in the bill describing the Independent Medicare Advisory Board (now called the Independent Payment Advisory Board), which is a panel of bureaucrats charged with cutting health care costs on the backs of patients – also known as rationing. Apparently Reid and friends have changed the rules of the Senate so that the section of the bill dealing with this board can’t be repealed or amended without a 2/3 supermajority vote. Senator DeMint said:

“This is a rule change. It’s a pretty big deal. We will be passing a new law and at the same time creating a senate rule that makes it out of order to amend or even repeal the law. I’m not even sure that it’s constitutional, but if it is, it most certainly is a senate rule. I don’t see why the majority party wouldn’t put this in every bill. If you like your law, you most certainly would want it to have force for future senates. I mean, we want to bind future congresses. This goes to the fundamental purpose of senate rules: to prevent a tyrannical majority from trampling the rights of the minority or of future congresses.”

In other words, Democrats are protecting this rationing “death panel” from future change with a procedural hurdle. You have to ask why they’re so concerned about protecting this particular provision. Could it be because bureaucratic rationing is one important way Democrats want to “bend the cost curve” and keep health care spending down?

The Congressional Budget Office seems to think that such rationing has something to do with cost. In a letter to Harry Reid last week, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf noted (with a number of caveats) that the bill’s calculations call for a reduction in Medicare’s spending rate by about 2 percent in the next two decades, but then he writes the kicker:

“It is unclear whether such a reduction in the growth rate could be achieved, and if so, whether it would be accomplished through greater efficiencies in the delivery of health care or would reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care.”

Though Nancy Pelosi and friends have tried to call “death panels” the “lie of the year,” this type of rationing – what the CBO calls “reduc[ed] access to care” and “diminish[ed] quality of care” – is precisely what I meant when I used that metaphor.

This health care bill is one of the most far-reaching and expensive expansions of the role of government into our lives. We’re talking about putting one-seventh of our economy under the government’s thumb. We’re also talking about something as intimate to our personal well-being as medical care.

This bill is so unpopular that people on the right and the left hate it. So why go through with it? The Senate is planning to vote on this on Christmas Eve. Why the rush? Though we will begin paying for this bill immediately, we will see no benefits for years. (That’s the trick that allowed the CBO to state that the bill won’t grow the deficit for the next ten years.)

The administration’s promises of transparency and bipartisanship have been broken one by one. This entire process has been defined by midnight votes on weekends, closed-door meetings with industry lobbyists, and payoffs to politicians willing to sell their principles for sweetheart deals. Is it any wonder that Americans are so disillusioned with their leaders in Washington?

This is about politics, not health care. Americans don’t want this bill. Americans don’t like this bill. Washington has stopped listening to us. But we’re paying attention, and 2010 is coming.

Give ‘em hell, Sarah. Give ‘em rotten, stinking, bloody hell.

Why Didn't he Say What He Really Thought?

Maybe because they wouldn't print curse words?  This reporter really HATES Sarah Palin.  I won't repeat his ranting here but here is a link if you really want to read it.

 On the other hand, apparently Clarence Page had something nice to say, finally.
His column from December 9th is repeated in many newspapers and blogs across our fruited plains. This one is worth printing.

Palinpalooza goads media into laughter

If you know what Washington's Gridiron Club is all about, the idea of Sarah Palin addressing the group might sound pretty unlikely -- about as unlikely as, say, the National Organization for Women naming Tiger Woods its man of the year.

And yet, odd juxtapositions happen. Bob Dylan has released a Christmas album. Bill Cosby has released an album of "socially conscious hip-hop." And Palin has addressed the Gridiron Club as an honored guest -- and she got laughs!

And yet, odd juxtapositions happen. Bob Dylan has released a Christmas album. Bill Cosby has released an album of "socially conscious hip-hop." And Palin has addressed the Gridiron Club as an honored guest -- and she got laughs!

That's important because Washington journalists founded the Gridiron Club in America's most serious town back in the 19th century for less-than-serious purposes: Two dinners, one in spring and one in summer, during which journalists make fun of the people they cover.

Suffice it to say the humor of this club, founded with the Victorian-era slogan "The Gridiron singes but does not burn," belongs to a less raucously polarized era than this age of Glenn Beck, Jon Stewart and YouTube. Nevertheless, it is a worthwhile achievement these days simply to bring members of opposing parties together peaceably under the same roof, even if it takes the lure of being able to ridicule the media.

Palin not only interrupted her book tour, dubbed Palinpalooza by headline writers, to speak to a roomful of those darned media representatives Saturday all gussied up in gowns and tuxedos, but she held her own against this year's Democratic speaker, the liberal master of pithy one-liners, Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts.

If Palin won the evening -- and even my own Hyde Park-raised, liberal wife believes she did -- it is largely because everyone expected Frank to be funny, which he was. Palin defied expectations. I was so accustomed to her attack-dog role in last year's presidential campaign and the angry spirits of many of her supporters in the tea party wing of her party, that I was surprised to see how cheerfully and gracefully she poked fun at herself without actually being Tina Fey in disguise.

A sampling:

--"It is good to be here and in front of this audience of leading journalists and intellectuals. Or, as I call it, a death panel."

--"To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, this has to be the most extraordinary collection of people who have gathered to viciously attack me since the last corporate gathering at CBS."

--"I've been touring this great, great land of ours over the last few weeks. I have to say, the view is much better from inside the bus, than under it!"

And her timing was impeccable. She has a former sports announcer's -- and former Miss Alaska finalist's -- way of projecting her sincerity, a quality that the late George Burns famously called the secret to success: "Fake that, and you've got it made."

Yet, as much as her politics are not mine, after chatting with her and her husband, good-natured former "First Dude" Todd Palin, I came away with a new fondness and respect for both of them. If they were faking their enjoyment at being there, they certainly sounded mighty sincere about it.

They were warm and friendly in the infectious way that helped Ronald Reagan rise from B-movie actor to California governor and U.S. president. The fact that Palin's next book-signing date was in Iowa only enhanced talk of her possibly taking the presidential plunge. More bizarre things have happened, like Reagan's rise.

Although I still think Palin will use her new fame and political pull to influence politics from some television talk show studio somewhere, her potential in politics awaits one something she has not shown us: a big speech.

Reagan polished his skills, ideas and delivery as a campaigner for Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, the Republican presidential nominee in 1964, and as a broadcast commentator before he ran for office. Then-Sen. Barack Obama memorably leaped to the national stage with his 2004 Democratic National Convention speech. Palin has yet to deliver a similarly original vision on such a grand scale. But she's young. At this moment, she excites more voters than any of the other known Republican hopefuls, even if polls show that quite a few more voters love her than say they will vote for her.

Clarence Page is a member of the Tribune's editorial board and blogs at chicagotribune.com/pages/page

From Laura Ingraham's Show and Website

Bid on Sarah Palin's 'Going Rogue' Jacket

Bid on the jacket that Sarah Palin wore for the "Going Rogue" book cover. It is a one-of-a-kind item. In addition to the jacket, the winner will also receive a personalized copy of "Going Rogue" and have the opportunity to visit the studio with Laura.

All proceeds go to benefit The Wounded Warrior Project and The Fisher House.

Bidding is already us to $7500, it's for a good cause.

Al Gore vs Sarah Palin

He should have known better than to get into an argument with a strong woman.  From Politico here is her reply to his put down:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin hit back at former Vice President Al Gore on Wednesday for calling her a global warming “denier.”

Speaking to MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Wednesday, Gore criticized an op-ed Palin wrote for the Washington Post calling on President Barack Obama to boycott the global climate change conference in Copenhagen.

“The deniers are persisting in an era of unreality. The entire North Polar ice cap is disappearing before our eyes,” Gore said. “What do they think is happening?”

“It's a principle in physics,” Gore said of climate change. “It's like gravity, it exists.”

Palin took to her Facebook page late Wednesday to respond to Gore. 

“Perhaps he’s right. Climate change is like gravity – a naturally occurring phenomenon that existed long before, and will exist long after, any governmental attempts to affect it,” Palin wrote. “However, he’s wrong in calling me a ‘denier.’ As I noted in my op-ed above and in my original Facebook post on Climategate, I have never denied the existence of climate change. I just don’t think we can primarily blame man’s activities for the earth’s cyclical weather changes.”  

Palin then turned her response to the so-called “Climategate” story as evidence that scientific findings are “flawed, falsified, or inconclusive.” 

“Former Vice President Gore also claimed today that the scientific community has worked on this issue for 20 years, and therefore it is settled science,” Palin wrote. “Well, the Climategate scandal involves the leading experts in this field, and if Climategate is proof of the larger method used over the past 20 years, then Vice President Gore seriously needs to consider that their findings are flawed, falsified, or inconclusive.”

“Vice President Gore, the Climategate scandal exists,” she added. “You might even say that it’s sort of like gravity: you simply can’t deny it.”

I really like this headline

Sarah Palin Weapon of Mass Distraction

Democrats are using her to keep attention off real issues

Sarah Palin is going rogue. The Democrats are going rottweiler.

Liberals in the media make heinous personal attacks, dress up quibbles and debating as “fact-checking” and compare her to such noxious harridans as Evita Peron and Madonna. Newsweek went with a cover photo of a picture of her in running shorts to degrade her to the level of a spokesmodel and Stephen Colbert broke character to call her book “a steaming pile of s - - -.” They called her a “deeply disturbed person” (Andrew Sullivan) “unhinged” (ibid), a “delusional fantasist” (ibid; Andrew’s been a busy lad) and even — this is really low — “the leader of the Republican party.”

To all of these liberal attacks I say: well played, my friends. Take a bow.

Hate-drunk Democrats are possibly not even aware of what a savvy political move they are carrying out.

By attacking the former governor of a state smaller by population than Westchester County, a woman whose chances of being the next president are about the same as Nancy Pelosi’s, Democrats aren’t wasting their time at all. They are distracting conservatives and changing the subject.

Conservatives should be, but aren’t, completely focused on one idea. It’s liberalism, stupid.

I've highlighted this because I have posted quite a lot of Sarah Palin items, I think that I and most of my readers have not let our minds wander from the goal, defeating liberalism.

Salon.com on Sarah Palin

Lucianne links to some Salon articles on Sarah Palin. Surprise, they are almost complimentary, definitely not derisive. Here's a portion of the two articles:

The Annie Oakley of American politics

She's scrappy, she's folksy, and she won't take any of your bullcrap. Like it or not, Sarah Palin is here to stay

By Amanda Fortini

That's the beginning, this is the ending:

After all, as the populist governor of a state whose voters respond to plainspoken directness, she suddenly found herself a national figure addressing big-media sophisticates. She was given about seven seconds to learn her role and then, after eight seconds, patronized and mocked. The reasons she performed so poorly are the very reasons her fan base loves her. If, over the next three years, her performance improves as much as it appears to have in just the last year, the conventional rap about her rustic idiocy may come off as mean-spirited and archaic. Her foes might be wise to contemplate the notion that someone of Palin’s background and sensibilities has a right, regardless of her views, to participate in the national debate merely because she speaks (though often unclearly) for many like her. If this possibility can’t be countenanced, then government for the people by the people is an abstract idea we’ve grown too cynical to practice. Sarah Palin endures not because she’s brilliant, smooth or philosophically correct, but because hope in democracy endures, too.
Next:
Democrat goes rogue, declares Palin's book "great"!

....The surprising charms of the week's most talked-about political memoir Indeed, by the end of this book, I thought, Never mind the hundreds of thousands of reasons the fiery Republican femme fatale is hated in, for instance, my oh-so-blue state of California. Honestly, a fair amount of what makes Sarah Palin weird is the very same stuff that makes Alaska weird.

Sarah Palin Answers Biden

On Facebook in reply to his mocking of her Drill Baby Drill theme.  The transcript:

American energy independence. Among other things, my alternative energy goal for Alaska sits at 50 percent because Alaska reached more than 20 percent during my term in office. The Obama-Biden administration, on the other hand, recently announced a renewable goal of only 25 percent. However, domestic drilling should remain a top priority in order to meet America’s consumption and security needs.

The vice president’s extreme opposition to domestic energy development goes all the way back to 1973 when he opposed the Alaska pipeline bill. As Ann Coulter pointed out, “Biden cast one of only five votes against the pipeline that has produced more than 15 billion barrels of oil, supplied nearly 20 percent of this nation’s oil, created tens of thousands of jobs, added hundreds of billions of dollars to the U.S. economy and reduced money transfers to the nation’s enemies by about the same amount.”

This nonsensical opposition to American domestic energy development continues to this day. Apparently the Obama-Biden administration only approves of offshore drilling in Brazil, where it will provide security and jobs for Brazilians. This election is about American security and American jobs.

There’s one way to tell Vice President Biden that we’re tired of folks in Washington distorting our message and hampering our nation’s progress: Hoffman, Baby, Hoffman!

If he actually seemed to understand anything about energy it would be one thing, but……

This via Gateway Pundit.