Reagan, Sarah And The Leakers

The Philadelphia Bulletin ^ | Dec. 11, 2008 | Dr. Paul Kengor

[Al B.]

The trashing of Sarah Palin continues. Some of the shots have been downright ugly, such as the "Retarded Republican Babies for Sarah Palin" t-shirts. Equally notable, however, is the odd one-two punch of liberal journalists and moderate Republican leakers pounding Mrs. Palin as a right-wing extremist and dummy. This tandem is responsible for some of the phony smears, including ridiculous claims that Mrs. Palin doesn't know Africa is a continent, or that she refused to appear with "pro-choicers" like Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H. (Sununu is pro-life).

These smears place Sarah Palin in good company. My mind races back to what Ronald Reagan endured: the same kind of leaks, by the same kind of moderate Republicans, to the same kind of liberal journalists, and with the same kind of allegations. Reagan, too, was portrayed as a Midwest dolt, a conservative zealot, a rube from a backwoods college in "fly-over" country.

After recently reading a remarkably unfair Newsweek hit on Sarah Palin, I thought of a piece in Time magazine in December 1986, titled "How Reagan Stays Out of Touch," by reporter Richard Stengel-a product of a leak by one of the "pragmatists" in the Reagan White House. Mr. Stengel wrote this on the dawdling old fool in the Oval Office:

[ASOC]

“Mrs. Palin as a right-wing extremist and dummy”

ROTFLMAO

Sara is anything but a Right Wing extremest. She may be hard Right on abortion (I use the MAY advisedly) and she doesn't care for all the Greenie lawsuits.

[b9]

Ronald Reagan was secure and at peace, accepting the world, and human nature, for what it is. For Sarah Palin to survive, she needs to do the same.

So true. I believe she knows it, too.

[SuziQ]

As one pundit put it-the Reagan Democrats vote Democratic in bad economic times and Republican in good economic times; that’s what happened and they were joined by many independents and suburbam moms who voted with their pocketbook in mind rather than social issues. However you want to shake the vote down the deciding vote in this election was cast towards bettering the economy and punishing George Bush for the meltdown. That they think Obama will be a better ‘steward’ of the economy than George Bush who has a MBA degree, well that’s another story.

That's precisely what I'm finding from fellow Catholics, who should have been appalled by That One's radical pro-abortion stance. But they were so scared by the economy, and believed what the MSM told them, that it was all the fault of the Republicans, that they voted against George W. Bush, and McCain-Palin suffered for it.

[Corporate Law]

Gore also flunked out of Vanderbilt law school. That is why I refer to him as the “Double Flunkee”.

[GipperGal]

For some reason I can’t open this website. Would you mind posting the text for the complete article here so that I can read it? Thanks in advance!

[Al B.]

Apparently that link died but there's another one. Try this:

Link

If that doesn't work, I'll post the text although I'm not sure what restrictions there may be on posting the entire text from this particular publication.

[redk]

I'm no fan of Bill O’Reilly but hearing him openly say tonight that he wants NBC to fail was a great television moment.