Posted on 11/26/2010 7:21:37 PM PST by Rufii
Substance Still Sells, Sarah
Writing about Sarah Palin's bizarre Thanksgiving Day defense of her North Korea gaffe, Andrew Sullivan makes the point people used to make about Richard Nixon after his rocking, socking congressional and senatorial campaigns and especially the Alger Hiss case:There is a meanness, a disrespect, a vicious partisanship that, if allowed to gain more power, would split this country more deeply and more rancorously than at any time in recent years. And that's saying something.
Ironic, yes. Determinative, no. Though he was a divisive, highly partisan figure whom a significant number of Americans always loathed, Nixon was elected president twice. I bet Palin won't even get nominated. Sullivan's right that her Facebook note helps us understand why. But there's an element he doesn't mention. Yes, her rant, a pastiche of Barack Obama's gaffes, is disrespectful. But that won't lose her any points with most Republicans, I'm sorry to say.
Beyond that, I thought Palin's "Thanksgiving Message To All 57 States" was disrespectful of a solemn, 389-year-old American tradition. That doesn't make her unpatriotic. It just proves that she's irredeemably trivial.
For two weeks I've been marinating in the Thanksgiving statements and proclamations by presidents and many others that my St. John's friend Buddy Lang assembled for his premiere performance of "In God We Trust" at our church. The holiday offers a platform for a thoughtful public figure's reflections on the challenges, opportunities, and bedrock principles of the greatest nation in the world. On this day of family and national communion, Palin's message to her fellow Americans had all the poise and maturity of a high school senior who gets a chance to scrawl something in a rival's yearbook while the principal gives a speech about good manners.
Worse than that, it was all about her. With Palin, it's always all about her. Here she again departs from the new Nixon playbook. From his earliest years in public life, Nixon was fashioning a template for the west's conduct of the Cold War. It began with anti-communism, and about this the ambitious Nixon was utterly ruthless. But Nixon's vision also had a carefully considered and completely internalized second element that had to do with what was best about America being the best way to combat her enemies.
With Palin, all I can discern is her resentment, sense of entitlement, and, yes, Nixonian understanding for how these resonate with certain Americans who have concluded that they're disenfranchised or that Obama represents a unique threat. But what comes next? Specifically, when she's on a stage with other GOP candidates, how will she stack up? What will she have to say about tax policy to Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty, about how to run a state government in a partisan atmosphere (and doing so without quitting) to Chris Christie?
Her victim game won't play, because they've all had to contend with the gosh-darn MSM, too. Unless she brings something else to the table, her support will melt away fast. Before the midterm election, the tea party creed was that criticism of lightweights and wack jobs like Christine O'Donnell and Carl Paladino would only make them stronger. We now know that, far right or far left, substance still sells. In the 2012 round, look for the rise of the Whiggish wonk, the Republican Obama. If Palin believed there was any advantage to doing some policy homework, we'd have seen evidence by now. As a candidate for national office, her high water mark was 2008.
--John h. Taylor
That Sarah makes Leftists and liberals apoplectic is par for the course.
But a deeper effect is in her digging up all of the traitorous RINOs, those who live in the shadows, who now have to stumble forward into the light to denounce her.
I find it fascinating.
Taylor had been serving part-time at the church before getting the call to go full-time. He has -- and continues to be on TheNewNixon.org blog -- a staunch believer in the disgraced former president, blaming Nixon's resignation in the face of impeachment on partisanship and ill will lingering from the Vietnam War.
Taylor's reign was nearly cut short in the spring of 2002 when he found himself at the center of a dispute between Nixon's daughters, Tricia Cox and Julie Nixon Eisenhower. Eisenhower's attorney, Thomas Malcolm, sent foundation board members a letter stating Taylor should be fired for creating a "media frenzy" by suing over a $19-million bequest to the library by the former president's longtime friend Charles "Bebe" Rebozo. 
Friday, November 26, 2010
Memo To The GOP: It Worked
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, last year's stimulus bill meant that at least 1.4 million people, and as many as 3.6 million, were working in the third quarter of 2010 who otherwise wouldn't have been.
Thrilla In Wasilla Gets A Fair Shot From NBC, 06 Jul 2009
Trig Palin…, 28 Apr 2009
http://thenewnixon.org/author/john-h-taylor/
How Palin Becomes The New Nixon, 14 Nov 2008
Palin Apologizes For Answers To Couric, 03 Oct 2008
Palin Two-Pronged War Plan Exposed, 29 Sep 2008
“Sarah Quaylin”? Maybe Soe, Maybe Noe, 19 Sep 2008
Palin: “A Bridge Too Far”, 14 Sep 2008
Palin Is The New Agnew, 04 Sep 2008
and apparently a class-A douchebag.
The comments generated at FR concerning his latest blog entry are more numerous than all previous comments on his opinions anywhere in the known universe combined. Please don't go to his web site, he'll just think his inane rants actually matter.
He was an aide to President Nixon during the last years of his life, and he later ran the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace for many years. After the government took over the library in 2007, he left to become a full-time Episcopalian clergyman.
Man, ain't that the truth! I still hear her quoted as saying that she can see Russia from her house, which she never said.
The President is a traitor to this country and our freedoms along with a lot of democrats.
IT IS WAR AND TO HELL WITH GETTING ALONG WITH OUR ENEMIES!
Of course, Sarah Palin did that as well; but you can't find it online easily, because "Sarah Palin Thanksgiving Message" searches only turn up her facebook parody post.
Here is a more traditional Sarah Palin Thanksgiving Message:
I am giving thanks for so much this Thanksgiving. I’m grateful that we enjoy the “blessings of liberty” secured by our Constitution. I’m grateful for the protection of America’s finest, our men and women in uniform — many of whom will spend Thanksgiving far from their loved ones so that we might celebrate with our families in peace and security.I’m grateful that America’s children can look forward to a hopeful future because their mothers and fathers will make the sacrifices generations of American parents have made to safeguard freedom and opportunity.
I’m grateful that our land is rich in resources — all that we need to sustain ourselves and secure our prosperity.
I’m grateful that all Americans have the equal opportunity to earn, contribute, create, produce, perform, and succeed by our own merits and through the application of a sincere work ethic. I’m grateful for the ingenuity, innovation, and optimism that still animate the American spirit.
Most of all, I’m grateful that the steadying hand of Providence that guided the Pilgrims to Plymouth Rock continues to guide us toward a better future.
— Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska and Republican vice-presidential nominee, is author of the new book, America by Heart.
“Substance Still Sells, Sarah”
This is actually quite sad. Even Richard Nixon has a groupie or two left.
Tell me, what exactly was the SUBSTANCE behind Richard Milhous Nixon? Seriously. I never really understood it. Contrary to what the author says, it really was all about him.
And to all those PDSers who say Sarah Palin is not qualified to be President, let me take you back to 1968 and Miami Beach. The GOP convention. The experiences two term Vice President, former Senator, former Congressman, Richard M. Nixon was challenged (and very nearly defeateed for) the nomination by the freshly minted Governor of California who had been in office for 18 months (his only political experience):
Who would you have supported? The experienced Nixon or the neophyte Reagan?
Who would you have supported? The experienced Nixon or the neophyte Reagan?
I missed news coverage of the convention because at the time, I was in Germany. Being from a Democratic family, I was cool to Reagan at first, but quickly warmed up to him after his speech in early 1968 calling on the Johnson administration to take firm and decisive action after the North Koreans seized the USS Pueblo. I would have supported Reagan in 1968, as I supported him in his subsequent runs for the White House in 1976 and 1980.
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