Is Sarah Palin a Loser?

By Adrienne Ross - www.motivationtruth.com

Stuart Schwartz wrote a spot-on article today for the American Thinker. It's the type of article that is hard to excerpt because it's so rich in its entirety. I must determine which parts to post here, but please do go over to the original piece and read it fully.

In a nutshell, Schwartz ably points out what those who respect Governor Palin for the person she is already know: she operates on principle above everything--above Party, above politics, above power. She stands for what she does, not because it serves some selfish purpose, but because she believes it best serves America. Sadly, people aren't used to this anymore. This is one of the main reasons the Establishment--yes, the Republican Establishment--wants to "stop Sarah Palin." And it's one of the main reasons we, the people, want President Palin. The Karl Roves of the world whine and complain about her because she is the antithesis of business as usual--and they're knee-deep in business.

The article reads:

Sarah Palin, the biggest loser.

That seems to be the consensus of the grandees inhabiting Washington and New York and pockets of glitter beyond. There is a variety of interpretations of the midterm Republican wave emanating from the wine bars of upper Manhattan and the salons of Georgetown, but most include the notion that for Sarah Palin, this election was the political equivalent of the hit ABC show "The Biggest Loser." When push came to shove, she stood on...principle?

Media and political elites may disagree on the many consequences of what the president called a "shellacking" by the voters, but they largely agree that the biggest loser was Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin has once again been flagged for her unwillingness to play the game according to how the media and political professionals want it played. For them, it is a game, with taxpayer dollars as Monopoly money. But for Sarah Palin, it's about beliefs and values and service -- which disqualifies her, in their view, from life between the political lines. Sure, she won -- having helped more than sixty candidates to victory -- but, as Rush Limbaugh pointed out, the political and media elites are "a little miffed" at how the Tea Party and Palin put principle ahead of politics. C'mon, lady -- professionals don't do core beliefs!

It was her principles that represented the biggest negative for Karl Rove, whom Lee Cary of American Thinker characterized as the "lead consigliere for the Republican bluebloods." Rove attacked Palin as unfit for political leadership after she insisted on endorsing candidates based on their beliefs in limited government and traditional values. Principles, he sneered, are for amateurs; professionals believe in winning. In response to the attack of the former Bush advisor and Fox News analyst, Hot Air blogger Allahpundit reminded him that she is effective in large part because she is "authentic and unpretentious." Exactly, Rove thundered in return: those qualities have no place in Washington!

Immediately following the election, the nation's elites went on Sarah Palin Alert. They have worked hard to strip taxpayers of hard-earned dollars and make Washington, D.C. the center of wealth, with six of the ten wealthiest counties in the United States bordering the Beltway. And it was Karl Rove who slammed his foot down on the accelerator of government spending during the Bush presidency, handing Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama a government poised to careen out of control. And it has: now that great centralized motor vehicle bureau known as the federal government has twice as many $150,000-a-year bureaucrats as it did when Obama took office, all extravagantly paid to scowl, fill out forms, and say "no" to the hapless citizens underwriting their million-dollar homes.

Small wonder that Republican Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, a veteran of almost two decades inside the Beltway, looked at the Tea Party-inspired Republican sweep and saw only danger...from Sarah Palin. He said of her Herculean effort in creating a Republican wave: she cost us the U.S. Senate! Stop her! he screamed. And the media answered with a barrage of articles offering advice on how to stop Palin. For example, a former Wall Street Journal editor who had bolted when the owner of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, bought the news outlet and put an end to its leftward drift laid out a plan to "derail Palin for 2012."

The mainstream media have been only too happy to oblige, for, as Allahpundit reminds us, Sarah Palin represents virtues alien to political and media elites. Should God offer a new beginning and utter the words, "Let there be honesty," a new Left Behind series would begin in empty Ritz Carlton meeting rooms and mainstream media offices all over the East Coast. Remaining would be the Sarah Palins of the world, the people who think Manolo Blahnik is the name of the guy who dishes up those great fish tacos from the truck just inside the entrance to the state fair. That's why the media elites immediately joined the Republican political establishment to highlight the "urgent task" resulting from the midterm victory: "Stop Sarah Palin."

[...]

Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker and the disgraced former governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, have put together a show that is mainstream media right down to its "bomb" in the ratings. Parker lets us know that she is proud to have led the "assassination" of Palin in the days following the Alaska governor's vice presidential nomination. Rove is right to slam Palin, for she has "earned her ridicule" for her outrageously extreme positions. Palin believes that abortion is wrong, that Israel is courageous and admirable, that traditional family relationships are a strength and blessing, and that God is a part of all that is good and true -- extremist positions, Parker claims, repugnant to the real heart of America...Washington, D.C. This "dangerous" woman represents a "fresh terror" for "establishment Republicans," who, like Parker and Spitzer, are professionals. This election has now put the professionals on alert: Palin must be stopped.

[...]

And so Parker and Spitzer join with Noonan and Rove and others of the political establishment to stop the greatest threat to come out of the midterm Republican victories: Sarah Palin. By winning, she has lost, for they all understand that there's no hope of her joining them, of compromising her principles.

And so expect Rove to go after Sarah Palin again and again and again. And expect him to wear his black socks while doing so. You betcha!

Read the full article here.

(h/t Kelsey)

Governor Palin to Kathleen Parker: I'm Still Standing

By Adrienne Ross - www.motivationtruth.com

Kathleen Parker fancied herself most clever as she bragged about leading the charge to destroy Governor Palin. In an interview with John Ziegler, she made the assertion that she was not only a willing participant, but the spearheader of "the assassination of Sarah Palin."

Apparently, while spending her time focusing on how to get rid of the Governor--something she obviously failed miserably at accomplishing--she was "duped" by then-candidate Obama, although, for some reason, she was not as quick to admit to this particular point.

Via NewsBusters, here's the Parker Spitzer exchange between Ziegler and Parker:

JOHN ZIEGLER: So you didn't buy into the Obama moderation myth?

KATHLEEN PARKER: I did.

ZIEGLER: You were duped by the media --

PARKER: I was one of those people who thought this is a guy who is talking about not a red, not a blue America, and who's going to bring the country together.

ZIEGLER: So you were duped.

PARKER: I was at that 2004 Democratic convention.

ZIEGER: Were you duped?

PARKER: No, I'm not going to say I was duped, I'm saying --

ZIEGLER: So you stand by that.

PARKER: Listen to you: I'm the interviewer here. [Nervous laughter] This is fun; this is fun. But I wrote critical things of him, and I still write critical things of him.

ZIEGLER: You endorsed him. You endorsed him before the election. And you took pride --

PARKER: I did not endorse. I did not endorse.

ZIEGLER: You took part in the targeting of Sarah Palin. You essentially took part in the assassination of Sarah Palin 1.0. That person is dead; she doesn't exist any more.

PARKER: No, no, no. Actually, I did not take part in it: I led it. Let's be clear. Let's get our facts straight.

Read this interview here.

While Kathleen Parker feels oddly proud of herself for her leadership role in what she perceives to be the taking down of Governor Palin--while she celebrates herself--she falls short, it seems, of recognizing or admitting that she failed miserably in her so-called leadership role. No one has killed Governor Palin. No one has destroyed her message, either. In fact, she is standing taller and has emerged stronger since the pitiful attempts to cut off and assassinate her character, her career, and her--dare I say--cajones.

The Governor spoke to this yesterday via Twitter.

Parker: appreciate your admittance. Now, I'm still standing;Standing by family, faith & flag. Who do u stand by today? http://bit.ly/d5p72x

It's this type of response from Governor Palin that drives both the Left and the Right crazy. She is still standing. None of the attempts to destroy her--no matter how coordinated and committed--have yielded any rewards. She is not only still standing; she's moving forward and shaping the current political conversation in America. What drives people even crazier is the fact that she can confront these self-professed opponents, as she did yesterday, and point out that they are utter failures. How odd it is that Kathleen Parker would even admit to something that shows her to be such a complete loser in this effort.

It'll take more than a Kathleen Parker, or a lamestream media, to assassinate Governor Palin. She knows it--and she reminds them of it. They know it, too. And this is precisely why they hate her.

Instead of fighting a losing battle, perhaps at some point these haters will come to realize the wisdom in the old saying, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

* Speaking of "family, faith & flag" that the Governor refers to in her tweet, be sure to order her book by the same name and join her at one of her book tour stops.

I'm Coming After MSNBC for Calling Sarah Palin the Poster Girl for Racism

This is a new low. MSNBC is a disgrace, and I never expect anything remotely fair or ethical to emerge from their dealings with conservatives, Sarah Palin in particular, but their recent smearing is way over the top--and I'm just...FED UP! Why can't the Left just deal with the real issues? That would be "too much like right," so what do they do? You know what they do because you've seen it so many times before. When someone disagrees with them, they call them names. Their most recent tactic is calling people "angry mobs" who speak out against or ask legitimate questions about the president's death care (they call it health care) reform bill. That was a surprise because usually they just call people with an opinion of their own "racists." You've heard it before, and if you're on the Left, you probably have to admit that you've believed it--or at least wondered about it. It's their tactic, people. Wake up--and stop letting them play you!

After reading part of syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker's article in which she refers to Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird--which addresses steep racism in the deep South--Chris Matthews actually had the nerve to ask her, "Is Sarah Palin a poster girl for racism, yes or no?"

What in the world?! What kind of allegation is that?! Almost as bad as the original question, was Kathleen's response, which was,

"Not consciously. I certainly don't think she, Sarah Palin, knows anything about Harper Lee or this deep history in the South where you don't position a White woman and a Black male and ... and ... pretend like there's nothing happening. There's a deep, deep history, which is why I dropped the Harper Lee in there."

Shall I translate her ill-formed response to say that Sarah Palin is too dumb to even know who Harper Lee is or understand the history of racism in the South? Is that what you got because that's what I got from her words.

Matthews follows that up by letting us know that he has just rewatched To Kill a Mockingbird where a white woman accused "a totally innocent Black guy" of rape and "was believed for no reason, except she said so."

So what does this have to do with Sarah Palin and Barack Obama, Chris?

Now, being somewhat of an expert on To Kill a Mockingbird, as I taught it for years, I have to break this down. Harper Lee's novel is, in my opinion, the greatest novel ever written--not that I've read them all, so you can weigh that opinion with other novels you have read. My point is you'll be hard-pressed to find a book so well-written, so thought-provoking, or so completely engaging. I'm talking about the book, now, not the Academy Award winning movie. If your only knowledge of To Kill a Mockingbird is the movie, you don't even know the story; talk to me after you've done the reading!

Matthews is referring to Mayella Ewell, the White girl considered "poor white trash" in her community, who accused a kind-hearted Black husband and father, Tom Robinson (I certainly hope no connection is being made there between these characters and Sarah and Obama), of raping her. Although it was clear that he was physically incapable of committing the crime and that Mayella couldn't be trusted, Tom was still found guilty, simply because he was Black and she was White, racism being what it was in Maycomb County, Alabama, the fictitious setting of the novel. Mayella knew it would come down to that, as did everyone else, because it was an "us vs them" world in which they lived.

So what is Parker, and subsequently Matthews, saying here? I've gone over and over this in my mind and rewatched the video clip. The subtle suggestion here seems to be that Sarah Palin is the equivalent of a Mayella Ewell who used race and sexuality to attempt to destroy a man viewed as illicit and evil simply because his skin was Black. That's my read on this. That's the only thing I can get from it. Matthews seems to say that Sarah does so purposely, while Parker seems to say that Sarah doesn't quite know enough to realize what she's doing, that her tapping into the racism of Southern Republicans is unconscious, although I find it interesting that in her article she refers to Sarah as a "pretty gal with a mocking little wink." Hmmm...

Matthews went on to ask his other guest, Joan Walsh, if Sarah is tribalistic and fosters an "us vs. them" mentality that we have made such strides to get rid of in this country. This particular guest said in no uncertain terms that Sarah, during the campaign, hatefully divided the nation, did so skillfully, and enjoyed it. She stated that Sarah made Obama out to be someone other than "us." She then argued that, "Barack Obama is one of us--he's very much so. The only thing different about him is he's Black."

Okay, at this point I'd heard enough.

Walsh's comments reveal the heart of this whole debate. The point that is being made here is that Sarah Palin sees Obama as different for one reason and one reason only: because he's Black, and that this is why she seeks to separate the rest of the nation from him. This is the part that drives me nuts. Does the Left think so little of the American people? Could it be possible, has it ever crossed anyone's mind, that the people who disagree with the president do so because he's scary--not scary because he's Black, but because his world view is so far out of the mainstream that it's off the charts? Obama is a socialist in his thinking and in his vision for America. Whether he wants to call it that or not is unimportant. He clearly wants government takeover. He wants to remake America to the point that it will be barely recognizable. I do believe his agenda is an anti-freedom, anti-Constitution agenda--and THAT is what Sarah Palin has a problem with, not the color of the president's skin--and to suggest that her issue is one of race is slander, plain and simple.

The video clip ends with Matthews saying anyone on the coasts is evil to Sarah and that

"She's an Alaskan, who, I'll betcha (Yes, he said "betcha"--but don't let Sarah say it!) any money she is gonna spend most of her time down in the middle parts of the country, the rural White parts. She's gonna find those cul de sacs of Whitedom and exploit the hell out of them."

Again, what in the world?!

I've got a message for each of these people:

Kathleen Parker: The reason Sarah Palin doesn't consider Harper's Lee's novel about race in her criticism of the president's policies has nothing to do with an unfamiliarity with Harper Lee or the racial politics of the South. It's because her criticism has nothing to do with race. Sarah Palin is not Mayella Ewell, crying "rapist' because Obama is Black. She's not winking her eye to say to Southern Republicans, "Let him have it. Hang him!" She's not even unconsciously guilty of dividing the nation on racial lines. She does, however, wholeheartedly oppose government takeover.

Joan Walsh: What Sarah takes exception to concerning President Obama is not the difference of his skin color. (By the way, it seems to me YOU have subscribed to the "us vs them" mentality because actually his color is NOT different from mine, but it seems you were thinking of people like you vs people like me. Hmmm...) Sarah's issue with the president, which is the same issue that millions of Americans have of all different races, religions, and professions, is that he appears to lack a respect for the freedoms and rights of the people, seems to not understand that the government is supposed to stay in its place, weakens America's defenses, and always wants to apologize for us. That's the problem. Some people really do love their country. Some people actually deal with people as people: they praise and criticize people's policies regardless of their skin complexion. They are not afraid to walk alongside someone who happens to look different than they, but they are not going to be silenced by the politics of race baiting.

And finally, Chris Matthews: For you to suggest that Sarah Palin feels safer in American Whitedom is too vile for words--even for me. Your "bet" that Sarah Palin is too afraid to be around Black people is despicable--even for you. When was the last time you took to the Hood, dude?

We have entered a really sick, sick place in history. We have entered this place where no one can say anything about Obama without being called a racist. I have also found through nasty comments left on my blog that no one can even praise Sarah Palin without the risk of also being called a racist--even if they're Black, like me. I have been told that I am being used by Sarah Palin, that I am being deceived, and that I don't seem to understand that the greatest form of hatred is self-hatred. So I hate Black people?! And the reason for these attacks? Because I have the "unmitigated temerity" (a phrase applied to Tom Robinson in TKAM, by the way) to think on my own and to stand up for Sarah Palin.

Listening to the nonsense on the video clip, one would think that Sarah Palin should apologize for being an Alaskan, that she should have refused John McCain's call to run with him because she was a White woman who would have to speak out against a Black man, and that she should keep quiet for fear of being called a racist. NO!

I've got a message for you, Sarah:

I say keep on speaking up, Sarah! Keep walking through every door God opens for you, and keep calling wrong "wrong,"--no matter what color mouth it comes out of. They only want to shut you up.

Look, everyone, has anyone told these people that Sarah Palin was not running against Barack Obama for the presidency of the United States--the LAST time? Yes, I said the LAST time! Let the Matthews, and the Parkers, and the Walshes underestimate her if they dare be so foolish. Let them underestimate her influence. And let them underestimate me and people like me, yes, even Black people who are smart enough and are wise enough to come alive enough to vote based on principles and values. They take us--Americans--for fools, but we are not fools, and we will not allow them to play an "us vs them" game the NEXT time as they try to convince us of an "us vs them" agenda on the part of Sarah Palin, an agenda that simply does not exist. They do so, in part, by discounting her small-town upbringing in Wasilla, Alaska as insignificant and backwoods. Let me tell you, I spent a month in Alaska and most of that time in Wasilla, where this American--who happens to be Black--was treated like a princess by some of Sarah's own family and friends. I was welcomed, befriended, housed, fed, and loved--in Wasilla, Alaska. This, everyone, is the America in which Sarah Palin was made. It's the same America that you grew up in and I grew up in. It's not "us vs them." It's just "US"--all of us. Sarah believes in one America, and that's the America she stands up for. Let's stand with her!

From www.motivationtruth.com