OK, I’ll admit it, when I first got the news that Sarah Palin was signing on with Fox News to be a commentator and analyst, I was kind of like...huh(?), but that faded fast. Like many, it came at me from out of the blue, and I follow Sarah pretty closely.
Also, like many, I was concerned about the other efforts she has going on: Things like giving speeches, campaigning for Conservatives, doing charity work, and smacking Barack Obama upside the head on a regular basis. You know, saving the world stuff!
Of course, after the few minutes it took for all of this to sink in, and for me to process it all, I realized that this was, after all, Sarah Palin, the ultimate multi-tasker. Sarah Palin, the woman who is known to have a Blackberry in each hand, and her beautiful son Trig in her arms, all the while being briefed on something else. This is Sarah Palin, who reportedly has a photographic memory, and likes her briefings rapid fire!
The Fox News gig may be the easiest, least taxing job she’ll have!
My second thoughts went to the Great Ronald Reagan, my political hero, and well, one of Sarah’s, as well. Once again, one sees Sarah as nothing less than Reaganesque with this move.
Sarah’s life really does parallel Reagan’s in many ways:
Both grew up in small towns in modest surroundings.
Both played sports and played them well. Reagan played football, Sarah is a championship winning basketball player, and now a competitive runner.
Both went to small, "no name" colleges. And yes, as the left points out, Sarah went to several. Took her 5 years to get her 4 year degree in journalism. That sort of thing is rather common in America, among those who work their way through college, and pay for it all with the sweat of their brow.
Even more interesting, at least to me, is both were sportscasters. Reagan did radio, and Sarah did television, anchoring the local sports desk. In fact, as she pointed out in her book, it was her dream to go to work at ESPN.
Of course, Reagan had a long career as an actor before jumping into politics, though he was president of the Screen Actors Guild. Sarah got involved at a lot younger age, working her way up from one of the lowest elected offices, to the highest a state has to offer.
Even there, their career paths cross, as Reagan was the Governor of a large western state, California, and Sarah was Governor of our largest and most western state, Alaska.
This deal with Fox News is just another move that has Reagan written all over it, and likely smiling down in approval.
Ronald Reagan lost the 1976 Republican nomination to President Gerald Ford. During a period of time that some describe as Reagan’s "time in the wilderness," Ronnie spent his time writing op-ed’s for newspapers, giving speeches to any and every group possible, spreading the words of conservatism, and doing regular radio commentary.
When 1980 rolled around, Reagan had build an incredible grass roots following, a group of devoted supporters that would see him win two historic landslide victories.
This brings us to Sarah Palin, post governorship.
Sarah has written op-eds for numerous publications, much to the radical left’s chagrin. I n fact, an op-ed she wrote for the Washington Post in July of 2009 on climate change and energy independence was the third most read of the year. And one she wrote early December, demanding Obama boycott Copenhagen was in the top 25. This is out of literally thousands of the opinion pieces published by WaPo in 2009.
Something Sarah has that Reagan did not, as Al Gore had not invented the internet yet, is social networking. Sarah has proven to be quiet adept at using Facebook and Twitter. I can’t think of anyone else on the planet who could write two words on Facebook, and absolutely change history, as Sarah was able to do when she took on ObamaCare and pointed out that in every nation with socialized medicine there is major rationing of care.
Her "death panels" was a stroke of metaphoric genius that still has tongues wagging on both sides of the argument, and really knocked the shine off of hope and change. With those two paragraphs, Sarah changed history, and forever wounded the Obama presidency, some say mortally. One thing is for certain, history will look back at that Facebook post as a seminal moment in time, a point where Mr Obama saw his presidency slowly start to slip away.
Sarah is also giving speeches to diverse groups. From business folks like she did in Hong Kong, to Conservative groups, to charities. Looking at her line up this spring and summer, it is a diverse group indeed.
Then there is the book. Going Rogue, An American Life was a number one best seller a month before the public could ever hold one in their hands. Pre-publication sales broke all records. In fact, the day the book was first offered for pre-publication sale, it became the number one best seller at all of the major online book retailers.
The book debuted number one on the New York Times Best Seller List, and in the end, was the best selling book of 2009, causing the publisher, HarperCollins, to order a second printing, with 3 million total ordered, so far.
So....moving over to Fox News is the next logical step for Sarah Palin. Had there been 24/7 cable news in Reagan’s day, that’s where he would have been. But until Reagan himself repealed the so-called "fairness doctrine" a tool used by the democrat/communists to control the message for decades, (something they’d love to bring back) talk radio didn’t even exist!
When one realizes what the political/media landscape looked like in Reagan’s time, where all media was firmly in the hands of the left, one really understands the powerhouse Conservative that was Ronald Reagan.
As was expected, Sarah’s first week on the job was hyped to the absolute max by Fox’s P.R. machine, and rightly so, as Sarah Palin is a ratings bonanza, just as Oprah, or the folks at Saturday Night Live will attest. Her appearances on both shows saw ratings these shows hadn’t seen in over a decade.
Also, as expected, the far left pulled out their tired, shop worn Saul Alinsky tactics and hooted and hollered. This was a twofer for them, as they could go after both of their bete noires at the same time.
They were aghast that a news organization would hire a former successful Governor, and vice presidential candidate as an analyst. I mean why on earth would a news organization ever hire someone with a degree in communications and journalism!
As our friend The Mighty Serf puts it: "Nothing says ‘patriot’ like being attacked by a bunch of dirty, lying communists!"
Now I’ll kind of let the reader do their own analysis of how Sarah did in her first week. And bear in mind, these appearances were more "get to know you" sort of deals, not anything indicative of what she will be doing at Fox, although, with Sean Hannity, they did sort of jump right in to work.
In order, here’s how Sarah’s week went:
First up, Bill O’Reilly. It went as expected, it was all about Bill O’Reilly, with O’Reilly going so far as to have people on right after Sarah to analyze his interview of her. (And praise him) He spends most of the time going over the attacks against her, and of course, Fox, seemingly unable to grasp that the left hates her simply because she exists. It really isn’t any more complicated than that.
BTW, Sarah added a solid one million extra viewers to Billy’s already ratings giant, The O’Reilly Factor.
Next up is Hannity. This is a pretty good session of analysis, which is why you haven’t heard the corrupt Obamacentric media say a single word about it!
Good solid work, in my opinion, probably the best of the three, if one is to evaluate Sarah’s capabilities as a journalist. You can watch the rest of the interview courtesy of our friends at Conservatives4Palin here.
The last interview of the week comes from Glenn Beck. This one is the most curious, and the one I personally liked and sort of didn’t like. It’s complicated....
As both Glenn and Sarah are lightning rods for all of the hate that defines the left, one shouldn’t be surprised that this is the interviewed that caused controversy.
In fairness to Glenn, he was pretty sick when they did the interview. As one could tell by his performance the next day, when he hosted his second forum of prominent black leaders, including our friends Adrienne Ross and Clifton Bazar. Glenn had Charles Payne on to act as his "voice" and to help moderate.
I say this to point out that Glenn, who usually does very well in these personal style, one on one deals was not at his very best. But this is an incredibly interesting interview, as Glenn asked questions that are just never asked. It also gives you an incredible insight into Sarah.
You can watch all of the hour long interview over at The Right Scoop, here.
Now most Palinistas already know about the "controversy" thanks to a highly edited hit piece by Media Matters, the group funded by Nazi collaborator, and self proclaimed "owner of the democrat party," George Soros.
As you see, Glenn asks Sarah who her favorite founder was, and she answers "all of them" leading up to say that they are all important, but it was George Washington who she admires the most. The essential man. For the Record, this was Beck’s choice, as well.
Media Matters, which sent their butchered video, taken out of context, to the media outlets, who dutifully played the clip ad nauseam, tried to not only misconstrue the conversation, but compare it to Sarah’s "all of ‘em" answer to that hack Katie Couric, on what newspapers she reads.
Yeas, the left really is that desperate!
Clearly, anyone with an ounce of intellectual honesty will listen to the unedited exchange, and understand where Sarah was going with this before Glenn jumped in. Also, just as clearly, if one pays attention, is the fact that Beck was leading up to the real point of the entire interview, and that was asking Sarah Palin if she, indeed, was our generation’s George Washington.
With all of this in mind, Glenn devoted his radio show the next day to further discussing this interview with Sarah. In fact, one really can’t fully "get" Beck’s interview with Sarah without also watching this companion video. Beck’s commentary is fascinating here. What’s interesting is how he says that he wasn’t doing the interview for the viewers, but for himself. He truly wanted to see if Sarah, in his mind, was for real.
He gives us further insight into Sarah, talks about how guarded she is, and how she really goes out of her way to be prepared for "gotcha" questions these days. But he boils it all down to the real point of doing this interview. Again, I’ll let the reader be the final judge if he made his point here or not. But one simply must watch this video, to understand the interview.
Watch it all, for sure, but at about 20 minutes in is where Beck talks about the founding fathers, and when he sort of comes to his conclusions.
BTW, when I was growing up, we were taught in school that Washington was the "father of our country." Past that, if someone held a gun to my head, and I had to honestly answer who my favorite founding father is, I’m not sure I’d have an answer any better than "all of the above."
Each man gave their unique contribution. But more poignantly, and this is something we often forget, all of these men, all of our founding fathers, risked it all. Remember, all of these men were committing treason. Each and every one had a price on their head and faced certain death had they failed.
In the end though, I enjoyed the Beck interview, because...though they had never met....in person, Glenn has the longest history of any of the major media interviewing Sarah, having done many interviews with her over the years, and they have a good rapport with one another. It was nice to see her and Glenn get tickled at each other.
The fun part though was their open offer to Saturday Night Live for them to co-host the show. I’d be willing to bet someone is already working on that deal, as the last time Sarah appeared, SNL had it’s best ratings in 17 years, and by all accounts, both Loren Michaels and his producers were very pleased to have her. With NBC’s current sad state of affairs, I think this one is a no brainer!
I know this is a tad bit long to just sit back and say that overall, Sarah Palin had a very good debut on Fox News. Frankly, I think there is a whole lot more to it than that.
First, I am totally convinced that Sarah will run for President in 2012. She may not even know this yet, as even Glenn Beck suggests, but Sarah is that "essential man." That reluctant servant America needs.
One thing I have learned about Sarah, after watching her and studying her career. Sarah Palin does not lust after power, Sarah Palin lusts after results. There is simply no one else out there that has this essential quality. This is why I believe with all of my heart and soul that Sarah will find herself compelled to run, compelled to step in and do what is right for our nation. There is simply no one else out there with her character that is up to the task.
In the mean time, Sarah is taking a proven path, a path that saw Ronald Reagan win two historic landslide victories and become one of America’s greatest Presidents.
H/T: Karen Allen for the artwork.
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