Noonan to Palin: Reagan was a Great Man and You are a Nincompoop

Sarah Palin at a recent 2010 midterm election campaign event.

Conservative columnist and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan doesn’t like people demeaning the Gipper’s legacy, not even Sarah Palin, and not even if she’s only talking about the former president’s Hollywood career.

She writes in her latest column of a recent incident in which Sarah Palin attempted to explain away a Karl Rove criticism over her “reality show” by drawing parallels to former president Ronald Reagan’s silver screen career, including his roles in movies such as “Bedtime for Bonzo, bozo or something”:

… “Conservatives talked a lot about Ronald Reagan this year, but they have to take him more to heart, because his example here is a guide. All this seemed lost last week on Sarah Palin, who called him, on Fox, “an actor.” She was defending her form of political celebrity—reality show, “Dancing With the Stars,” etc. This is how she did it: “Wasn’t Ronald Reagan an actor? Wasn’t he in ‘Bedtime for Bonzo,’ Bozo, something? Ronald Reagan was an actor.”

Excuse me, but this was ignorant even for Mrs. Palin. Reagan people quietly flipped their lids, but I’ll voice their consternation to make a larger point. Ronald Reagan was an artist who willed himself into leadership as president of a major American labor union (Screen Actors Guild, seven terms, 1947-59.) He led that union successfully through major upheavals (the Hollywood communist wars, labor-management struggles); discovered and honed his ability to speak persuasively by talking to workers on the line at General Electric for eight years; was elected to and completed two full terms as governor of California; challenged and almost unseated an incumbent president of his own party; and went on to popularize modern conservative political philosophy without the help of a conservative infrastructure. Then he was elected president.

The point is not “He was a great man and you are a nincompoop,” though that is true. The point is that Reagan’s career is a guide, not only for the tea party but for all in politics. He brought his fully mature, fully seasoned self into politics with him. He wasn’t in search of a life when he ran for office, and he wasn’t in search of fame; he’d already lived a life, he was already well known, he’d accomplished things in the world.

Here is an old tradition badly in need of return: You have to earn your way into politics. You should go have a life, build a string of accomplishments, then enter public service. And you need actual talent: You have to be able to bring people in and along. You can’t just bully them, you can’t just assert and taunt, you have to be able to persuade.

Americans don’t want, as their representatives, people who seem empty or crazy. They’ll vote no on that.

It’s not just the message, it’s the messenger.”

Vanity Fair Discovers Sarah Palin is Loud and Secretive

Excellent detailed piece on Sarah Palin by journalist Michael Joseph Gross in the October 2010 issue of Vanity Fair …

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Sarah Palin: The Sound and the Fury

Former Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin speaks at the "Restoring Honor" rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on August 28, 2010.

Even as Sarah Palin’s public voice grows louder, she has become increasingly secretive, walling herself off from old friends and associates, and attempting to enforce silence from those around her. Following the former Alaska governor’s road show, the author delves into the surreal new world Palin now inhabits—a place of fear, anger, and illusion, which has swallowed up the engaging, small-town hockey mom and her family—and the sadness she has left in her wake.

Palin’s 20 House Democrats Targets Use Her As A Fundraising Ploy

Sarah Palin Targets House Democrats

With a critical fundraising deadline approaching on Wednesday evening, a host of congressional candidates in tight races are trying to draw Sarah Palin into the race. And not just Republicans.

At least four different House Democrats, who have been specifically targeted by Palin for their health care reform votes, sent out fundraising appeals on Wednesday using the former Alaska governor to solicit donations.

Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL.), in a tough race in Florida, emailed supporters the following under the title, “Help Send Sarah Palin a Message”:

Tea Party Hysteria Rooted in Racism

Tea Partiers & Birthers continue to claim their Tea Party movement is not based on racism, dispute all the evidence to the contrary.

I was going to open this piece with an analogy about the tea party groups and why they’re treated seriously by the press and the Republicans. The analogy would go something like: “Imagine [insert left-wing activist group here] getting a serious profile in a mainstream newspaper, and imagine serious Democratic politicians appearing at their convention.”

The problem is, when I really evaluated what the various far-left activist groups are all about and compared them with the tea party movement, there really wasn’t any equivalency. At all.

Because when you strip away all of the rage, all of the nonsensical loud noises and all of the contradictions, all that’s left is race. The tea party is almost entirely about race, and there’s no comparative group on the left that’s similarly motivated by bigotry, ignorance and racial hatred.

I hasten to note that I’m taking about real racism, insofar as it’s impossible for the majority race — the 70 percent white majority — to be on the receiving end of racism. That is unless white males, for example, are suddenly an oppressed racial demographic. But judging by the racial composition of, say, the Senate or AM talk radio or the cast members playing the Obamas on SNL, I don’t think white people have anything to worry about.

This isn’t an epiphany by any stretch. From the beginning, with their witch doctor imagery, watermelon agitprop and Curious George effigies, the wingnut right has been dying to blurt out, as Lee Atwater famously said, “nigger, nigger, nigger!”

But they can’t.

Strike that. Correction. TeaParty.org founder Dale Robertson brandished a sign with the (misspelled) word “niggar.” So they’re not even as restrained as the generally unstrung Atwater anymore.

‘Family Guy’ Actress Andrea Fay Friedman Says Sarah Palin ‘Does Not Have a Sense of Humor’

Andrea Fay Friedman, who has Down syndrome, was a voice actor in a recent episode of “Family Guy” criticized by Sarah Palin.

Andrea Fay Friedman, the voice actress who played the role of “Ellen” –the character depicted as having Down syndrome on the Valentine’s Day episode of Family Guy, has responded to the criticism of sometime-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Of special significance, Friedman herself has Down syndrome. Palingates has Friedman’s complete response:

My name is Andrea Fay Friedman. I was born with Down syndrome. I played the role of Ellen on the “Extra Large Medium” episode of Family Guy that was broadcast on Valentine’s day. Although they gave me red hair on the show, I am really a blonde. I also wore a red wig for my role in ” Smudge” but I was a blonde in “Life Goes On”. I guess former Governor Palin does not have a sense of humor. I thought the line “I am the daughter of the former governor of Alaska” was very funny. I think the word is “sarcasm”.

In my family we think laughing is good. My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life. My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes.

I have to say, that’s a pretty good burn.

Palin’s Cunning Sleight of Hand

Sarah Palin’s Sleight of Hand

Liberals had a blast mocking Sarah Palin last weekend when she was caught addressing the Tea Party Convention with a cheat sheet scrawled on her hand. Even the president’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, couldn’t resist getting into the act and treated a White House briefing to a Palin hand gag of his own.

Yet the laughter rang hollow. You had to wonder if Palin, who is nothing if not cunning, had sprung a trap. She knows all too well that the more the so-called elites lampoon her, the more she cements her cred with the third of the country that is her base. Her hand hieroglyphics may not have been speaking aids but bait.

If so, mission accomplished. Her sleight of hand gave the anti-Palin chorus another prod to deride her as an empty-headed, subliterate clown, and her fans another cue to rally. The only problem is that the serious import of Palin’s overriding political message got lost in this distracting sideshow. That message has the power to upend the Obama presidency — even if Palin, with her record-low approval ratings, never gets anywhere near the White House.

The Palin shtick has now become the Republican catechism, parroted by every party leader in Washington. Their constant refrain, delivered with cynicism but not irony, is this: Republicans are the anti-big-government, anti-stimulus, anti-Wall Street, pro-Tea Party tribunes of the common folk. “This is about the people,” as Palin repeatedly put it last weekend while pocketing $100,000 of the Tea Partiers’ money.

Sarah Palin Could Win The 2012 GOP Presidential Nomination

A First Look at Palin’s Primary Math

by Nate Silver @ FiveThirtyEight.com

If Sarah Palin runs for the Republican nomination in 2012 — and I’ve been on record for some time as predicting that she will — what are likely to be her best and worst states? And how do these strengths and weaknesses square with the Republican primary calendar? And what about the other likely candidates?

The first, very, very important thing to notice is that the Republican primary calendar will be different in 2012 than it was two years ago. Although this could change as states jockey for position and rules are amended, for the time being the Republicans have divided the states into five groupings as seen below:

MSNBC Chris Matthews: Sarah Palin’s a “Frightening, Empty Vessel, Nothing Going on Mentally” (Video)

MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews forcefully ripped into Sarah Palin’s advice that President Obama could “declare war on Iran” to improve his re-election chances, repeatedly calling her “frightening” and claiming she’s “an empty vessel” with “nothing going on mentally.”

Palin told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday that if Obama “played the war card” in that manner it “changes the dynamics in what we can assume is going to happen between now and three years.”

“She’s frightening. Mark, that is frightening stuff. Frightening,” Matthews said Tuesday on his show Hardball. “First of all, president don’t declare war. Anybody knows that in high school. Congress has to declare war. To declare war on Iran, I don’t think the most far right, Middle East hawk will talk about declaring war on Iran, a country with 70-some million people, with an advanced air force.

Sarah Palin: Faux Populist

The crib notes in questions on the palm of Sarah Palin's hand.

So, you think Sarah Palin is embarrassed by the crib-notes-on-the-palm incident?

You’re kidding, right?

This woman, like national candidates of both parties, doesn’t draw a breath without a team of political and image consultants vetting her choices. Wardrobe, hair, make-up, speaking style, text, context. This woman hasn’t moved a muscle spontaneously since she was selected as McCain’s running mate.

Palin Reads Palm for America’s Future at Tea Party Convention (Video)

The following is an exclusive posted today on the Huffington Post:

Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin addresses attendees at the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Saturday, Feb. 6, 2010 with talking points for what appears to be the Questions & Answer session clearly written on the palm of her left hand.

Closer inspection of a photo of Sarah Palin, during a speech in which she mocked President Obama for his use of a teleprompter, reveals several notes written on her left hand. The words “Energy”, “Tax” and “Lift American Spirits” are clearly visible. There’s also what appears to read as “Budget cuts” with the word Budget crossed out.

Closeup photo of Sarah Palin's left hand, complete with notes.