I disagree. There are times in personal relationships where that IS what you need to do, but Republicans don't have any other mode when someone accuses them of something. They either "stay above the fray" and end up with the public assuming whatever they're accused of must be true, or they go on a preemptive apology tour, with even worse results. If conservatives never fight back when libs fight dirty, the libs have no disincentive to run it up the flagpole each and every time. They have nothing to lose.
FNC will rue the day they ditched the ones that 'brung 'em' to the dance.
Fox news is a joke. Its as unwatchable as msnbc.
RiNO hubris at work. (Or, in Sarah's case, perhaps Rovian betrayal.) This is how Slick, Beastwoman, Red Nancy Pelosi, and Rahm the Rent-Boy Animal were able to eat Karl Rove's and Dubya's lunch over Iraq and take the Congress away from them.
What the Yacht Clubbers see as steadfast, constant-as-the-Northern-Star taciturnity and self-possession, Sarah Palin correctly saw as their hybristic purblindness and a mortal threat to her reputation and political prospects. She responded correctly, we see now, and the new MSM/RiNO counter is the "silent treatment". By my recollection, that puts them on Plan B or Plan C for getting rid of her .... and thank God, that particular hopey-changey ain't workin' for them.