Posted on 01/03/2012 6:32:07 PM PST by reformjoy
Tuesday, January 3, 2012 Editorial by John Ziegler
Sarah Palin: Selfish, Hypocritical, Sellout
1/3/2012
As surreal as it may be, after spending over two years and several thousand dollars defending Sarah Palin at great personal cost, I now find myself in the bizarre position (three years to the day from starting the journey to Wasilla to do the interview of record on her 2008 VP run) of being perhaps the only conservative commentator willing to point out that Palin has now clearly revealed herself to be a selfish, hypocritical, sellout.
While she was doing her presidential tease (an act that I actually bought because I didn’t think she was capable of such contemptible deceit), I wrote an extremely long essay for the Daily Caller detailing why I thought a Palin run would be horrible for the cause of beating President Obama. At that time, I was roundly (and wrongly) criticized for betraying her, when in actuality I was being very kind to her personally and sincerely trying to save her from embarrassment.
Back then, I still honestly liked and admired her as a person. The events since then strongly indicate that I was totally wrong to give her the benefit of the doubt as a person. I don’t know if the unprecedented and unfair circumstances that she has had to deal with since 2008 have changed her, or if, like Tiger Woods, I was simply completely fooled by her from the beginning. But I do now know that she is worthy of a heck of a lot more contempt than portions of the base and the vast majority of the conservative media are currently holding her in.
A quick glance of the most recent past may help the scales fall off of your eyes like they finally did for me.
First, she not only put her supporters through an incredibly selfish presidential “tease” that she clearly contrived from the beginning, but when she finally revealed her deception, she did so on the Mark Levin radio show. This was inexplicable not because she didn’t do it on Fox News (which got some media attention), but because she broke her nationally televised promise to make the announcement on the Bob & Mark Show out of Anchorage.
This may not seem like a big deal at first, but keep in mind she made a huge production on the finale of her Alaskan reality show that Bob & Mark would be the first to know about her plans. Apparently, by the time she was ready to say “never mind,” rebuilding her Alaskan “ice cred” was no longer seen as very important. Neither was her loyalty to two long-time supporters and friends. Bob & Mark are just two of many people I personally know who have sacrificed for her only to be left by the side of the road for no apparent reason.
Then there is that matter that her political action committee sent out a fundraising e-mail the week before her “decision” which overtly sent the message that supporters could help her pull the trigger on a presidential run by donating immediately.
Obviously when that was sent out, Palin knew she was not running for president and yet when she was asked (ironically, only by Bob and Mark) whether her PAC would return the hard-earned money her supporters surely thought was going to a particular cause, she lamely claimed that people who donated to her PAC did not think they were donating to her prospective campaign. Unbelievably, no one else in the media (on either side) called her on this outrage.
Then there is the issue of her endorsement of another candidate for the Republican nomination. I have never understood how any political commentator could ever not make an endorsement in a presidential primary on their side of the ideological fence, but when you are Sarah Palin and you claim that you “don’t need a title to impact change,” such an omission is particularly incomprehensible.
After all, if she won’t exert her power in a Republican presidential primary, when would/could she ever?
The reality is that Palin hasn’t endorsed for the same reason she didn’t run. She knows that she has almost no influence and a remarkably small base and she is smart enough to not use her stick because she knows doing so will reveal how tiny it really is. She has basically decided it is better for her TV career to still be thought of as somewhat potent, than to be exposed as being essentially impotent (a word, interestingly, she likes to use from time to time).
This non act of cowardice and selfishness was bad enough, but then today on Fox News Palin had the gall to essentially call for Michele Bachmann to get out of the race and endorse someone else.
For me this was the very final straw. I don’t even like Bachmann, but I was immediately livid.
Where does Palin get off telling the only woman who (unlike her) had the guts to get in the race to endorse someone else when she hasn’t had the courage to do that herself? The multiple levels of hypocrisy here would be staggering even for a liberal, but for a conservative they are simply off the charts. Then, finally, lost amid her attacks of Bachmann (whom she surely sees as a potential future rival for air time on Fox News) was her defense of none other than that total fraud and publicity whore Donald Trump.
In perhaps the dumbest stance she has ever taken, Palin called for those who are upset at Trump for threatening to run as a third-party candidate to “shut up.”
Let me get this straight, a woman who agrees with Palin on almost everything should get out of the race and do something she herself wont do, but a liberal con-man who could easily insure the second term of Barack Obama (which she has said must be prevented at all costs) needs to be vigorously defended?
Astonishing. But not nearly as astounding as the reality that she will somehow get a pass on all of this from a conservative media that can be a corrupt and mindless as the liberal version is on its worst day.
I have made a lot of mistakes in my life, but right now (while I still stand by everything that is in my documentary “Media Malpractice”) it is difficult for me to imagine making a bigger one than believing that Sarah Palin was worthy of all that I have tried to do to defend her.
My wife warned me about her almost from the beginning of my Palin odyssey. She presciently told me, “once a beauty queen, always a beauty queen.”
It now appears that she was right. Sarah Palin is, at least now, all about Sarah Palin and not about the cause. After the events of the past few months you can clearly see that reality all the way in Russia from land in Alaska.
I swear, every Palin post gets over 100 replies. Every single time. Talk about polarizing.
I saw that she had no organized campaign, no staff and no ground-pounders.
I saw that she made no attempt to start getting onto the individual states’ primaries.
And I told the members of the Church of the G-d Queen that. Only to be spurned as a heretic, a dog, a vile beast only fit to burn in the fires of hell for my lack of faith.
I'll never forget it, or them.
I'll never forget their unthinking, unquestioning adulation, where she could do no wrong, either.
And it reinforced my belief that America, both right and left, is ripe for a demagogue to seize control. Obama was the left’s first try.
Seeing all this from supposedly rational, thinking Freepers shows how easy it would be for us to put up a demagogue as well.
So what? Doesn’t mean what he just wrote isn’t true.
Who is John Ziegler?
Uhhhhhh.....just one question. Who is John Ziegler?
Don't answer that! I don't really care.
If I did care I'd click on the stupid link to his stupid website.
If anyone knows Sarah, it’s John Ziegler.
Zeigler was conservative for southern california. The local pot bangers (John and Ken) didn’t like his growing audience and ran him out. I don’t think he has recovered yet.
As governor she was getting sued over and over again. State law forbade her from getting state funding to defend herself, forbade accepting pro bono legal help, and forbade a privately funded legal defense fund. If you are not a multimillionaire, then you will be made bankrupt. The law is written that way to keep the ‘wrong sort’ from becoming governor. So she quit, and was thus free of the restrictions, got a legal defense fund, made a few millions on TV, and suddenly every one of the screwy charges was shown to be without merit.
When she was on the Alaska oil board, state law forbade her as a member of the board from reporting corrupt actions by the board. She quit, stopped accepting the salary associated with being on the board, and went public. That was how she got to be governor.
Now the false charges were that she had some 20 years ago been having sex with the college basketball team. David Letterman on national TV advocated for her minor daughter to be raped. She has a daughter and grandson in Arizona that these people would go after in a minute if they thought it would help them.
Politics ain’t beanbag. I wish her well, and am sorry that people permit the kind of abuse that she and her family have been given. That she would decide to protect her family doesn’t surprise me. In a kinder world her husband could go on D. Letterman’s show and punch out Letterman, and explain why. We don’t live in that world.
He strung himself along and made a fool of himself!
JC
Sour grapes, eh doofus?
JC
its better to me and IMO that our respected conservative/pub leaders NOT overly involve themselves in primary races...we have to get our people elected and that does not mean making enemies of lots of people and alienating other candidates....someday we're going to realize that we must stop eating our own...I respect Palin for that....
overall, this article is silly and adolescent...
That’s because you’re a dummy! She was always clear that she had not made up her mind yet, but you wanted to be clairvoiant and got burned because of it!
JC
Her rationale was clear - couldn’t sustain a personal bankruptcy under the AK rules at the times with multiple fake accusations. I understood that but you apparently are too stupid to comprehend the problem she faced or are too political to admit it publically! Take a hike!!
JC
It’s clear you haven’t recovered nor are an ex-hippy! Still dumb as a door knob!
JC
Yep...purty much what u just said my own wife reaffirmed watching it tpp
Zeigler is a pissant who thought he was the prime player in this game! Good riddance!
JC
Glad I don’t know you or even live near you, because you are toxic!
JC
AND you would be stupid! She never promised that nor even suggested a run, merely a vacation, but you dupes faked yourselves out and made asses of yourselves in the process!!
JC
Hildy, you’re a dummy! Sorry, but that’s how it is...
JC
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