Dark Star

It's bad enough that the media has been doing their level best to completely destroy Sarah Palin while giving free passes to Obama/Biden. But Now, sadly, it seems that Palin is being fitting for a bullseye from within the Republican party and even her own campaign.

The Corner on National Review Online

It sounds like she's a lot better off listening to her own advice. Compare and contrast:

Things have gotten so tense between Palin and her traveling staff, an insider said, that she's overruling their advice - which was evident last week when she ignored GOP aides piling into waiting cars at a Colorado event and strolled over to the press corps for an impromptu talk.

In speeches, Palin has contradicted her running mate's positions on issues, telling a Christian news outlet last week that she would support a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage, which McCain opposes.

Though McCain once said he considered Obama's relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to be an old issue, this month Palin said, "I don't know why that association isn't discussed more."

Palin also publicly stated that she thought it was a mistake for the campaign to give up on Michigan, and that she thought voters were annoyed by robocalls - which McCain uses extensively.

The last straw for the vice-presidential candidate was the raft of criticism from the $150,000 worth of high-end clothes the Republican National Committee bought her, a campaign source said.

Palin showed how much that gaffe got under her skin yesterday at a rally in Sioux City, Iowa, telling the crowd she'd stepped off the plane and donned a warm, cream-colored jacket.

"And it's my own jacket," she said.

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And it appears that Mitt Romney, Mr. Mormon Milktoast, is trying to damage Palin's momentum in setting himself up for a run in 2012.

The American Spectator: Post-Defeat Planners

Former Mitt Romney presidential campaign staffers, some of whom are currently working for Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin's bid for the White House, have been involved in spreading ant-Palin spin to reporters, seeking to diminish her standing after the election. "Sarah Palin is a lightweight, she won't be the first, not even the third, person people will think of when it comes to 2012," says one former Romney aide, now working for McCain-Palin. "The only serious candidate ready to challenge to lead the Republican Party is Mitt Romney. He's in charge on November 5th."

Romney has kept a low profile nationally since being denied the vice presidential nomination. He is currently traveling for the National Republican Congressional Committee in support of some House members, and has attended events for a handful of other House members who have sought his support, but he has traveled little for the McCain-Palin ticket. "He said the only time he'd travel for us is if we assured him that national cameras would be there," says a McCain campaign communications aide. "He's traveled to Nevada and a couple other states for us. That's about it."

Should McCain-Palin not win next week, Romney is expected to mount another presidential run, though it isn't clear that he has handled himself particularly well since losing the nomination. He failed to support or espouse conservative positions on the economic bailout bill in an effective or meaningful way, and he has turned down opportunities to endorse and work for conservative candidates in House or Senate seats unless they were assured of winning.

The most glaring oversight was Romney's refusal to do a phone recording for Massachusetts Republican Jeff Beatty, who is challenging Sen. John Kerry. "Mitt supposedly cares about Massachusetts, but won't even return phone calls asking for help," says a conservative working for Beatty in Boston. "It's a tough race, but the least he could do is help. He's showing his true colors."

Some former Romney aides were behind the recent leaks to media, including CNN, that Governor Sarah Palin was a "diva" and was going off message intentionally. The former and current Romney supporters further are pushing Romney supporters for key Republican jobs, including head of the Republican National Committee.

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To be blunt, if Obama wins and Mitt Romney is the best the GOP can do in 2012, we're dead again. Romney can't even come close to the electricity Plain generates with the base. He couldn't even beat McCain for the nomination and we know how reluctantly the base accepted the famous Maverick.

PJM asks is it all being drummed up a little too much? Or Maybe one of Palin's staffers is looking for a job in Romney's 2012 campaign:

The Rosett Report » CNN Slants the News on Palin, Sources Say

But for a prize specimen of hazily sourced trashing of Sarah Palin in particular, I am marveling right now at an article from the CNN web site, which — a joint labor of not one, not two, but three CNN reporters – has been getting enough attention to have popped up this evening on the main screen of google news.

The headline is “Palin’s ‘going rogue.’ McCain aide says.” Well hey, that sounds juicy.

But who is the “McCain aide” who is saying this? It turns out the aide quoted in the headline is never named. The article begins with the sweeping statement that with the election imminent, “long-brewing tensions between GOP vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin and key aides to Sen. John McCain have become so intense they are spilling out in public” – but according to whom? Well, apparently it’s not so public that anyone doing the spilling is willing to be named. So CNN wraps up that bold intro with: “Sources say.”

The next paragraph mentions “Several McCain advisers” — unnamed — “who have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide” — unnamed — “described as Palin ‘going rogue.’ ”

So the quote in the headline is from an unnamed source who is one of several unnamed advisers, rounding out a picture attributed to unnamed sources (plural).

It gets better. Briefly, there is “A Palin associate” — unnamed — offering a defense of Palin. Then the criticisms resume, with the article citing: “McCain sources” — unnnamed — “A Second McCain source” — unnnamed (and not clear if this second source is one of the previous plural McCain sources, or an independently consulted unnamed source). That ”second McCain source” is quoted for two full paragraphs, taking nasty swipes at Palin, but the source remains anonymous.

Then we get “A Palin associate” — unnnamed, and unclear if this is a second Palin associate, or the same one unnamed above — who is described as defending her, but the quote given to illustrate this defense is actually a criticism, describing Palin, as “not good at process questions” (according to this unnamed “associate,” who is further referred to only as “this Palin source”).

Then, at last, in connection with what is described as a defense of Palin, we do get a name — an actual name – that of Palin’s press secretary, Tracey Schmitt, who is also described here as having tried urgently to end an unscheduled session Palin had with the press. But there is no attribution for this information, and the only quote from Schmitt herself, which comes lower in the article is a statement she gave to traveling reporters that: “Unnamed sources with their own agenda will say what they want, but from Gov. Palin down, we have one agenda, and that’s to win on election day.”

After the mention of Schmitt, it’s back to the unnamed sources, this time by way of “a different Palin adviser” — unnnamed — who is quoted delivering yet more backhanded criticism of Palin (”We acknowledge that she should have been out there doing more,” etc).

Then a reference to a story on Politico, which mentioned by name two McCain advisers, Nicolle Wallace and Steve Schmidt, as having decided to limit Palin’s initial press contact to Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric, “which all McCain sources admit were highly damaging” — note, the “all McCain sources” here are all unnnamed.

CNN did get an email response on the record from one McCain source, Nicolle Wallace, “If people want to throw me under the bus, my personal belief is that the most honorable thing is to lie there.”

Then it’s back to “But two sources, one Palin associate and one McCain adviser” –both unnamed — “defended the decision to keep her press interaction limited… both saying that she was not ready and that the missteps could have been a lot worse.”

From there it’s on to “another McCain source with direct knowledge of the process…” — unnnamed. From this source, identified on second reference as “The source” — still unnnamed — comes another quote that takes a swipe at Palin.

There follows a brief account that “Yet another senior McCain adviser lamented the public recriminations.” And “this adviser” — who is, guess what? also unnamed — is then quoted as talking about “finger-pointing and scapegoating” in the campaign.

Finally, near the bottom of the article, we are handed the highly relevant information (but putting it higher in the story would have deflated the entire story) — that squabbles among aides are pretty normal: “Tensions like those within the McCain-Palin campaign are not unusual; vice-presidential candidates also have a history of butting heads with the top of the ticket.” (Then comes the lone paragraph mentioning that Joe Biden “has gone off the reservation as well” — though in this case there are apparently no sources, anonymous or otherwise, worth quoting to illustrate dissent in the Biden-Obama ranks).

But this comes only after about 20 paragraphs in which the slamming of Palin is done by ”sources” who cannot be challenged or further questioned, because they are anonymous. The article ends with some lines from a Democratic pollster, who — imagine this! — is quoted by name, Peter Hart, delivering one last swipe at Palin.

There are circumstances in which journalists may reasonably cite or even quote unnamed sources. And if campaign reporters are privy to squabbles among aides, that may well be an interesting story. But when a story amounts to a litany of swipes framed as quotes from nameless “sources,” there comes a point at which a line is crossed between news and rumor, between reporting and hype, between anonymous in-house gossip and “spilling out in public.” Is it Palin who’s going rogue here? Or CNN?

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My thought is it's jealousy. For all the shaping and grooming of other national GOP candidates, here is Sarah Palin, who, by virtue of being herself, has single-handedly kept McCain competitive, and excited the electorate.

The Corner on National Review Online

Here's an interesting piece on this somewhat, uh, painful topic from Gerard Baker of the London Times. Much of the article revolves around the way that Sarah Palin has become a focal point around which this debate rages. Baker reserves judgment on Gov. Palin herself, noting that:

It's hard to make a reasoned and fair judgment about the Alaska Governor because she has been the victim of one of the nastiest, most sustained and comprehensive slime-jobs ever performed by a hyper-partisan national and global media.

True enough on a number of levels. Baker then adds this:

Palinphobia is so shot through with condescension and ideological incomprehension on the media's part that trying to cut through to the reality of her political message is not easy.

Her performance on the campaign trail has been shaky, it's true, though it has significantly improved of late (she is now talking directly to reporters more frequently than any of the other candidates). But in the absence of much hard experience of national politics it does seem as though she and her Republican handlers fell back on the Sarah Palin Story as a substitute for a political argument.

This has harmed her and distorted what she could bring to a Republican Party in renewal. There's still a better story to be told about her record as politician in Alaska, where she has achieved more of substance than Barack Obama has in Washington.

As for the anti-intellectualism she seems to represent, this is a favourite old saw not only of the Left but also of the whole Establishment crowd. There's an unshakeable view among the coastal elites that real wisdom is acquired only by circulating between the ivy-encrusted walls of scholarship and the Manhattan and Hollywood cocktail set.

But there's real wisdom among those derided Americans who have never even ventured to the coasts, but whose steady consistent voice and values have been truly responsible for America's many successes.

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The saddest thing about all of this, I find myself reluctantly attached to a party that just might be stupid enough to do this to itself. We've already seen the weak strategy of "running to the middle" in the nomination of McCain, who, once nominated, has only found success when he moves to the Right. Obama has kept his popularity by backing off, distorting, and moving - at least rhetorically - away from his extremely liberal policies. McCain kept himself alive with the Palin announcement. It appears that the GOP, in the wake of an Obama defeat would learn the exact wrong lesson in thinking they didn't run "moderate enough". That's bad news. Run to the Right, and don't apologize for it. That's how we win.

If you think of everything, save the War on Terror, that Bush is hated for, it's from the "compassionate" end of "compassionate conservatism". If the GOP continues to water itself and it's values down with one moderate candidate after another, it will blend in with the Washington wallpaper.

UPDATE: John Hawkins at PJM is of like-mind, and he says it better than I do. Follow the link and read the whole thing. Important stuff.

Pajamas Media » The New Post-Election Narrative: ‘Blame Palin!’

Given our current situation, it’s deeply ironic that moderate Republicans spent the last few years completely ignoring conservative concerns and insisting that if only the ignorant right-wingers would listen to them, they’d create a majority that would last for 40 years.

First there was campaign finance reform, followed by the Medicare prescription drug program, No Child Left Behind, The Gang of 14, Harriet Miers, the Dubai port deal, illegal immigration, out-of-control earmarking, deficit spending, the bailout, and probably another half dozen additional disasters that I’m blocking out because they’re too painful to think about.

Then, after all of that, these RINOs helped to nominate John McCain, the least conservative GOP nominee since Richard Nixon. Only a few months later, many of those same people turned right around and supported his opponent, the most liberal Democratic nominee in American history.

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