Palin’s Critics … Debunked

Sarah Palin, the Republican’s 2008 VP nominee, underwent a trial by fire after being chosen by John McCain as his Vice Presidential running mate in August (I’ve written before about my support of her nomination.) The Democrats, lead by their publicity arm (the MSM). pummeled her unceasingly throughout the remainder of the race.

There is nothing new in such behavior; political races have engendered animosity and attacks since … probably the first humans organized the ownership of their caves.  Partisan efforts to demean their opponents is as old as dirt. The main thing that changed in this race is the main stream media’s blatant bias for Obama’s candidacy.

Really there is nothing new in their actions. They have been developing their skills since their self-proclaimed crowing achievement … the end of the Vietnam war and America’s first defeat in a foreign war.They honed their skills, following the likes of Castro, Mao, even Joseph  Gobbels (in a speech  on 9 January ,1928 to an audience of party members at the so-called “Hochschule für Politik”, a series of training talks for Nazi party members in Berlin):

Success is the important thing. Propaganda is not a matter for average minds, but rather a matter for practitioners. It is not supposed to be lovely or theoretically correct. I do not care if I give wonderful, aesthetically elegant speeches, or speak so that women cry. The point of a political speech is to persuade people of what we think right. I speak differently in the provinces than I do in Berlin, and when I speak in Bayreuth, I say different things than I say in the Pharus Hall. That is a matter of practice, not of theory. We do not want to be a movement of a few straw brains, but rather a movement that can conquer the broad masses. Propaganda should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. It is not the task of propaganda to discover intellectual truths.

The traditional maxim is “if you repeat a lie often enough, people accept as fact” …

“Palin is a joke candidate only on the ticket as a sop to pro-lifers. End of story.” Frank Schaeffer, the Huffington Post

“Sorry if you’re republican, but I get embarrassed [sic] when I watch Sarah Palin.” The John Stewart Show

I could go on, but do your own damn search

What transpired before the election was expected, though I started getting miffed by Republicans clamoring for attacks on Palin to stop. MSM attacks on her were actually rallying cries for those of us supporting her … the more vile the attack … the greater our support for her.

I could also understand the negative picture of her by several “staunch Republicans.” Some never were (at least in my mind) Republicans (i.e. Christopher Hitchens). Some were just plain snippy, such as Peggy Noonan and Kathleen Parker (I read both columnists regularly and almost always enjoy their viewpoint, so I was very disappointed by their vitriol against Palin … was it just jealousy’s ugly head showing itself?). Other conservatives were not supportive of her nomination from early on, as written about here and here.

What really surprised me was the vile attacks on her by so-called ‘Republicans’ after the election! Anonymous ‘leaks’ from McCain staffers have painted a picture of a woman that didn’t know, for instance, there were individual states on the African continent! Outlandish pronouncement became even more outlandish … and petty:

Newsweek also reported that Palin may have spent “tens of thousands” of dollars more on wardrobe expenses than the $150,000 that was reported in the days before Election Day. The money allegedly went toward clothes for her and her family from high-end stores, even though she was originally told to buy just three suits and hire a stylist for the Republican National Convention.

One aide called the spree “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” according to the magazine. Palin also reportedly asked to speak at McCain’s concession speech Tuesday, and was denied.

First … why would the McCain staff lash out at someone in their charge for the last two-pulse months of the campaign, and second, why is every single statement by those staff members front page news?

To the first:

“McCain and Palin lost the election! Finished second! Bad news! Somebody’s to blame! Where can the blame for the loss be placed? How about that dumb, hick outsider? After all, we Washington campaign  insiders have to protect our positions for the next election cycle in two years!”

It’s called CYA. The only difference is that we get to see it on the front page of our newspaper (actually I haven’t subscribed to a newspaper in years … how about on our browser when we pull up Fox News) or in glorious color on our 1080p as we tune in to CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, CBS, ABC, CBS. This is nothing more than small people trying to shift the blame of their failure to someone they never respected from the get-go! This is also an issue that is core to the problems haunting the Republican party, and I’ll post more on this soon.

On the second point:

The MSM has been perfecting the art of targeted personal destruction for years. As mentioned earlier, if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes a fact. “Bush lied.” … “America is a racist society.” …”Bush is the stupidest President in history.” I was sucked in by this tactic years ago when the MSM pilloried Dan Quail, George H. W. Bush’s VP.  Dan Quail was no more or less of an intellect than any other national politician on either side of the aisle (with the possible exception of Newt Gingrich, the brightest thinker to have passed through Washington for the past three decades). However, if every gaff is the lead story on the six o’clock news and repeated in every major newspaper across the country, you eventually begin to look pretty stupid. Especially when there is never a similar story on the gaffs made by a Democrat politician.

Sarah Palin, along with the likes of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, are people we conservatives will be looking to for leadership over the next several years. What is important is our need to learn how to better counter the personal attacks perpetrated by the MSM and denounce those in our own party when they adopt the slimeball tactics of the Liberia Left and the MSM … but then I repeat myself.

Related posts:

1. Sarah Palin …
2. Go Fred!!!!
3. Principles and the Big Tent
4. Overcoming the “Inevitable?”