Saturday Morning Sarah Palin Open Thread

---

Ever have one of those wild nights? Well, right now I am having the hangover from one of those wild nights.

Enjoy Sarah’s speech. I’ll see you when the throbbing in my head stops.

---

What did YOU do last night?

---

Mama Grizzly is Loaded For Bear

---

The usual suspects are chanting “Palin is irrelevant! Palin is irrelevant!“

Maybe if they say it enough times it will come true.

---

Ben And Sarah Rock CPAC

---

Watch people who hate minorities and women enthusiastically applaud for a black man and a woman.

---

---

Vindication

---

Paul Krugman admits that Sarah Palin was right:

Eventually we do have a problem. That the population is getting older, health care costs are rising…there is this question of how we’re going to pay for the programs. The year 2025, the year 2030, something is going to have to give…. …. We’re going to need more revenue…Surely it will require some sort of middle class taxes as well.. We won’t be able to pay for the kind of government the society will want without some increase in taxes… on the middle class, maybe a value added tax…And we’re also going to have to make decisions about health care, doc pay for health care that has no demonstrated medical benefits . So the snarky version…which I shouldn’t even say because it will get me in trouble is death panels and sales taxes is how we do this.

---

Here’s the deal – we have to make some hard choices in the near future. We can offer everyone unlimited health care for life, but it will be very expensive. Or we can try to put some reasonable limits on coverage. The problem is defining “reasonable”.

Health care costs money. We can try to control costs, but we can’t make it free. We can let the poor go untreated or we can agree to cover the costs for the needy. We can pay for health care in premiums, or in taxes, or in cash. But we will still have to pay for it.

Socialized medicine and single payer spread the cost around based on ability to pay but they don’t necessarily control costs. To control costs we either have to limit how much we pay for services, limit what services we pay for, or both.

There are no magic solutions. Ronald Reagan said “There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers.” In this case there are no simple answers either.

---

BREAKING NEWS! – Sarah Palin Got Paid!

You Betcha!

---

From Eric Ostermeier at Smart Politics:

The Price of Palin: $15 per Word Spoken During FOX Contract

Sarah Palin uttered more than 189,000 words over 150 appearances on various FOX broadcasts during her three years as an analyst at the network, or $15.85 per word

With the three-year contract now expired between FOX News and Sarah Palin, there is a wealth of commentary made by the former Alaska Governor and GOP Vice-Presidential nominee to dissect.

Palin, who was paid a reported $1 million per year as a contributor to FOX since mid-January 2010 when FOX announced her signing, may not have made quite the splash her employers had hoped during this three-year period, and would, on occasion go weeks between appearances.

So, did the network get their money’s worth?

---

I dunno. What is the normal rate for on-air talent at FOX? The author doesn’t tell us. But I do know that Sarah was getting a pretty good rate for speechifying to various groups and organizations.

But wait! There’s more!

Here’s some hard-hitting investigative reporting:

And just what words were spoken among the 189,221 delivered by Palin during her three-year contract at FOX?

She only uttered her patented “you betcha” line twice as a FOX employee, and both during her first month as a paid analyst.

The first came on a January 28, 2010 appearance during On the Record and the other at the specific request of FOX News Sunday host Chris Wallace on February 7, 2010.

A slightly more common phrase Palin dropped was “Right on!” coming in at five mentions.

Palin discussed President Obama by name 786 times compared to just 41 mentions for her self-proclaimed favorite former president Ronald Reagan (as told to Gretchen Carlson) with 41 and Abraham Lincoln with three.

Religion was frequently peppered into Palin’s commentary and the former governor uttered “Amen” 111 times across her 151 appearances.

She also mentioned “God” 57 times, Christians and Christianity 16 times, Moses three times, and Jesus once.

This isn’t to say Palin didn’t occasionally dance with the devil – delivering the PG-13 “heck” 28 times, “darn” nine times, “hell” seven times, and “damn” twice.

Palin mentioned “Muslim” 13 times and “Islam” on six occasions.

---

Just when you think the Vile Progs can’t possibly get more insipid and inane, they go and prove you wrong. Whatever will they obsess over when she’s gone?

---

---

Sarah Palin Leaving Fox News

---

Sarah Palin Parts Ways With FOX News

After a three-year run as a paid contributor to the nation’s highest-rated cable news channel, Sarah Palin and FOX News have cut ties, according to a source close to the former Alaska governor.

“It’s my understanding that Gov. Palin was offered a contract by FOX, and she decided not to renew the arrangement,” the source close to Palin told RCP. “She remains focused on broadening her message of common-sense conservatism across the country and will be expanding her voice in the national discussion.”

The source declined to say whether Palin would pursue a television contract with another news network, such as CNN.

Bill Shine, Executive Vice President at FOX, subsequently issued a statement to the New York Times confirming the news, saying, “We have thoroughly enjoyed our association with Governor Palin. We wish her the best in her future endeavors.”

---

I seriously doubt that we’ve heard the last of Sarah Palin. Personally, I would like to see her run for the Senate. But even if she retires from the spotlight she has done pretty well for herself and her family in the last four years.

Meanwhile, the usual suspects are celebrating prematurely again.

---

They Just Can’t Quit Her

---

Breitbart:

Golden Globes: They’re Still Talking About Sarah Palin

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler did a short Palin skit tonight as they talked about the Golden Globe nominations for “Game Change.” Fey said, “I bet if the Governor were here she would say ‘You betcha!’”

---

Is there anything sadder than two aging hipsters trying desperately to cling to relevancy?

But wait! There’s more:

If there was a major award to be won for her role as Sarah Palin in the HBO movie “Game Change” — about Palin’s role in the 2008 presidential election — Julianne Moore has now officially won them all.

Moore won the Best Actress Golden Globe for Best Performance in a Miniseries or Television Film Sunday night, adding to a round-up of statues that includes the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie Emmy, and Best Movie/Miniseries Actress honors at the Critics’ Choice Television Awards, as well as a Best Miniseries or Television Film Golden Globe and Outstanding Miniseries or Movie Emmy for the film.

“This was one of my favorite jobs ever,” Moore said in her acceptance speech. “And I’d like to give a shout out to two people who I think made a significant difference in the 2008 election, Tina Fey and Katie Couric.”

In fact, “Game Change” — which debuted on HBO on March 10, 2012 — has been one of the biggest awards show success stories of the last year, winning a total of five Emmys and three Golden Globes for a movie that was based on a book of the same name by political journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann.

---

Funny, but I don’t see a People’s Choice Award on that list. As a matter of fact I don’t recall seeing the DVD for sale or rent anywhere. That’s probably because it didn’t do well in the Neilsen ratings. In other words, unlike Sarah Palin’s Alaska on NatGeo the movie was a commercial flop.

Sarah Palin ran for vice president in 2008. In 2009 she resigned. It’s now 2013.

Some people need to get a grip and get over themselves. Hollywood and the Lamestream Media are seriously out of touch with the rest of us.

---

---

Sarah Says “Go Rogue!”

---

Weakly Standard:

Palin to Romney-Ryan: ‘Go Rogue’

“With so much at stake in this election, both Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan should ‘go rogue’ and not hold back from telling the American people the true state of our economy and national security,” says Palin. “They need to continue to find ways to break through the filter of the liberal media to communicate their message of reform.”

Palin also suggests that Romney and Ryan can be responsible for an epiphany on this country’s fiscal standing. “America desperately needs to have a ‘come to Jesus’ moment in discussing our big dysfunctional, disconnected, and debt-ridden federal government,” says Palin.

“It is nothing short of appalling that President Obama couldn’t even remember how much our national debt is during his interview with David Letterman the other night. Even my 10-year-old daughter knows that it’s $16 trillion, and unlike Obama, she’s not responsible for adding trillions to it. Obama casually told America that we don’t have to worry about our debt in the ‘short term.’ Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan need to ask him how long that ‘short term’ will last.”

---

Well that would certainly be historic.

I’m torn here.

With all due respect to the former governor, it might be better to wait until after the election before they go hog wild with that honesty stuff. I’m all in favor of our politicians telling us the truth, but history shows that too much honesty can be hazardous to their careers.

I don’t mean they should lie to people. There’s just some things you don’t share on a first date.

---

RNC Open Thread – Paul Ryan’s Big Night

Paul Ryan gives his acceptance speech tonight. FOX cancelled Sarah Palin’s appearances. Clint Eastwood is rumored to be in Tampa.

What stupid shit will MSNBC pull tonight? What will everyone be talking about tomorrow?

Inquiring minds want to know.

---

Sarah Palin Overnight Thread

---

“The status quo has got to go!“

---

They should have listened to Sarah Palin

---

This is the kind of self-inflicted wound that makes you feel sorry for everyone who voted for him:

Republican Senate Nominee: Victims Of ‘Legitimate Rape’ Don’t Get Pregnant

Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican nominee for Senate in Missouri who is running against Sen. Claire McCaskill, justified his opposition to abortion rights even in case of rape with a claim that victims of “legitimate rape” have unnamed biological defenses that prevent pregnancy.

“First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV in an interview posted Sunday. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

Akin said that even in the worst-case scenario — when the supposed natural protections against unwanted pregnancy fail — abortion should still not be a legal option for the rape victim.

---

Two weeks ago Sarah Palin was stumping around Missouri on behalf of Sarah Steelman. Todd Akin won the GOP nomination and will face Claire McCaskill in November.

I bet the voters would like a do-over right about now.

---

Sarah ♥ R&R

Congratulations to Mitt Romney on his choice of Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate. President Obama has declared that this election is about “two fundamentally different visions” for America. Goodness, he’s got that right. Our country cannot afford four more years of Barack Obama’s fundamentally flawed vision. We must now look to this new team, the Romney/Ryan ticket, to provide an alternate vision of an America that is fiscally responsible, strong, and prosperous – an America that understands and is proud of her exceptional place in the world and will respect those who fight to secure that exceptionalism, which includes keeping our promises to our veterans.

She shoulda been wearing heels, hose and a dress

---

Diana Reese in WaPo:

When Palin took to the makeshift stage in the middle of a Missouri farm field, she was dressed more for the part of Hollywood celebrity than serious politician. I know someone’s going to remind me that just last week, I said it was sexist to focus on the wardrobes of women in politics.

But it was hard for me to take Palin seriously dressed as she was.

First, her shoes: Five-inch wedges. Her black capris weren’t quite skin-tight but tight enough, and her t-shirt with its Superman logo (a Steelman campaign shirt emblazoned with “Our freedom. Our fight.”) emphasized her figure. She never once removed her oversized sunglasses.

I’m sorry, but I’d like my minister, my doctor and yes, my politicians, to look and dress for their parts.

---

Even when they know they’re wrong they still can’t help themselves. This wasn’t exactly a formal event:

Palin was in the Kansas City area to campaign for Sarah Steelman, who’s in a tight three-way race in Tuesday’s Republican primary for Missouri’s U.S. Senate seat. The winner will face Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) in November.

The Steelman Surge BBQ and Picnic featured speeches by Steelman and Palin, followed with Kansas City barbecue served up by the two women to a crowd estimated at 500 or more, many of whom waited an hour or longer.

---

What would you wear to a BBQ? A tuxedo? A hoop skirt and petticoats? It was casual Friday fer Christ’s sake.

One of these days the media is gonna figure out that Sarah is not gonna play by their rules.

Tune in later to see if Sarah goes 5-0 with her endorsements this year.

---

---

Another Palin goes Hollywood

---

Obot heads will be exploding:

Sarah Palin in awe of husband Todd’s feats on ‘Stars Earn Stripes’

Sarah Palin said politics can be “pretty brutal,” but not as brutal as what her husband, Todd, and the rest of the cast endured in NBC’s upcoming competition show, “Stars Earn Stripes.”

“I don’t think physically I would be able to handle what they’ve gone through,” said Palin, adding that she’d “have to be doing a whole lot of pushups” to prepare for the show.

“It will blow you guys away when you see what they do,” she said. “I … was witness to the bumps and bruises at the end of some of the days.”

[...]

In “Stars Earn Stripes,” Todd Palin is one of eight stars paired with members of the military or first-responder forces to compete in challenges inspired by actual military exercises. Hosted by Gen. Wesley Clark, the show premieres Aug. 13.

Besides Todd Palin, other cast members include boxing champ Laila Ali, actor Dean Cain, actor and ex-NFL player Terry Crews, singer Nick Lachey (the former Mr. Jessica Simpson), “The Biggest Loser” trainer Dolvett Quince, Olympic gold medalist Picabo Street and professional wrestler Eve Torres. Teams compete for a cash prize they donate to a military, veteran or first-responder charity.

Sarah Palin said Todd, a four-time Iron Dog snowmobile race champion, is well-suited for the competition because he’s “calm, cool and collected all the time.”

---

I would totally go gay for Todd Palin, but only if we were in prison or something. As Sarah once said, “Divorce Todd? Have you SEEN Todd? I may be just a renegade Hockey Mom, but I’m not blind!“

This is an open thread.

---

---

No news here

---

McCain: Palin was ‘better candidate’ than Romney

Mitt Romney’s tax returns had nothing to do with Sen. John McCain’s decision to choose Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008, according to the Arizona Republican, saying he chose the former Alaska governor because she was a “better candidate.”

McCain received more than two decades worth of Romney’s tax returns as the former Massachusetts governor was undergoing the vetting process four years ago, far more than Romney has released publicly in the 2012 campaign. Democrats have questioned whether McCain saw something untoward in those tax returns and decided to choose Palin instead.

But on Tuesday, McCain flatly rejected that assertion and grew angry at questions over his decision to choose Palin over Romney.

“Of course not,” McCain told POLITICO when asked if the contents of Romney’s tax returns disqualified him from the selection process. “I don’t know what depths these people won’t reach. Obviously, it’s just outrageous. That’s just outrageous. It shows the – it’s so disgraceful for them to allege something that they have absolutely no knowledge of.”

Asked why he chose not to go with Romney, McCain said: “Oh come on, because we thought that Sarah Palin was the better candidate. Why did we not take [Tim] Pawlenty, why did we not take any of the other 10 other people. Why didn’t I? Because we had a better candidate, the same way with all the others. … Come on, why? That’s a stupid question.”

---

This is how you keep churning a story. There is no news here.

It’s also how the media tries to start fights between allies. Now they will be asking Sarah and Mitt for comments, then they’ll go back to McCain. Then the gasbags will bloviate about it.

LOOK! Over there! Shiny!

---

Tell us something we don’t already know

---

University of Wisconsin-Madison:

Study shows Palin treated differently by media as vice presidential candidate than Biden

The 2008 presidential race was one of the most watched, discussed and analyzed campaigns in U.S. history, and when it came to the vice presidential candidates, voters heard a great deal about Sarah Palin.

Much more, in fact, than they heard about her opponent, Joe Biden.

News coverage of Palin, then the Republican governor of Alaska, not only significantly outweighed that received by Biden, then a U.S. senator from Delaware, was markedly different in substance and across media, according to a new study of media coverage of the vice presidential candidates.

Coverage of Palin was more likely to include references to her family, physical appearance and social issues, particularly in newspapers and by political blogs, while coverage of Biden dealt more with foreign policy and the economy.

---

Actually, Sarah Palin got more negative coverage than Joe Biden, John McCain and Barack Obama combined. Those last couple of months you would have thought it was Palin-McCain, not McCain-Palin.

But it is nice to see that somebody finally got around to confirming what we already knew.

---

Sarah Palin in Sin City

---

What happens in Vegas gets posted on YouTube

---

Anatomy of a smear campaign

---

When we last heard from Sarah Palin she was anointing state Treasurer Richard Mourdock over incumbent Senator Dick Lugar in Indiana’s GOP Senate primary that is being held today. In March Lugar had a comfortable lead. When Sarah gave Mourdock her blessing via Facebook two weeks ago it was a close race. More recent polls show Mourdock is now 10 points ahead.

Whether you like her or despise her you have to admit she makes an impact. But to hear some people tell it she’s the worst thing since New Coke:

Media and Permanent Political Class Attempt to Rewrite 2008 Election

Winston Churchill said “history is written by the victors.” But too often in politics, where professional tacticians want to preserve their permanent paychecks by deflecting their mistakes onto everyone but themselves, losers often desperately attempt to re-write history.

And that is exactly what GOP establishment operatives, aided and abetted by members of the mainstream media who want to preserve access to them, are now doing to the history of the 2008 presidential campaign, as they attempt to blame Palin–and, by association, non-establishment grassroots conservatives–for their own professional malpractice during that campaign.

[...]

The implication is that McCain lost the 2008 election because of Palin–that Palin was not qualified to be president and had no record of accomplishments. That narrative might help the résumés of the McCain handlers who mismanaged her, most notably Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace. However, it ignores certain key facts, such as how Palin enabled McCain to temporarily take the lead in the 2008 campaign, Palin’s record of reform as Alaska’s governor, and Steve Schmidt’s mismanagement of the McCain campaign — especially his failure and/or refusal to fully vet candidate Obama.

[...]

So how did this impression turn into its current establishment consensus?

[...]

POLITICO reported on a memo, “Shield Steve Schmidt From McCain Blame,” put together in the waning days of the 2008 presidential campaign by associates of Schmidt to absolve him of campaign mismanagement. The memo lays out a strategy to shape conventional wisdom by targeting mainstream journalists and Republican talking heads and to blitz the media landscape with friendly talking points that would make it seem like even Ronald Reagan could not have won in 2008.

The obvious purpose was to absolve the professional operatives of all blame, allowing them to get hired again and sell their “snake oil” magic to the next politician. The quid pro quo was simple: we give you exclusive “gossip” and minutiae and you get exclusive reporting and access.

---

It’s a longish article and fairly detailed. I’m not going to republish it here but it lays out a persuasive case against Steve Schmidt and his cronies. I recommend you read it. It does kind of skip over the role of Karl Rove and the GOP Establishment. They hate Sarah Palin almost as much as the Obots do and for good reason – she is a threat to them and their schemes.

I always get a kick out of the meme that Sarah Palin cost John McCain the election. If it were true it would mean that but for his decision to pick her as his VP nominee, McCain would have won. That idea is absurd.

It was pretty clear at least as far back as November 2006 that the Democrats were going to retake the White House in 2008. John McCain has never been popular with the GOP Establishment. He was allowed to win the nomination only because someone had to “take one for the team.”

Do you think that Wall Street would have spent millions in 2007 to jump-start Barack Obama’s campaign if it looked like the GOP had a chance to win? The decided that if a Democrat was going to win, they would pick the Democrat. That investment paid off very well for them.

In the six months leading up to the election, John McCain led in the polling for only two weeks. Those two weeks were the ones immediately following the GOP convention where Sarah Palin was the star. During the general campaign Sarah drew bigger, more energized crowds than McCain could muster. One of the reasons that Mitt Romney would never pick her as his running mate is that she would upstage him no matter what she did. She’s the “it” girl.

I do have to object to one thing in the article. It is ironic that an essay intended to set the record straight makes such a glaring factual error:

On June 3, 2008, when the general election campaign essentially began, then-Senator Obama would speak in Minnesota while McCain would speak in Louisiana. On that day, Obama won enough delegates to officially become the Democratic nominee, after a long slog of a primary against Hillary Clinton, and he could finally pivot toward the general election.

---

On June 3, 2008 neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama had won enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee. Hillary had more votes, but thanks to the Rules and Bylaws Committee decision on May 31st Obama had a slight lead in pledged delegates. It was the super delegates that chose Obama as the nominee. Let me repeat that:

IT WAS THE SUPER DELEGATES THAT CHOSE OBAMA AS THE NOMINEE!

---

(Never forget, never forgive.)

Speaking of Hillary:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday she has no desire to make another run for the White House but hopes to see an American woman president in her lifetime.

{{sigh}}

---

Dragon Lady Open Thread

---

She still lives rent-free inside their heads.

---

Scary Sarah

---

Using religion as a hook

---

The Other McCain:

As you can see, Bashir calls Romney “Mitt the Mendacious” three times. The crudeness of Bashir’s rhetorical method is enough to make Allahpundit pine for “the relative subtlety and understated good taste of Keith Olbermann.” Bashir also reminds MSNBC viewers that on Wednesday, he interviewed Pastor Robert Jeffress, the Southern Baptist who endorsed Romney despite Jeffress’s continued insistence that Mormonism is a heretical cult.

What Bashir is doing is something I explained two weeks ago: Using evangelicals as a “hook” to bring up Romney’s Mormonism. This is a familiar theme that mainstream reporters have been working on ever since the 2008 campaign. The supposed anti-Mormon prejudices of evangelical Christians that were much talked about in terms of Romney’s difficulties in GOP primaries will now be reinterpreted as an excuse to talk about Mitt’s Mormonism for the general election campaign.

It’s a great two-birds-with-one-stone-stone trick for liberals: “Look how bigoted these holy rollers are and — hey, by the way — did you notice that Romney’s religion is kinda weird and has a history of polygamy, violence and racism? Also, coming up next, we have an exclusive interview with an ex-Mormon woman who has written a book that says the church is horribly sexist . . .”

---

The Other McCain is a flaming wingnut so take what he says with a grain of salt, but he has a valid point. When was the last time you saw a bloviating gasbag quoting the Bible to compare a professed Christian politician’s actions or statements to his/her religious beliefs?

Obama supporters claim they are just pointing out hypocrisy, but in 2008 it was considered taboo (and racist) to ask Obama about his religion or the sermons of his spiritual mentor, but it was open season as far as speculating on Sarah Palin’s religious beliefs and her alleged connection to Dominionism and a shadowy cult called “Joel’s Army.

---