Free Republic

How could someone filled with such promise plunge so far, so fast? How does one go from national icon to national laughingstock? That’s exactly what has happened to Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee. Once arguably the GOP’s most charismatic celebrity, Palin is now better known for “thriving in this role of right wing shock jock” as Nicolle Wallace, a former senior adviser for the John McCain-Palin campaign, now puts it. It’s a far cry from Sept. 3, 2008, when Palin, then the largely unknown Alaska governor, confidently strode onto the stage at the Republican National Convention as...

MSNBC host Michael Eric Dyson on Wednesday lashed out at Sarah Palin, accusing the conservative of committing "treason" against Barack Obama by calling for the President´s impeachment. The guest host of the Ed Show first praised the President for "his tireless effort to help [illegal children who have crossed the border]." Dyson then fumed, "The President´s push towards positive and crucial change was met with treasonous accusations." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] During the last administration, however, Dyson called for the impeachment of George W. Bush. In a highly edited clip of Palin on Fox News, the Republican insisted,...

More than half of the country has a message for former Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin: enough. That's the result from a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Annenberg poll in which 54 percent of voters say they've heard enough from Palin and would prefer that she be less outspoken in political debates. That includes nearly two-thirds of Democrats, a majority of independents, and even nearly four-in-10 Republicans. And the results come as Palin has called for President Barack Obama's impeachment. (VIDEO-AT-LINK)But Palin isn't the only former politician voters wish would stay away from politics. Fifty-one percent of voters say they've heard...

Sometimes partisan media gets so caught up in political wing nut warfare that it can’t get its head out of its own @$$. Take Salon editor-at-large Joan Walsh, a liberal journalist who made fun of former VP hopeful Sarah Palin last night for listing a Salon story, along with several others, in a Facebook post. Palin was making a point that possible 2016 presidential contender Hillary Clinton‘s so-called brain illness is being looked into just like the media tore into her for a rumor suggesting that Trig wasn’t really her baby. She linked to a number of postings — some...

It's generally a waste of space to reference Sarah Palin, which is why she so rarely appears here. She long ago devolved into a cartoon, and her clout (such as it was) continues to wane. She's like the incoherently choleric aunt you see once a year at Thanksgiving. She's like the real-life version of Kristin Wiig's brain-addled Aunt Linda. But... (You knew there'd be a But.) But every great once in a while, John McCain's Hail Mary gift to America says something so scintillating that we'd be remiss to ignore it. Her remark earlier this week about the religious virtues...

Reader Richard sends this comment: I remember corresponding with you when John McCain tapped her as his choice for nominee for Vice-President. As a former Alaskan, I never saw her as the second coming, but like many people (and – I will quickly add – unlike many others)I found the potential story playing itself out of “Mrs. Palin Goes to Washington” to be very appealing. The person whom I had met a couple of times to spend time with in conversation (Alaska being a one-degree-of-separation state) was engaging, grounded, attentive to others and someone who had clearly and sincerely sought...

Somebody will do a Ph.D thesis in political science one day on the psychology of this stuff. Follow the link to hear the full clip. It’s delightful. (snip) Imagine the kind of conservative bubble in which the thought of Sarah Palin as a “serious political contender” is considered incontestable. Imagine the kind of conservative bubble in which holding a female who once ran for vice president of the United States responsible for something she said in a public speech is considered an act of sexism and disloyalty. To be clear, I’m not offended by this freakshow vulgarian in the least....

Link only: http://www.dailyiowan.com/2014/04/28/Metro/37707.html

It’s been no secret for a while that Sarah Palin, erstwhile vice-president candidate, is no longer a serious political contender — for evidence of that transition, note that even among her faithful, at CPAC this year, she got just 2 percent of the vote in the straw poll, tied with Condoleezza Rice. But as her crowd-pleasing performance in the very final speech of that event — and her lucrative contract with Fox News and huge social-media following — indicate, she’s gone from being a potential political leader to something of a cultural totem. That means her speeches have gone from...

INDIANAPOLIS — Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin fired up a crowd of thousands inside Lucas Oil Stadium Saturday night to kick off the National Rifle Association’s “Stand and Fight Rally,” saying Americans’ constitutional rights as envisioned by the founding fathers are under attack and policies like gun-free zones constitute “stupid on steroids.” “They knew that if the Second Amendment goes, the rest of the constitution is not far behind,” she said of the country’s founders. In her approximately 12-minute address, Mrs. Palin also derided what she argued is akin to a ‘blame the messenger’ attitude on gun violence many Americans...

URGENT - IMMEDIATE BROADCAST REQUESTED TORNADO WATCH NUMBER 100 NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK 335 PM CDT SUN APR 27 2014 THE NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER HAS ISSUED A * TORNADO WATCH FOR PORTIONS OF SOUTHWEST AND CENTRAL ARKANSAS EXTREME SOUTHEAST OKLAHOMA * EFFECTIVE THIS SUNDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING FROM 335 PM UNTIL 1100 PM CDT. ...THIS IS A PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION... * PRIMARY THREATS INCLUDE... NUMEROUS TORNADOES EXPECTED WITH A FEW INTENSE TORNADOES LIKELY WIDESPREAD LARGE HAIL AND ISOLATED VERY LARGE HAIL EVENTS TO 2.5 INCHES IN DIAMETER LIKELY SCATTERED DAMAGING WINDS AND ISOLATED SIGNIFICANT GUSTS TO...

Sarah Palin believes flight 370 flew directly to heaven... how is she a senator? — DIMV (@Freshselective) March 21, 2014 The Daily Currant strikes again. The website, which calls itself “The Global Satirical Newspaper of Record,” last week claimed that Sarah Palin told Sean Hannity she believes Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 “accidentally flew too high and got stuck in heaven.” The story was cross posted to other non-satire sites and managed to fool quite a few.

Sarah Palin was in rare form tonight at CPAC. The crowd loved her, more than any other speaker. She said if she doesn’t run for President, she loves Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. Though she gave a rousing rendition of a rage-filled Green Eggs and Ham riff, proving that she is still the Queen of mean girl spite, Palin predictably tripped over reality when she was instructing President Obama on foreign policy. “Mr. President,” she spat, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke.” Translation: Nuke Russia now or else...

I am done. This site has broken me. I am as staunch a conservative as you will find. After returning from Iraq, injured and upset, I turned here and found a welcoming community that shared my thoughts. I am a proud Gadsden Flag waiving man of the Tea Party movement. But because I don't think Sarah Palin is as historically important as other GOP women in the past, I am now considered an idiot, a RINO, ass-kisser and whatever negative connotation you can throw my way. This site has changed so much since that dictator want to be became President...

President Obama’s election in 2008 marked a landmark shift in American politics. But what if he had lost? What would life in America be like today, had John McCain and Sarah Palin headed to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave? (AUDIO-AT-LINK)Imagine a Sarah Palin presidency — what kind of a difference —if any — would it have made if the course of history had flowed in a different direction? The Carey Institute for Global Good in Rensselaerville is hosting its latest Carey Dialogue Saturday night. Institute President Carol Ash is extending an invitation to the public to come and discuss what she says...

Once again, the curmudgeonly Sarah Palin didn't let a holiday pass without reminding us that she has Facebook page. On Martin Luther King Day, she posted a response to President Obama's New Yorker interview where she called on him to honor MLK by not playing the race card. The president had said that his approval rating suffers because some people don't like the idea of having a black president. Now her post doesn't rival some of her other holiday harangues, such as her book "Good Tidings and Great Joys," a how-to-guide to fighting back against the War on Christmas, or...

You can feel the charm when you watch her operate in person, that Sarah Palin. You don’t expect it, but it’s there – the awkward mix of pseudo-authenticity and charisma, the smooth way with a room full of reporters, the way she just carries on, regardless. Me, I was taken aback. She’s practically my new bestie, now. Squeezed my hand, called me “honey,” even stopped to squeeze my shoulder on her way out and thank me. We had a wee chat and a laugh. Palin was here Friday for an early breakfast event to promote her new series on a...

"....Crist also recalls the 2008 presidential campaign, his friendship with Republican John McCain and Crist's near-selection as McCain's running mate.Crist writes that he and aides spent three days filling out a detailed questionnaire before McCain officials arranged an official meeting. The group, led by McCain confidant A.B. Culvahouse, met Crist at his parents' house on Snell Isle in St. Petersburg. "We set up in the living room and stayed there all day,".......Weeks went by before Crist was told he wouldn't be McCain's running mate, he writes. McCain made the call to Crist personally, about 45 minutes before the world knew...

All I want for Christmas is for black holocaust deniers to eat the crap that comes out of their mouths, Sarah Palin for example. When the acclaimed journalist Martin Bashir was a sports reporter on "The Voice" newspaper 25 years ago, neither I nor any of his colleagues could have tipped him to be one of the most celebrated TV correspondents of his generation. In fact, he was a bit of a tasty geezer in those days with a broad cockney accent that belies his current clipped vowels. All that changed when a certain princess called up the Panorama programme...

You can fire 10 Martin Bashirs and it won't start to repair damage done to NBC News Martin Bashir, the embattled MSNBC show host who on Nov. 15 urged a crude and graphic form of punishment for Sarah Palin, resigned from the channel Wednesday. MSNBC could afford to do nothing less than force Bashir out in the wake of his hateful speech. Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC, tried stonewalling the mounting criticism even after Bashir delivered an on-air apology, but the words and actions were too gross and hateful to allow Bashir to return. SNIP Under Griffin's leadership, MNSBC...

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank appeared on Fox News' MediaBuzz and called Martin Bashir's statement of using Sarah Palin as a toilet, "legitimate." During the "Spin Cycle" segment, Milbank callously supported Bashir: The Martin Bashir thing…he was making a very legitimate point about Sarah Palin. Host Howard Kurtz jumped in with much needed context to remind the panel that Palin did compare the national debt to slavery and agrees that it is "fair game" to criticize Palin over that. What he says can't be disputed is that the network, MSNBC, approved the script containing the vile comments.   No matter...

Sarah Palin responded publicly for the first time Sunday on the nasty comments thrown her way by MSNBC host Martin Bashir, who later apologized for saying she deserved degrading punishment. "Everybody in life takes shots," the former Alaska governor said on "Fox News Sunday." "You have a decision to make when you take a shot. Are you going to become bitter or better? In a case like this, you know, I don't have to accept his words - his vile, evil comments. So they don't have to affect me. I move on and I charge forth." ---snip--- Palin said if...

You would think given all the heat MSNBC’s Martin Bashir is taking for his vile comments about Sarah Palin earlier this month, comedians might want to lay low for a while in attacking the former Alaska governor. Not HBO’s Bill Maher who on Real Time Friday said, “When Reagan was elected, Sarah Palin was barely 16, probably pregnant, but still in third grade” (video follows with transcript and commentary): (video at link) BILL MAHER: Just last week, Sarah Palin said, "There is no Ronald Reagan on the scene today. If he was, that's who I would put my faith in."...

A simple request: Please stop calling Sarah Palin names. If you find her politics repellant and her intellectual gifts lacking, fine. Just say so. But stop with the verbal abuse and the debased revenge fantasies. Palin has always had a gift for making her critics crazy. But it's been five years since she was sprung from Alaskan obscurity as kind of “Hail Mary pass” for John McCain’s faltering presidential dreams. Liberals: She can't hurt you anymore. It's time to get over her. Her career is about self-enrichment now, not politics. She's found a formula for financial success and continuing celebrity....

Sarah is selling Sarah. The former vice presidential candidate and half-term governor of Alaska is a commodity of one and a marketing machine. She has created a new politics of profit. Palin's reanimation on the tea party stage probably means no more than the other intentions she has floated but never executed. She spent almost a year of the last presidential election cycle teasing the far right that she was going to run for president. She never did, but lots of network TV interviews and speculative articles drove up her name recognition and brand identification. And she's not running again....

You’ve seen this movie before, Iowa. Stoking another round of what-if and what-could-be, Sarah Palin is planning a return to the state where presidential dreams are fevered even this far out from the next contest. The Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, a conservative and evangelical group, announced that the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential nominee will speak at its 13thannual banquet on Nov. 9. The announcement of the planned Des Moines speech comes at a time Palin has again raised her political profile. Over the weekend, she campaigned in New Jersey for long-shot Republican Senate candidate Steve Lonegan,...

Even most Republicans, in their candid moments, admit that the Affordable Care Act won't be defunded. But for former Vice Presidential Nominee and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, that's not good enough. "We’d like to believe that the GOP establishment would applaud the way [Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee] have rallied the grassroots to their cause," Palin writes, in an op-ed penned for the conservative website Breitbart. "But, no, such praise would require a commensurate level of guts and leadership, and the permanent political class in D.C. is nothing if not gutless and rudderless." "But the permanent political class is...

"Let Allah sort it out." That is Sarah Palin's succinct argument against U.S. intervention into Syria. And I have to be honest: I'm impressed with Palin on this one. Not with her horribly callous recommendation, made via Facebook late last week, but because she appears to speak some Arabic. I'm not saying Palin is fluent in the language, but she did use the Arabic word "Allah." She could've simply used the word "God" instead of Allah since it has the identical meaning. (Christian Arabs use the word Allah when speaking of God in Arabic.) I think deep down she wanted...

There was a time, not long ago, when former semi-Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK) could cause a stir just by Facebooking her own bad dystopian Obamacare fanfic, but hard times have fallen on the giving a rat’s winking ass about Sarah Palin industry. How bad has it gotten? Barely a month into her serious consideration of a bid to replace Senator Mark Begich (D-AK), Palin announced that she is “not planning to run for the U.S. Senate,” and not only did nobody care, they actually cared more about Palin’s thoughts on Ashton Kutcher than her senatorial ambitions, or lack thereof. In...

The mainstream media refuses to give it up. ABC News is trying to fool people into believing that Sarah Palin will be a presidential candidate. Check out this graphic and see it for yourself. Before RNC Chairman Reince Priebus was interviewed on This Week, ABC aired a pre-recorded video package with the announcer saying at the end, “There’s no shortage of prospective Republican candidates, and that makes it even more challenging for the party to resolve its ideological divide.” So let’s take a look at who ABC News thinks is a potential Republican presidential candidate: Ted Cruz? Check. Donald Trump?...

It goes without saying that you shouldn’t cross a grizzly. Sen. Mark Begich just learned that the hard way. Sarah Palin—former Alaska governor, failed vice presidential candidate, and America’s most famous Mama Grizzly—launched a bit of cyberwarfare against Begich, the Democratic senator from her home state, in a series of vitriolic Facebook posts on Thursday. The wrath of Palin was likely incurred Wednesday when Begich told Politico that the former governor had “quit on Alaska” when she resigned before completing her term. He also questioned whether she was still a resident of the state. Palin said Tuesday that she was...

Since Palin put the GOP on notice yesterday and followed up with a tweet to Marco Rubio about the congratulatory call he received from Barack Obama on his ability to ram an amnesty bill, the usual suspects are jumping on her. Many tweeted a Hot Air article from 2008 that stated she supported a "path to citizenship." On whether or not to deport the millions already here, she said: There is no way that in the US we would roundup every illegal immigrant -there are about 12 million of the illegal immigrants- not only economically is that just an impossibility...

John Oliver began his second week guest-hosting The Daily Show welcoming Sarah Palin back to Fox News. Okay, maybe “welcoming” is a strong word. In fact, Oliver realized that rather than spending the whole show piling on every single folksy thing Palin says, he might as well just ignore her instead. Oliver first noted that Palin only left Fox News five months ago, and now she’s back, so “she has now effectively quit quitting!” He played clip after clip of Palin saying what she’s been up to, and he was ready to mock every single word that came out of...

Ms. Palin became a national celebrity after her unsuccessful 2008 vice presidential turned into a media career as a paid Fox News contributor from January 2010 to January of this year. The Wall Street Journal reported in January that Ms. Palin wouldn't be renewing her contract with the cable news networking, citing a person familiar with the matter. "I've had several conversations with Governor Palin in the past few weeks about her rejoining Fox News as a contributor," Mr. Ailes said Thursday. "I have great confidence in her and am pleased that she will once again add her commentary to...

Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren says she is “delighted” Sarah Palin is back as a Fox News contributor and that the former Republican vice presidential candidate will be “part of the national debate.” “I am delighted to have her back at Fox,” Van Susteren told POLITICO in an email. “She has a big impact (check out the number of Facebook followers! 3.5 million!) and should be part of the national debate.” And, Van Susteren noted, “It is free promo for Fox since it will drive her TV critics crazy! They are obsessed with her!”(continued)

Michele Bachmann's taking a bow. Sarah Palin's star has faded. With the brassy, blow-dried bombasts of the GOP moving to the sidelines, there's no elected heir apparent to inherit the mantle and carry the conservative crusade forward on the national stage. What does that mean for a Republican Party struggling to woo the women voters it needs to win national elections? It may be for the best, say some of the GOP operatives who have been pushing the party to rebrand itself after its 2012 losses. "They and their style gives short shrift to other women in the GOP," said...

A very persistent Republic High School senior with an odd fascination for Sarah Palin managed to convince the sassy caribou-skinning gal from Wasilla to bring her show – or what little is left of it – to the tiny Eastern Washington town of Republic. If you haven’t heard, Palin, whose boundless anti-intellectualism can still leave one breathless, will deliver the commencement address to the school’s graduating class of 26 on Saturday afternoon. Each graduate has been given 20 tickets to distribute, which should guarantee that the 700-person capacity gym will be pleasantly stuffed. Still, to a large extent, Palin’s visit...

Christopher “Kid” Reid of the old hip-hop duo Kid ‘n Play wasn’t the only one who noticed Sarah (and Todd) Palin at the Pacers-Heat basketball game Sunday night. After attending the Indy 500, the Palins sat courtside for game three of the Eastern Conference Finals in Indianapolis.

It is one thing to raise millions from grassroots activists or appear on record numbers of TV talk shows or give rhetorically charged speeches before adoring crowds – it is quite another to do the hard work of governing. Both Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin were political lightweights who were full of sound and fury and accomplished very little. Both quit their posts like spoiled children, after meteoric rises that had precious little to do with actually getting anything done. Both were bad examples of what public service should be all about and both exhibited a certain pathology steeped more...

The streams emerging from beneath an Arctic glacier are several degrees warmer than the icy water Alaska’s Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski has tossed on a Tea Party group’s effort to draft former Gov. Sarah Palin as a U.S. Senate candidate in 2014. Reviving one of Alaska’s great political feuds, Murkowski told The Hill newspaper in Washington, D.C.: “I think there are a lot of outside interests that would like to see Sarah Palin in some form of elected office. Most in Alaska recognize our former governor is rally not involved in or engaged in the state anymore, that she’s moved...

It is hard to admit that one of the most cartoonish and self-aggrandizing figures in recent political memory actually could have been a contender at one time, but I am now willing to cede that point. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin actually could have been, at the very least, a respected political figure over the course of the last decade, but she has squandered any capital or potential she may have had by being a rudderless buffoon. The only reason this comes to light again is because Palin is polling ahead of two other candidates for a potential open Senate...

It’s disturbing that Ann Coulter is so desperate for attention that she would stoop this low on the day Margaret Thatcher died. Just like Politco (as Steve pointed out in another post) Coulter used Thatcher’s passing as an opportunity to take part in some trashy PDS. During an interview with Geraldo Rivera, Coulter starting punching up and didn’t stop until she made a complete fool of herself.Transcript, courtesy of Real Clear Politics: COULTER: One thing that I know, because I know people who know her, is when Sarah Palin first burst on the scene, the political scene, she wanted to...

Last year, Sarah Palin made Marc Lamont Hill’s list of “15 Most Overrated White People.” And then he ran into her at an airport. Palin was very nice to me and kind to my daughter. Although we disagree on everything politically, I still appreciate that. After she walked away, I thought about all the things I've said about Palin over the past four years. Wondered if I would've been that nice.

Prominent among the clueless douchebags who thought Rudy Giuliani could be elected president, John Avlon by 2009 was faced with a problem: How could a pro-Obama liberal Republican hireling find work in a political environment where the Tea Party uprising demonstrated that the Charlie Crist collaborationist Vichy wing of the GOP had no natural grassroots constituency? So in 2010, Avlon co-founded the “No Labels” movement, funded by liberal donors and assigned the mission of helping Democrats destroy the Tea Party. And if Avlon’s constant smearing of conservatives as “winguts” damaged the Republican Party, so what? Nobody involved in “No Labels”...

She’s baaaack. Sarah Palin attempted to relaunch her political career and her political action committee, SarahPAC, on Thursday with a Web video called “Loaded for Bear,” which presented the former Alaska governor as the new kingmaker for conservative populists in the GOP. The video riffed off her speech at CPAC, in which Palin railed against “the big consultants, the big money men, and the big bad media.” But there’s an irony alert ahead: the current stated purpose of SarahPAC is to raise money ahead of the 2014 election—most of which will be spent on conservative consultants. Don't believe me? Well,...

You know, it’s curious that the more journalists and wise political pundits tell us how irrelevant Governor Sarah Palin is, the more attention she receives from these same bottom feeders in the form of shoddy and lazy drive-by hit pieces in the press and on television. The reason so many of these journalistic pursuits ring hollow in the face of, oh I don’t know, facts, is because the author/speaker isn’t adequately afflicted with Palin Derangement Syndrome, or PDS. As a public service, and believe me, this is a public service, as I’m expending time and energy for which I could...

Sarah Palin rocked a packed ballroom here at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Saturday afternoon. The applause was roaring. The hollers many. The atmosphere crackling. In other words: Dog bites man. Palin's speech, if you can call it that, was Palin at her most Palinesque: heavy on one-liners and folksy charm; light on, you know, anything resembling substance and solutions. Here, a sampling of Palin's many zingers: "They talk about rebuilding the party. How about rebuilding the middle class?" "They talk about rebuilding the GOP? How about restoring the trust of the people?" "Let's be clear about...

Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, the former campaign adviser to 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain, has repeatedly argued that the Republican Party should be more inclusive — of almost everyone, it seems, except Sarah Palin. On Friday night’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” during its online “Overtime” segment, Schmidt tersely responded to a viewer question about McCain’s selection of Palin to be his running mate: MAHER: Steve Schmidt, ‘Is it possible you picked Sarah Palin the wrong year?’ Oh, my. ‘Could she have swung the women vote in 2012 enough to have put Romney in the White...

The writing-off of Sarah Palin began not long after her departure from Fox News hit the newswaves last Friday. The Post’s Chris Cillizza wrote on Monday that Palin is now “officially gone,” at least from the national spotlight. And MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell bid the failed 2008 vice presidential candidate a self-satisfied adieu, saying that Palin had now lost the “slightest connection to political relevance.” Vincent Harris, a social-media consultant who helps Republican campaigns, wonders about O’Donnell’s conflict of interest in issuing those words: “He’s a … cable-news host! I mean, what else is he going to say? He’s speaking for...

Former Republican star and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and FOX news ended their partnership on Friday after three years, a source close to Palin told the Real Clear Politics Web site, the Morning Joe panel discussed Palin’s exit on Monday morning. “Sarah Palin represented a time and place in American politics and not 2008 so much as 2010. And that time is passing us very quickly. Party leaders are finally understanding that,” Joe Scarborough told the panel. Palin last appeared on Fox on December 19, 2012 when she spoke with the channel’s Greta Van Susteren about Benghazi and the two...