Posted on 01/22/2011 8:13:05 AM PST by Kaslin
After Tucson, Ariz., shootings, Sarah Palin's unfavorable rating in the CNN poll rose from 49 percent before the midterm elections to 56 percent now. It was not the left-wing charges that Sarah Palin had somehow incited the Tucson shooter by her aggressive political rhetoric that did her damage. Polls show that voters discounted these statements and even Rep. Giffords' husband has made clear that there was no political motive involved. It was Palin's response to these attacks that got her in trouble. Her highly publicized accusation that the criticism was a "blood libel" turned voters off. As sincere admirers of hers, we hope she learns a lesson from this exchange.
The lesson is simply this: She should not become a battering ram hammering at liberal critics -- getting down into the mud with them -- answering every attack, no matter how low, personal or undeserved it is. She is a potential presidential candidate for the Republican Party. As such, she needs to keep her own head unbloodied and intact. Battering rams don't find that easy to do.
The left plays Sarah like a fiddle. They pile on with totally outrageous attacks aiming at her personal life, her children and her family, and -- now -- linking her to murder. These disgraceful attacks do not score points with the voters. In fact, they tend to trigger a sympathetic feeling toward Sarah when they are leveled. But, for some reason, Palin feels compelled to answer them, to reply, to tell her side of the story (aka the truth).
The result of the exchange is that both sides lose: Her attackers and Palin herself both suffer. But the attackers aren't running for anything. They just go on to the next attack. They are after ratings and circulation, not votes -- and the more sensational their accusations and the more vulnerable the target, the better. But Palin has an image to protect, and when she is hurt in these exchanges, it matters politically.
Palin's basic point was, as usual, sound. These killings were the act of an evil madman, not anything related to our political dialogue. But this sensible point got buried, and many voters looked at the "blood libel" statement as self-indulgent and thin-skinned. To them, Palin seemed to be the one using the murders to besmirch her enemies, even though she was only answering their charges. Critics charged that she looked more concerned about defending own personal reputation from the attacks than with the national tragedy that had just taken place.
The point is that Palin should not and cannot answer. She needs to rise above the attacks. If she is going to run for president, she needs to be presidential. She can't descend to the level of her critics. She needs to do what makes her look good, fighting for less government and conservative causes, not what makes her look bad -- fighting with her enemies.
If Palin took the high road -- as Obama did -- and decried the violence in our society and stuck to condemning the killings, she would not have been hurt by the liberal charges. But, by answering, she exposed herself and got hurt.
Next time, we hope she learns her lesson.
No way... Sarah has scruples.
LLS
Reputation is every thing for this compulsive individual though, and who doesn't enjoy listening to what he has to say?
He's under a lot of pressure to get it right, and this accounts for his grasp of the obvious.
I don't buy his theory of his about Sarah Palin's video response. I would have advised her to say less, in a less guarded venue, but (as much as I hate the idea) I think the pile-on "vitriol" strategy did succeed in pushing her negatives six points. So what? It just fired up and hardened briefly a soft fashionable sentiment. You would think she already had the nomination and it was only a week out from Election Day.
Morris needs to grasp the strategy and understand it for the rehearsal that it was, eventually to be used against whomever carries the "R" label in 2012.
Dick Morris no longer counts in my world.
They attacked her personally and relentlessly, blaming her for the deaths before the blood had even dried.
You really sound like a concern troll on this one: deliberately mixing up the facts to misinform others and to dishearten the Right.
the toe sucker is craving attention
If conservatives lie down and think that “by rising above the fray” when they are wrongly attacked is going to make them noble and Presidential is a fool! The media and the dems will be picking off everyone easily, acting civil got McCain “we don’t need to be afraid of an Obama Adminstration” nowhere, look at what happened to George W Bush when Karl Rove told him to ignore the attacks and don’t fight back!
The media is in the tank for Obama and us being silent will only let them set the narrative on us and define us and all it takes is a small percentage to believe it and vote Obama in a second term.......if this Obama/Dem/MSM is impossible to overcome, I would rather go down with the ship fighting than being honorable and not fighting back!!
Exactly.bttt
"Karl [Rove] has admitted that one of his mistakes was not defending Bush against all of these insane, stupid, slanderous, libelous attacks against Bush for eight years," Limbaugh said."
Dear Dick Morris,
You want Palin to handle this like Bush handled the mountain of scurrilous lies levied against him? That really worked out well, didn’t it?
Your advice is stupid. But not answering the charges, Palin would allow the leftists media to define her with the lies.
Answer every media lie with the truth.
We see how well that worked out for Pres. Bush.
She can put him in charge of buying her shoes. She has nice shoes. Dick Morris will appreciate that. Perhaps too much.
So, because I do not fall in lockstep, I get called a name? That's what you got?
Lovely.
I’m really not being hostile here, but, empirically, someone please tell me when Dick Morris has been right about anything in the last four years? I seem to recall he missed the number of GOP wins by about 40. He said McCain was going to pull it out at the last minute, and it wasn’t even close. I just don’t recall anything he’s predicted in the last few years that has actually come true. Am I missing something?
“dick is out of date and not able to properly address the present
For once, I have to say that Morris is spot on about this. Palin made a huge blunder in taking the bait.”
And if she had said nothing, she would be accused (as they were already accusing her) of “hiding out”.
Her response was pitch perfect, both in the video and on Hannity. The fact that the Establishment and its MSM pipe organ rose as one man to condemn it is of zero consequence. Her address was dignified and Presidential ( in contrast to Obama’s disgusting pep rally complete with campaign tee shirts)t and it placed the blame squarely where it belonged, on the perpetrator and not on the lack of “civil” discourse (the PC code word for restricting the 1st Amendment political speech), as Obama did.
Morris feels he needs to make himself relevant where Palin is concerned. He is not. He would like to be her advisor. He won’t.
You see. Sarah Palin does not need an adviser. Her own judgment and political instincts are far superior to those of Morris or any other Washington expert. She has turned the political world on its ear without so much as an assist from the likes of Morris or Karl Rove or any of the other wannabes, whose chief talent is claiming credit for what others did. The fact that she doesn’t need them irks then to no end. That they lash out at her surprises no one with a brain.
You mean she should be more like Bush. I call cr@p on that one. Bush should have defended himself, just as Sarah does.
We want a leader with a spine and Sarahs got a steel one. May God continue to Bless her.
Dick Morris is still viewing politics through the eyes of a insider Republican. The majority in this country don’t give a hoot about beltway politics. Sarah Palin, thankfully, does not seem to care much about the nattering class in DC either!
Dick Morris better figure out what the non-politico Americans care about or he will never get his prognosticating right.
That was no bait. They attack her every chance they get. I don't want another Bush. I want someone with a steel spine who WILL NOT allow BLOOD LIBEL to go unanswered.
LLS
Dick Morris and Eileen McGann...MR. & MRS. TOESUCKER
No further comment necessary.
WADR....my question would be whether SHE makes HIM brush before kissing. HE’s the toesucker.
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