Posted by Richard on March 9, 2014
Want to know why the left has tried so hard to diminish, disparage, and destroy Sarah Palin? Because she can deliver a speech like this. Wow. Just wow.
Best take-off on “Green Eggs and Ham” ever. And like Rand Paul, she goes after the GOP establishment as well as the Dems.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: conservatives, freedom, palin | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on March 1, 2014
During the 2008 campaign, Sarah Palin predicted that if the weak and feckless Sen. Obama were elected President, Vladimir Putin might invade Ukraine. She was laughed at by foreign policy experts.
Palin said then:
After the Russian Army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama’s reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence, the kind of response that would only encourage Russia’s Putin to invade Ukraine next.
For those comments, she was mocked by the high-brow Foreign Policy magazine and its editor Blake Hounshell, who now is one of the editors of Politico magazine.
…
Hounshell wrote then that Palin’s comments were “strange” and “this is an extremely far-fetched scenario.”
“And given how Russia has been able to unsettle Ukraine’s pro-Western government without firing a shot, I don’t see why violence would be necessary to bring Kiev to heel,” Hounshell dismissively wrote.
Oops. Palin is now having the last laugh. Hounshell has acknowledged her prescience:
Yes, Twitter, Sarah Palin totally called this exact Ukraine scenario 6 years ago….
— Blake Hounshell (@blakehounshell) February 28, 2014
I didn’t see anything resembling an apology, however, although Moe Lane for one suggested it was due:
@blakehounshell Gooood. Now what do we SAY when we make fun of someone and it turns out we were WRONG? Starts with an S. You can do it…
— Moe Lane (@moelane) March 1, 2014
I’m reminded of how the left mocked Palin for telling Tea Party groups to “party like it’s 1773” — blissfully unaware that that was the year of the Boston Tea Party. When you repeatedly make fun of someone for being a stupid yahoo, and they’re repeatedly proven wiser and more knowledgeable than you, shouldn’t you feel some embarrassment and shame?
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: foreign policy, hubris, media bias, obama, palin, predictions | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on June 8, 2011
I'd be remiss not to point this out, even though it's pretty much a "dog bites man" story. Sarah Palin's off-the-cuff remarks in Boston the other day about Paul Revere were met with peals of derisive laughter by the left-wing intelligentsia and mumblings about what an embarrassment she is by establishment conservatives like David Brooks. But historians (reluctantly) agree she was right:
Palin insisted yesterday on Fox News Sunday she was right: “Part of his ride was to warn the British that were already there. That, hey, you’re not going to succeed. You’re not going to take American arms.”
In fact, Revere’s own account of the ride in a 1798 letter seems to back up Palin’s claim. Revere describes how after his capture by British officers, he warned them “there would be five hundred Americans there in a short time for I had alarmed the Country all the way up.”
Boston University history professor Brendan McConville said, “Basically when Paul Revere was stopped by the British, he did say to them, ‘Look, there is a mobilization going on that you’ll be confronting,’ and the British are aware as they’re marching down the countryside, they hear church bells ringing — she was right about that — and warning shots being fired. That’s accurate.”
Patrick Leehey of the Paul Revere House said Revere was probably bluffing his British captors, but reluctantly conceded that it could be construed as Revere warning the British.
“I suppose you could say that,” Leehey said. “But I don’t know if that’s really what Mrs. Palin was referring to.”
McConville said he also is not convinced that Palin’s remarks reflect scholarship.
“I would call her lucky in her comments,” McConville said.
McConville's remarks reveal perfectly the mind-set of the Palin haters. He concedes she was correct, even about the details (church bells ringing and shots being fired). But he just knows she's not smart or educated enough for her statement to "reflect scholarship." So it must be pure dumb luck.
You'd think after the Palin critics thoroughly embarrassed themselves over the "party like it's 1773" incident, they'd at least pause long enough to be sure of their facts before sneering yet again at her supposed ignorance. But they're far too arrogant and smugly superior to even entertain the thought that Palin could know more about anything than they do.
Byron York last week pointed out that, contrary to what her critics say, Palin has been seriously addressing important policy issues in a variety of forums, some non-traditional:
For those interested in her positions on issues, Palin's Facebook page is filled with notes and commentary. Recent entries include titles like "New Afghanistan Development Dangerous to NATO," "Obama's Strange Strategy: Borrow Foreign Money to Give to Foreign Countries," "Barack Obama's Disregard for [Israel's] Security Begs Clarity," "Obama's Failed Energy Policy," and "Removing the Boot from the Throat of American Businesses." They're not think-tank white papers, but they are substantive statements on key issues.
To critics, publishing statements on Facebook seems less serious than releasing them from an office. But Palin has three million followers on the social media website. That's an important forum, especially when combined with Palin's books and television commentary.
Like York, I suspect she's not going to run for President, but instead wants to promote her ideas and viewpoint, and those of the Tea Party movement she champions, within the Republican Party. More power to her!
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: history, palin | 2 Comments »
Posted by Richard on October 30, 2010
Lisa Murkowski is a full-fledged member of the bipartisan ruling class that Angelo M. Codevilla described so well in his critically important American Spectator article. As such, she believes not only that she's entitled to rule, but that her subjects don't even have the right to make fun of her. Free speech be damned.
Murkowski doesn't have access to SEIU goons to do her dirty work, so she relies on $1000/hr. lawyers to intimidate and silence her critics. On Friday, Sarah Palin told the tale on her Facebook page (emphasis added):
Yesterday, Lisa Murkowski’s hired guns threatened radio host Dan Fagan, and more importantly, the station that airs Fagan’s show, with legal action for allegedly illegal “electioneering.” The station, unlike Murkowski, who is flush with millions of dollars from vested corporate interests, does not have a budget for a legal defense. So it did what any small market station would do when threatened by Beltway lawyers charging $500 to $1000 an hour – they pulled Dan Fagan off the air.
Does all this sound heavy handed? It is. It is an interference with Dan Fagan’s constitutional right to free speech. It is also a shocking indictment against Lisa Murkowski. How low will she go to hold onto power? First, she gets the Division of Elections to change its write-in process – a process that Judge Pfiffner correctly determined had been in place without change for 50 years. She is accepting financial support from federal contractors, an act that is highly questionable and now pending before the FEC. And today, she played her last card. She made it clear that if you disagree with her and encourage others to exercise their civic rights, she’ll take you off the air.
The concept of “electioneering” involves several issues, but typically refers to campaigning at the polls, which is appropriately banned. Under federal law, it can also mean paying for advertising on broadcast media during a federal election cycle, and it requires disclosures if done by groups and corporations. Fagan used satire to mock Murkowski’s write-in efforts and encouraged Alaskans to run as write-in candidates. That is not illegal. That is free speech.
Individuals like Dan Fagan have a fundamental right to speak their minds without threats from the incumbent Senator from Alaska. It is hard to find a constitutional right Americans cherish more than the right to free speech. This was a right Joe Miller, as a decorated combat veteran – a tank commander tested in battle, was willing to die to defend. Dan Fagan has not always agreed with me, but I will gladly defend his right to speak freely on his radio show, which he has often used to criticize me. In fact, Fagan has actually used his radio show to attack and insult me, my husband, my children, and my family in just about every way possible. He was especially insulting to my son, who left for a war zone to defend Fagan’s right to attack our family. But when I was his governor, I never would have dreamed of threatening his right to free speech. I support him in this fight because this D.C. Beltway thuggery, as exemplified by Lisa Murkowski’s latest threat, is ruining our country. The powers that be want ordinary Americans to sit down and shut up and let the ruling class ride us right off the debt cliff we’re heading towards with Obama, Pelosi, and Reid steering the nation’s car. We can’t let them. Now is the time to put aside our past differences and stand up to the establishment powers.
This whole episode confirms again why we need to elect Joe Miller. Lisa, you can sue me if you want (you won’t be the first). But I will not be intimidated from speaking my mind. Your intimidation just empowered us liberty-loving Alaskans. Are you really that out of touch?
Fortunately, Murkowski's thugs in pinstripes were too late. With some help from Dan Riehl's post at Big Government (which tells the story of the shameful election law subversion that led to this effort) and various bloggers, Fagan's call for more write-in candidates had the desired effect before he could be silenced. Riehl has the complete Alaska Division of Elections list of candidates for Senate and the story of how it came to be so large in a matter of hours just before the deadline.
Murkowski may have succeeded in getting election workers to distribute a list of write-in candidates to voters, but her name will be one of 148 on that list. Heh, indeed.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: alaska, corruption, elections, free speech, palin, politics | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on October 29, 2010
Neo-neocon linked to it succinctly:
…Wow. Just wow.
I couldn't agree more. Click that link and read.
Here's an idea for a political action committee you never thought would exist: "Gay Democrats for Palin"
How about it, Kevin DuJan? Wouldn't you like to add "Founder and President of Gay Democrats for Palin" to your resumé?
UPDATE: I suppose "LGBT Democrats for Palin" would be more inclusive, but it just doesn't have the same ring to it. 🙂
HT: David Aitken, via email
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: corruption, democrats, hillary, obama, palin, politics | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on October 8, 2010
In a deliciously well-written piece (you should read it just to enjoy the alliteration and word-play), Gregg Opelka argued that Republicans should be ever so grateful that John McCain was their nominee in 2008. Why?
Because McCain did the one thing that none of those other men would have dared to do. And in so doing he unwittingly introduced kryptonite into the presence of Barack “Superman” Obama. In 2010 political lingo, kryptonite is spelled in the form of ten other letters: Sarah Palin. When McCain astonished with his choice of Palin as vice-presidential running mate, a chain of events unfolded that created the arch-nemesis of Barack Obama, the one force that would torment the would-be Social Justice-draped crusader more than Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh combined could ever do.
Make no mistake, DC comics readers: Sarah Palin is the agent of paralysis that is now crippling Democrats in the 2010 midterms. “Ah, but the Democrats brought it on themselves,” you cry in rebuttal. “They passed Obamacare and the stimulus bill and cap-and-trade and Cash for Clunkers, all bills that the American people overwhelmingly disapprove of. That’s what’s behind the imminent Republican rout.”
A valid point, granted. But even in the face of the their Saharan thirst to rebuff the will of the center-right American people, Democrats could have averted catastrophe, and Superman could have escaped the mid-term elections with bruised, but intact, majorities in both House and Senate-had it not been for that pernicious half-baked Alaskan. (Gee, Superman, it sucks to have a nemesis, doesn’t it?)
“But Palin isn’t even running,” you astutely ratiocinate. To which I humbly reply, “Nonsense.”
Liberal media punditry was positively Nureyevian in its grand jeté to denigrate Palin when she announced in July of 2009 she was abandoning her Alaskan gubernatorial post. “Quitter. Coward. Lightweight,” it intoned. The tasty chum chucked from the Palin prow did not go undevoured by the circling liberal media sharks, who fed for weeks on what they thought was the last of Sarah.
But as admirers of Conan Doyle’s Dr. Moriarty know, a worthy adversary has two invaluable qualities, patience and perseverance. It hardly seems a coincidence that there is a city in Alaska called Perseverance.
“The tasty chum chucked from the Palin prow” — marvelous writing! And it gets even better. Read the whole thing.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: mccain, obama, palin, politics | 1 Comment »
Posted by Richard on September 20, 2010
Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic is urging the Obama administration to "play the Palin card," and Doctor Zero hopes they do. In a brilliant piece cross-posted at his blog and Hot Air, he offered a spot-on analysis of why doing so would be a big mistake for them and good news for the limited government, pro-freedom movement — and for Palin. The piece was linked by both Instapundit and James Taranto, and they both quoted a paragraph that's a truly wonderful rant. But it isn't just all rant.
The entire piece is excellent and quite insightful. I especially liked this:
And this (emphasis in original):
Exactly. Read the whole thing.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: obama, palin, politics | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on August 26, 2010
I awake from my recent hibernation to shout "whoohoo!" at the stupendous Alaska Senate primary result. It's not official yet, due to absentee ballots, but it looks like unknown challenger Joe Miller has defeated incumbent Republican (in name only) Lisa Murkowski. Murkowski, of course, had the entire GOP establishment firmly behind her, despite her atrocious record (she supported cap-and-tax and all the bailout and porkulus packages, for starters).
In June, Murkowski had an "insurmountable" 35-point lead in the polls. Then Sarah Palin endorsed Joe Miller and the Tea Party Express began running ads for him (I helped fund those ads). Murkowski's lead began shrinking precipitously, but it was still 10 points a week or so before the election. Final tally (minus absentee ballots): Miller 50.9%, Murkowski 49.1%. I repeat, "whoohoo!"
Jim Treacher took delight in pointing out that Slate's Alexandra Gutierrez (among others) ended up embarrassing herself with her election eve story predicting an "embarrassing defeat" for Palin and the Tea Party Express when Murkowski "trounced" Miller. That turned out not to be reporting or analysis, but wishful thinking.
Whoohoo!
UPDATE (8/27): Another RINO who doesn't want to accept a "No" from the voters. Check out the latest in the comments.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: alaska, palin, republicans, rinos, tea party | 3 Comments »
Posted by Richard on April 14, 2010
When Tea Party Express III kicked off in Searchlight, Nevada, a couple of weeks ago, CNN described the crowd of 10-20,000 as "at least dozens of people." Earlier today, the "Top Stories" widget on my iGoogle page included a Boston Globe report that "hundreds" were at the Tea Party Express rally at Boston Common.
The Tea Party Express people say it was "Well over 10,000," and they have pictures and aerial footage to back it up.
The Boston Globe has now acknowledged in its photo gallery of the event that there were "thousands." But it wasn't until picture 23 (of 71) that I found a half-way decent crowd shot, and that's at a low enough angle that it's hard to judge the size. Most of the images are tight shots of Palin or of fewer than half a dozen attendees (I quit after looking at the first 36; maybe all the crowd shots are toward the end).
Well, we've gone from an absurd claim of dozens, to a laughable claim of hundreds, to a grudging acknowledgment of thousands. It's progress, I suppose.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: boston, media bias, palin, tea party | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on February 2, 2010
Sarah Palin in USA Today:
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.
Read the whole thing.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: palin, politics, tea party | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on November 21, 2009
It's a tough time in the news business, with lots of layoffs and red ink. So it's especially important for an organization like the Associated Press, which is cutting 10% of its staff, to allocate its limited investigative and reporting resources carefully, based on well-chosen priorities. James Taranto provided an excellent example:
An Associated Press dispatch, written by Erica Werner and Richard Alonso-Zaldivar, compares the House and Senate ObamaCare bills. We'd like to compare this dispatch to the AP's dispatch earlier this week "fact checking" Sarah Palin's new book. Here goes:
Number of AP reporters assigned to story:
• ObamaCare bills: 2
• Palin book: 11
Number of pages in document being covered:
• ObamaCare bills: 4,064
• Palin book: 432
Number of pages per AP reporter:
• ObamaCare bill: 2,032
• Palin book: 39.3
On a per-page basis, that is, the AP devoted 52 times as much manpower to the memoir of a former Republican officeholder as to a piece of legislation that will cost trillions of dollars and an untold number of lives. That's what they call accountability journalism.
I suppose that kind of prioritization of journalistic resources is why the evening news, CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo, etc., haven't dug into the many examples of bogus math and fiscal sleight-of-hand in the ObamaCare bills, like delaying most of the expenditures until 2013 (after the election) so that the CBO's 10-year projection includes only seven years' worth of costs. And they've been too busy with the Palin investigations to notice that both the House and Senate bills contain the regulatory framework that will eventually transform government panels' suggested standards of care, like those much-criticized mammogram and Pap smear recommendations, into the tools for rationing health care.
I suppose it's also why you'll have a hard time finding any in-depth coverage of the bogus accounting and reporting of the "stimulus" bill's spending and job creation.
This is nothing new. During the campaign last fall, the big media organizations sent scores of reporters to scour Alaska in search of dirt on Gov. Palin. But hardly anyone had time to investigate Obama's relationships with Tony Rezko, the Daley brothers, ACORN, Rod Blagojevich, Emil Jones, and other elements of the Chicago machine (well, to be fair, I think one reporter each from the Chicago Sun-Times and the Washington Times and a couple of semi-pros from Newsmax doggedly dug into these things).
But some journalists still have the courage to hammer interviewees with challenging, aggressive, well-researched, adversarial questions — at least when the interviewee is a 17-year-old Sarah Palin fan. Speaking Truth to Teenager. (By all means, take Finkelstein's advice and read the blog entry by interviewee Jackie Seals. Fascinating.)
Maybe the courageous Norah O'Donnell's next assignment will be to confront supporters of ObamaCare with tough questions like, "Do you realize that if this passes, you could be sent to jail for not buying an approved health care plan?" And then she'll go to some "Save the Planet" rally and challenge a Gore supporter with, "Are you aware that the Earth's core is 4000°, not a million degrees as Mr. Gore has claimed, and that many of his other claims are equally outlandish and unsubstantiated?"
Somehow, I doubt it. And I'm not holding my breath waiting for 60 Minutes reporters to ambush the perpetrators of the latest climate fraud, either.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: gore, health care, journalism, media bias, palin, propaganda | 5 Comments »
Posted by Richard on July 28, 2009
Here's a great couple of minutes from Sarah Palin's farewell speech in Fairbanks on Sunday, delivering a double smack-down to some ("only some") members of the media:
If you've got 20 minutes to spare, watch the whole speech in these two 10-minute clips: [Part 1] [Part 2] (If you've only got 10 minutes, watch part 2.)
Here are a few quotes I liked:
Be wary of accepting government largess. It doesn't come free and often, accepting it takes away everything that is free, melting into Washington's powerful "care-taking" arms will just suck incentive to work hard and chart our own course right out of us, and that not only contributes to an unstable economy and dizzying national debt, but it does make us less free.
We don't have to feel that we must beg an allowance from Washington, except to beg the allowance to be self-determined.
We're no longer a frontier outpost on the periphery of the world's greatest nation. Now, as a contributor and a securer of America, we can attain our destiny in the promise of our motto "North to the Future." See, the pressing issue of our time, it's energy independence, because there is an inherent link between energy and security, and energy and prosperity. Alaska will lead with energy, we will prove you can be both pro-development and pro-environment, because no one loves their clean air and their land and their wildlife and their water more than an Alaskan. We will protect it.
The entire transcript is here.
The critics in the elite media (Republican and Democrat), the Eastern intelligentsia (Republican and Democrat), urban sophisticates everywhere (Republican and Democrat), and the Hollywood hip (Democrat and left-of-Democrat) continue to demean and dismiss this woman — in much the same way that the same groups scoffed at Ronald Reagan 30 years ago. History does have a way of repeating itself…
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: alaska, palin | 1 Comment »
Posted by Richard on July 15, 2009
Willie Brown, former Speaker of the House in California and former mayor of San Francisco, thinks Sarah Palin is a political genius:
The pundits are wrong. Conventional wisdom is wrong. Sarah Palin's decision to step down as Alaska governor was a brilliant move.
Palin has some of the best political instincts I have ever seen. She became a pop-culture superstar overnight when John McCain made her his veep pick, and she's still second only to President Obama among politicians the public is interested in. Even in liberal San Francisco, she'd be front-page news if she ever came to town.
But that kind of celebrity comes at a high price. What a lot of people don't know is that Palin entered Alaska politics as a reformer attacking the corruption of the state's Republican establishment. As such, she was the darling of the Democrats – until she hooked up with McCain.
After the election, with Palin back home but positioning herself for a 2012 presidential run, it was clear she would catch nothing but ridicule from Alaska's Democrats. It was not going to be pretty.
If Palin wants to play on the national field, she has to be free to move around. She has to be able to drop into Indiana, Ohio or Tennessee and help Republican candidates raise money. She has to be available for radio and TV.
She has to be like Gavin Newsom, free to roam around the country, safe in the knowledge that things will pretty much take care of themselves back home.
…
The pundits call her a quitter, but let's be honest – the pundits never liked her to begin with. Better to take one hit for stepping down and move on than to stay in Alaska and die a death by a thousand cuts.
Governor or not, Palin is still the biggest star in the Republican galaxy. After all, who else have they got?
Over at Conservatives4Palin, commenter Nancy put tongue firmly in cheek and posted this news update:
Thousands of people are lined up on the Golden Gate Bridge threatening to jump. The scene is described as chaotic, with the crowd 5 deep, jostling each other to get to the edge. It is reported that the words "Governor Palin" and "political genius", were in a sentence together, and that is what has sent this entirely lefty crowd, literally to the edge.
Authorities have brought in giant big screen tv's, playing a loop of President Obama's speeches, handing out cups of kookaid, and saying soothingly, "unicorn".
Footage from news helicopters shows the crowd dispersing, and tragedy has been diverted, because of the quick thinking of police. No one actually jumped.
Ethics complaints are going to be filed against Governor Palin, by the thousands though.
Unicorn?
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: palin, politics | 1 Comment »
Posted by Richard on October 31, 2008
Last night, ABC's Nightline featured another attempt to smear Gov. Sarah Palin. But I think they made a strategic mistake. They interspersed their reports of purported anonymous McCain campaign insiders purportedly criticizing Palin for going "off the reservation" in recent appearances with actual footage of Palin speaking at those appearances.
I thought she was great in those clips and cheered what she said. I suspect I'm not the only one who had that reaction.
If the McCain-Palin campaign emerges victorious (which the less-rigged polls suggest is a real possibility), I think much of the credit belongs to Sarah Palin.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: elections, mccain, media bias, palin, politics | 6 Comments »
Posted by Richard on October 30, 2008
I just saw Ben Stein interviewed by Craig Ferguson on the Late Late Show. He praised McCain effusively, but said his first impression of Sarah Palin, upon meeting her prior to some local talk show, was that she must be a hooker promoting a sex book.
Ben Stein is a conservative whose most recent claim to fame is a ridiculous documentary film promoting the anti-science, anti-reason "creation science" against the theory of evolution.
His dissing of Palin echoes what other members of the "intelligentsia," right and left, have said.
Apparently, the New York / Washington / Hollywood "intelligentsia" simply can't take seriously a woman who just happens to be cute or pretty.
It seems to me that that's the worst kind of sexism.
But apparently, NOW doesn't care.
Disgusting.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: hypocrisy, palin, sexism | 4 Comments »