Palin the Pushover?

by Lance Thompson

Media commentator and best-selling author Laura Ingraham, whom I admire, respect and ordinarily agree with, spoke with a Sarah Palin supporter on her Thursday radio show. Ingraham cooled the caller's enthusiasm by making the point that a Palin candidacy is what the left hopes for above all else, since Palin would presumably alienate the independents who are abandoning Obama in droves. This reasoning is faulty and self-defeating.

First, no one knows who can or will win any election. Democrats won the presidency last time with the least qualified candidate to seek the office in a century. Judging from the policies and legislation passed under Obama, Democrats seem completely mystified by economics, foreign policy, American culture and character. So what evidence is there that they can predict the behavior of an electorate suffering from massive government debt, debilitating unemployment, and four years of buyer's remorse? Other than those votes conjured from thin air by ACORN, the Democrats have no particular insight into who the electorate will choose. It is impossible to predict the GOP nominee, and how formidable a candidate he or she will be. The only probability is that Barack Obama will spend most of 2013 wondering where he went wrong.

Second, if Palin is such a pushover that liberals everywhere are salivating at a chance to compete against her, why have they been so public about their hopes? Why have they spent years attacking her in the media? If she were actually the candidate they prefer to face, wouldn't they keep their preferences to themselves, and passively support her candidacy? If the Dems are really anxious to see Obama face Palin in presidential debates, on the campaign trail, in the media, why have they done so much to make her candidacy difficult to achieve? Obviously, they don't want to face Palin. They are terrified of her because they know she will expose Barack Obama for the empty vessel he has always been.

Third, whether the opposition fears or dismisses Palin, why would we ever let the enemy’s stated preferences determine our candidate? Even if the Dems do have a crystal ball, how would we know if their views are legitimate or assumed? Will we choose all GOP candidates based on how much they are reviled, feared, or savaged by our enemies? Isn’t the whole point to choose candidates based on their views, track records and experience?

Fourth, does the Democrat claim that they are anxious to run a brutal campaign against Palin guarantee that they will sling any less mud against any other candidate? No matter who the GOP nominates, that person will face a hostile media, unscrupulous tactics, and mendacious advertising. Does anyone believe that the Democrats will meet a non-Palin candidacy with reserve, integrity, and fair dealing?

I believe Sarah Palin would be a strong, inspirational and galvanizing candidate. There may be good reasons not to nominate her, but the professed eagerness of the Democrats to run against her is not one of them. If Republicans believe another candidate will do better, they will make that choice during the primaries. And if Sarah Palin runs, and the GOP nominates her next fall, then we’ll see how eager the Democrats really are for a fight.

Palin's End Run

 

by Lance Thompson
 
The mainstream media have indignantly reported on Governor Sarah Palin’s barnstorming "One Nation" bus tour across the Eastern United States with sputtering speculation, crafty criticism, risible ridicule, and, as usual, insufficient insight. The reason for the media apoplexy is simple. Palin is the first potential national candidate to successfully demonstrate that today’s news organizations are yesterday’s news.
 
Mainstream media outlets ambushed, belittled, and lied about Palin during the last presidential campaign, and competed with each other to see who could do the best hatchet job on John McCain’s charismatic running mate. Not content to see their candidate win, media personalities have continued to ridicule Palin and pronounce her "unelectable" whenever an opportunity arises. Palin herself has said she owes nothing to the mainstream media, and is happy to conduct her life and her exploratory campaign without them.
 
Her Memorial Day entry into Washington with the bikers of the annual Rolling Thunder rally to honor veterans had the look, sound and feel of the liberation of an occupied city. Palin didn’t act like a conquering hero, but the triumphal imagery was unmistakable. Additionally, Palin showed again that she was comfortable with regular folks, looking more comfortable on the back of a Harley in a black t-shirt and leather than Obama ever will on one of his safety-helmeted bike rides through Rock Creek Park.
 
News outlets showed the images, but there were no interviews (other than with Fox News), no press conferences, no published itineraries. If you wanted to know what Palin had to say, you had to be there, go to her web site, or watch the Greta van Susteren one-on-one. Palin was a top story on most news outlets all weekend, even without granting audiences to their journalists. She used them expertly.
 
Once, it made sense that managing editors at a few news organizations would digest the events of the day or week, decide which were most important, and report on them in print or in half-hour dinnertime newscasts. But those days are over for two reasons.
 
First, we can choose from a myriad of news sources now, available online anytime. We can seek out digested news, annotated news, interviews, commentary, opinion, or debate. We can even get raw news, photos, video, or watch events unfold in real time. It is no longer necessary to allow some one else to decide what is news–we make that decision ourselves.

The middlemen of news have seen their importance shrink, just as have brick and mortar retail establishments. We can still go to the mall to shop for shoes, but we also know that the internet provides an endless array of styles, colors, and sizes that could never be offered in any store. The same is true of news. Information no longer needs to be filtered through the news brokers of the networks or print outlets or even online services. A witness to an important event can upload cell phone video onto a personal web site, social networking site, or some youtubular equivalent, and the whole world can see it immediately.
 
The second reason that news outlets are becoming obsolete is their own doing. They have demonstrated that they are not honest brokers of information. Once, they posed as impartial reporters of fact. But increasingly, media outlets openly demonstrate bias, follow partisan agendas, and even when a story is exposed as fiction, they will insist on its inherent truth. The media no longer enjoy the public’s trust.
 
Though many Americans understand this, political candidates still operate under the old system–that they must get their messages out through the media, or no one will listen. But Sarah Palin understands the new reality. She need not be interpreted, will not permit herself to be filtered, and certainly has no interest in offering herself up for ambush interviews. She’ll take her case directly to the American people. They may or may not like her message, but it’ll be unvarnished, real and direct from the candidate herself. Americans are ready for that.

Two Term or Not to Term

By Rose Pedenko and Tanya Simon 

Between President Nixon’s pressured resignation and Bill Clinton’s Pants on the Ground deliberate misstatements under oath, the word “impeach” was seldom used with legitimacy.  However, by mid-summer 2009 (six months after the inauguration of the man whose middle name rhymes with “pain”) “impeachment” has been Twittered, Googled, Facebooked, texted, and even “whispered” (surprisingly) by those with buyer’s remorse.  Twelve months later it is being shouted from America’s rooftops. 

Recently, Congressman Joe Sestak (D-PA), unwittingly provided a ray of hope in that someone in the Obama administration who has committed a crime – and if the president knew about it, analysts say it could be grounds for impeachment.  Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) is even saying this could be President Barack Obama’s Watergate.  This also means Joe Sestak is not the brightest Crayola in the box, but we digress. 

The very name Barack Hussein Obama is sending chills up and down the collective spine of Americans.  There are still those that scoff at the seemingly xenophobic vocalization of his middle name as being racist.  But Americans have quickly learned that being labeled a racist is part and parcel of this administration’s progressive as well as regressive tactics. 

The course this President has set is due to surrounding himself with ideological quacks and cons inside the administration and supported by dutiful drones like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid--all intent on steering the United States into a Marxist-lite firestorm.  It began with the GM takeover, under the guise of saving it from bankruptcy, and now, the BP oil spill may have provided the catastrophic event they were waiting for.  As Senator Bill Nelson suggests, "If this thing is not fixed today, I think the president doesn't have any choice, and he better go in, completely take over…."  And the latest push for Financial Reform may end up plugging up all the loose ends. 

They (Obama & Company) are masters of deflecting attention from one crisis to another to distract Americans long enough to cement their progressive agenda.  Perennial campaigning and near record-setting rounds of golf for a sitting President are their way of saying, “Keep your eye on the ball and you’ll forget all that other stuff.” 

Starting with the top dog and working downward, there are more fools and fruitcakes in charge than Nixon had plumbers, except this time they are (laughingly) referred to as czars, appointed by and answering only to the President.  Congress has, in effect, rendered itself inutile as it cedes and/or is robbed of its one-third checks and balances power.  Even a new Republican majority will be hard-pressed to reverse the current damage and what lies ahead when much of this administration’s agenda bears its rotten fruit. 

The current list of czars is only the tip of the iceberg.  Now comes Arif Alikhan and Kareem Shora, appointed to posts at the Department of Homeland Security by Janet Napolitano .  The announcements emphasized the words “devout Muslims.”  We cannot recall when any other U.S. government official was sworn in and the words “devout Catholic,” “devout Protestant,” “devout Jew” or “devout atheist” were added as a tagline.  The fact that Muslims – devout or otherwise – are included as integral parts in the security of this country is frightening.  What next, Tony Villaraigosa as Border Czar? 

Coincidentally, another member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council is Lee Hamilton, former Congressman and President of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.  From Socialist President Woodrow Wilson to Socialist President Woodrobama, Americans have never had more cause for grave concern. 

American culture is based in the ideology of freedom.  To say this administration, in concert with senators and congresspersons intoxicated with the idea of omnipotent power, has betrayed every trust sacred would be a gross understatement.  Our free enterprise system, and thus our liberty, are victims of a new Night and Fog-like Decree: where one by one, ownership of our intellectual property, business profits, and homes, are being abducted and shot down by a progressive agenda the masses do not even comprehend.  Day by day the murky pictures coming out of the White House become clearer as they continue to herd us over a financial cliff. 

And now, even the American media are taking a jaundiced view of the person upon whom they heaped unadulterated – and undeserved – praise, having hawked, peddled and schemed on his behalf, all of which brought him to the ultimate seat of power.  The liberal press has been slow to catch on that “transparency,” once a clever campaign gimmick, is now biting them where it hurts: access to their Chosen One.  Even the Huffington Post, sanctioned source of information that it has become, was surprised that Obama breached years of protocol by leaving White House without the press with him. Timely press conferences have been replaced with the Elmer Fudd-like blips and bloopers of White House Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs. 

Quoting CBS’s Chip Reid (regarding the drastic BP Oil spill): “…critics on Capitol Hill just weren’t buying what the White House was saying about the government’s role in all of this and whether they could do more.”  That’s a harsh statement from the network that cheapened their once powerhouse status. 

This President was swept into office by being the first campaign to effectively harness the power of the internet: to organize and rally the uneducated, and cajole the elites (the easiest to dupe) that real transformative change could take place.  Had the majority not been so awed by the oratorical smoke and mirrors, they might have realized the true intent.  The same internet, laden with first person proof of his radical agenda, will also, unfortunately for Barack Obama, be the powerful broom that sweeps him out of that office in 2012. 

Nothing in Moderation

by Lance Thompson

In the wake of the presidential election, some Republicans are recommending that the party should soften its views, back away from hard-line conservatism, and blur the differences between us and the Democrats. These people are called moderates, and the prescription they offer is deadly.

The Democrats did not win with a moderate candidate. Barack Obama was the nation’s most liberal Senator until he became the nation’s most liberal president. John McCain, on the other hand, was a moderate Republican, with a record of reaching across the aisle and favoring Democrat views on issues such as immigration, global warming, and tax cuts. This moderate candidate was clobbered by his immoderate opponent.

In response to the election, moderates will say that we must follow the trend, that Republicans should embrace the issues the Democrats won on. They encourage us to abandon conservative principles, evolve with the times, and adopt positions more in line with the Democrats, who scored many victories.

But we can never out-Democrat the Democrats. The closer the GOP gets to Democratic principles, the less reason there is for Republicans to exist. Why would a Democrat vote for a watered-down version of his own party? We will not only fail to woo Democrats with a slightly less-liberal version of their own platform, we will also alienate the ideological conservative core of our own party.

If liberals are right, and most of the nation subscribes to their principles of peace at any cost, of punishing success with high taxes and redistribution of income, of turning America into a nanny state where all people are dependent on the government for their needs, of opening our borders and legitimizing illegal aliens, of crippling industry as a sacrifice to the false faith of global warming, then conservatives are wrong and should retire from politics.

But if conservatives are right that freedom must be defended at all costs, that success is the well-earned reward of individual initiative, that government should be small and unobtrusive, that our borders must be secure and that immigrants must follow our laws, that global warming is a chimera whose remedies will cripple our economy, then why should we moderate our views at all?

If conservatives are right, what value is there in diluting our just cause? Would you trust a business partner who is moderately honest? Would you place your life in the hands of a moderately skillful surgeon? Would you be happy in a marriage to a moderately faithful spouse? Then what value is there in a moderately conservative candidate? To whatever extent he departs from conservative principles, he is to the same extent departing from the proper course.

Moderate Republicans have already diluted tough immigration laws, voted for the financial bailout bill, and blamed the failure of the incompetent McCain campaign on Sarah Palin--the most promising new conservative in a quarter of a century. How much more damage can they do to conservative principles if their views shape the future of the GOP?

Moderate candidates do not prevail. Voters don’t rally to the banners of moderate candidates. Moderate candidates are compromised in their principles by definition.

Moderate voters are equally uninspiring. These are the ones who aren’t interested in the campaign during the primaries, don’t focus on the issues until the last few weeks or even days of the campaign, and haven’t made up their minds until the last minute. Moderate voters don’t knock on doors, work the phone, send out e-mails and plant yard signs. Moderate voters do not contribute to campaigns or financially support candidates. Moderate voters are the casual observers at the fringe of the fight, with little invested in either outcome.

The reclamation of the GOP will not be accomplished by moderate candidates or constituents. The beacon for Republicans is not straddling a fence or sitting in the middle of the road. Our destination is defined by strong, unyielding conservative principles. There is no need to qualify our creed with labels such as "compassionate conservatism" or "new conservatism."

Much effort will be required to rebuild the Republican Party. That effort will only be rewarded if we start with a solid foundation. We must not build the future of our party on the shifting sands of moderation, but rather on the solid bedrock of conservative principle.

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