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The Sarah Palin Legal Defense Fund needs you! Check out my video message below.
Click here, here, and here to read more about the background of this new legal defense fund.
If it is so important to the left to stop Sarah Palin from running for President, then it is that much more important that she run - and win!
Two years ago, the majority of American voters supported freshman U.S. Sen. Barack Obama for president. Today, neither he nor his party seem that popular. Why?The blinders have now come off Obama's supporters and they are beginning to recoil at his policies and personality. His administration has even admitted that November of 2010 may see massive swings in the leadership of the House and, perhaps, the Senate.
No one supported candidate Obama based on his achievements -- military, legislative, administrative, or creating jobs in the private sector. There weren't any.
What they embraced was his vow to move past race and partisanship, to seek not merely Democratic solutions or Republican solutions, but bi-partisan solutions, multi-partisan solutions, American solutions.
....Mr. Obama was here to raise funds for one of those aforementioned graying partisans of the Senate, Sen. Harry Reid. And Mr. Obama continued to blame all his -- and our -- problems on the mess he inherited two years ago.
Change? While the president did not mention Mr. Reid's front-running Republican challenger Sharron Angle by name, he did comment on her plan to let younger workers invest part of their Social Security withholdings in private accounts they would own, while Washington would continue paying promised benefits to older Americans:
"On a lot of these issues, she favors an approach that's even more extreme than the Republicans in Washington," said the "post-partisan" president, drawing laughter from the hand-picked, closed-door Democratic crowd. "That's saying something. That is saying something. I mean, she wants to phase out and privatize Social Security and Medicare."
Whereupon the president proceeded to set out his own detailed plan -- and Sen. Reid's -- to save a Social Security and Medicare entitlement system that's already spent all the money current retirees ever paid in, and which is thus headed for bankruptcy.
Well, no, of course he didn't do that.
The fact is, President Obama once again left behind a sinking feeling that neither he nor Sen. Reid have a clue how to pull this country out of its current dire economic straits.
President Obama admits government is not the answer -- at the same time he's growing government control over our economy at the fastest rate seen since the wartime emergency of 1942, while bragging how his administration will pick and choose which "startups" are worth taxpayer subsidies.
Problem is, it's not working.
A Chairman Palin would help set the right tone for the Republican party without having to get herself entangled in the minutiae of policy.
There are few more enthusiastic partisans of Sarah Palin than Gary P. Jackson. Palin deserves better hacks.
Writing in response to my suggestion that the RNC dump Michael Steele and hire Sarah Palin, Mr. Jackson launches into an angry, knuckle-draggingly misinformed, conspiracy-minded tirade, the upshot of which is that my proposal must be a naked bid to keep Palin out of the presidential running in 2012 in order to make room for the country-club Republican establishment’s anointed candidate, in whose service I labor so passionately.
Sarah Palin cranked up her 2012 presidential campaign another notch today, with the release of a campaign video aimed directly at women. The basic math is simple. If she gets half of the female primary voters and caucus attenders to support her, then she standing starts at roughly 25% of the total vote. Throw in a third of the male vote and she's at roughly 40%. Forty percent wins the Iowa caucuses, handily.
[ .... ]
Assuming that the race is then reduced to Palin and Romney, the next critical state primary is South Carolina. At that point, I don't think the specifics really matter. The fact is that the Republican Party of 2012 is not going to nominate a Mormon as its standard bearer. And the more important fact is that the base of the Republican Party doesn't just favor Sarah Palin, they love her. She is their standard bearer. And they will not -- this time around -- be denied.
As the Republican avalanche of 2010 builds -- and I saw a poll the other day of a Democratic-leaning state Senate district on Long Island where the "right track" (8%)/"wrong direction" (83%) was unlike anything I had ever seen -- Palin has smartly positioned herself as the champion of the conservative counter-revolution. By December, she will almost certainly be the de facto front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination.
By the time the Establishment GOP wakes up to this reality, it may be too late for them to do anything about it. Their view of Palin is that she's useful to the party because she can help keep "the Tea Party types inside the tent." And maybe she can serve coffee while she's at it. Palin's view is that (1) "the Tea Party types" are the party, (2) she is their standard bearer and (3) anyone who thinks "the Tea Party types" are there to lick envelopes and knock on doors should think again. They're there, she asserts, to take back their party and to take back their country.
"She's too stupid" is what the Establishment GOP really thinks about Sarah Palin. "Good-looking," but a "ditz."
This is unfertile ground, since Palin can turn the argument on a dime and say: "They drive the country into bankruptcy, they underwrite Fannie and Freddie, they bail out Goldman Sachs, they fight wars they don't want to win, they say enforcing the immigration laws is silly and they call me stupid! I'll give you a choice: you can have their smarts or my stupidity, which one do you want?" A large number of GOP presidential primary voters will take Palin's "stupidity" in a heartbeat.
Second, Mr. Jackson writes that I am a "clown" for suggesting that policy minutiae is not Palin’s forte. He suggests that I educate myself by checking out her Twitter feed. Egad: When I wrote about the minutiae of policy development, I did not mean thoughts expressed in 140 characters or less. Perhaps I have an unrealistically high bar to clear for "minutiae," but I did not mean right-wing haiku.
Writing that policy detail is not Palin’s forte is not the same as writing that Palin is unintelligent, which seems to be what Mr. Jackson and a few other like-minded people took from that self-evidently true observation. Ronald Reagan was a big-picture guy; Newt Gingrich is a devil-in-the-details guy.
The world needs both, and there is no reason to think less of one than of the other. (I do not think that Sarah Palin would object to my suggesting that she is more like Reagan than like Gingrich; just a hunch.) Maybe Sarah Palin has authored a detailed policy paper on what to do about the Af-Pak border situation or the derivatives proposals in Frank-Dodd. If she did, I missed it. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that she hasn’t. And that’s okay. She doesn’t need to. We have people for that. Which is why I didn’t suggest sending Palin to a think tank, but putting her in charge of the Republican party.
I didn’t suggest replacing Steele with Palin because I think poorly of Palin, but because I think highly of Palin. I do not think that she is going to run for president in 2012. In any case, there is no reason for her to fall victim to Giuliani Syndrome — the belief that the only job in politics worth having is the presidency. (Seriously, New York could have used a Governor Giuliani.) I am not at the moment very much interested in the question of whom the Republicans will run for president in 2012; first, because none of the usual suspects are all that interesting, second, because I expect that Barack Obama will be re-elected.
They want me to sit down, and they want me to shut up. Politically, if I die, I die, but I won’t sit down, and I won’t shut up!
On the other hand, I am very much interested in the size and character of the Republican congressional majorities that are expected to emerge in the next couple of elections, and having Palin at the RNC to help recruit, fund, and motivate the candidates who will constitute those majorities probably would be an excellent thing.
Palin is often accused of being poorly informed and overly defensive. I do not think that is true of her, but it certainly seems to be true of her loyalists. Happily, there is no transitive property of buffoonery.
One gets the feeling that American national security would be in far better hands if they belonged to the hockey mom from Wasilla than they are now in the hands of the Harvard Law graduate.
~ Mark Whittington
Sarah Palin usually uses her Facebook page to offer brief, pithy comments on issues of the day, or to respond to the latest attacks. But, Palin has now offered one of the most sophisticated analyses of Obama's defense and foreign policy ever published.
The post, based upon a recent speech in Virginia, covers a variety of points about what passes for Obama's defense and foreign policy.
On defense spending and the budget deficit, Palin suggests that Obama is practicing fiscal discipline on defense alone, and is being profligate everywhere else: "This administration may be willing to cut defense spending, but it's increasing it everywhere else. I think we should do it the other way round: cut spending in other departments - apart from defense. We should not be cutting corners on our national security."
Sarah Palin zeroes in on the Navy as especially important to American national security: "Our Navy has global responsibilities. It patrols sea lanes and safeguards the freedoms of our allies - and ourselves. The Navy right now only has 286 ships, and that number may decrease. That will limit our options, extend tours for Navy personnel, lessen our ability to secure our allies and deter our adversaries. The Obama administration seems strangely unconcerned about this prospect."
Palin also attacks the Obama administration for its somewhat weaselly language concerning the War On Terror, refusing to use the term "Islamic" to describe terrorists. She strikes at the proposal to close Guantanamo, imposing an end date on the Afghan Campaign, and the plan to try terrorists like Khalid Sheik Mohammed in civilian courts.
But, the most damning part of Sarah Palin's polemic against Obama defense and foreign policy is the President's tendency to coddle enemies and spurn allies, which she quotes a Czech official as being "enemy centric."
On coddling enemies, "Meanwhile, the Obama Administration reaches out to some of the world's worst regimes. They shake hands with dictators like Hugo Chavez, send letters to the Iranian mullahs and envoys to North Korea, ease sanctions on Cuba and talk about doing the same with Burma. That's when they're not on one of their worldwide apology tour."
And, on the Obama tendency to slam allies: "They escalated a minor zoning issue in Jerusalem into a major dispute with our most important ally in the Middle East, Israel. They treated the Israeli Prime Minister shabbily in Washington. When a Turkish sponsored flotilla threatened to violate a legal Israeli blockade of Hamas-run Gaza, the Obama Administration was silent. When Israeli commandos were assaulted as they sought to prevent unmonitored cargoes from being delivered to Hamas terrorists, the Obama Administration sent signals it might allow a UN investigation into the matter - an investigation that would be sure to condemn our ally Israel and bemoan the plight of Hamas. Loyal NATO allies in central Europe were undermined by the cancellation of a missile defense program with virtually no warning."
Why is President Obama making these mistakes? Sarah Palin has an explanation:
"When asked whether he believed in American exceptionalism, President Obama answered, 'I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.' Amazing. Amazing."
"I think this statement speaks volumes about his world view. He sees nothing unique in the American experience? Really? Our founding, and our founding mothers and fathers? Really? And our history over the past two and half centuries?"
This has caused President Obama to be reluctant to embrace America's role as the dominant super power in the world, to perhaps even think that America as a great power is something pernicious.
One thing that Palin's analysis of Obama defense and foreign policy should lay to rest forever is the notion of Sarah Palin as brainless bimbo, the caricature first performed by Saturday Night Live's Tina Fey and used by political comedians like John Stewart and Bill Maher. The analysis shows a depth of understanding of the problems with the Obama administration's foreign and defense policies that far exceed most people's understanding.
And, yet, it is Obama who is considered the smart one. One gets the feeling that American national security would be in far better hands if they belonged to the hockey mom from Wasilla than they are now in the hands of the Harvard Law graduate.