Noonan: Mischievous Media Wants to Make Palin Face of GOP

NewsBusters ^ | Mark Finkelstein

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Why does Sarah Palin continue to receive so much media coverage? Peggy Noonan has a theory. The Wall Street Journal columnist believes the MSM is up to what she considers "mischief": attempting to make Sarah Palin the face of the Republican party.

Noonan propounded her premise during an appearance today on Morning Joe.

View video here.

[GipperGal]

Here's a little newsflash for Noonan: Take a look at these photos of Palin interacting with voters (GOP and others) and their reaction to her. I don’t think it's the media who have designated Palin a leader. The people seem to have decided that she is their leader. They made this decision despite the media, not because of it. The media's 24/7 campaign to discredit her doesn't seem to have worked.

I'm willing to bet the farm that Palin will draw a massive crowd next week in Georgia, and that she'll close the deal for Saxby.

[sickoflibs]

RE : “I realize what you are getting at, but we must stand up and fight some of the tough battles. “

We won with Bush Stem cell veto temporarily, but all that is gone now, so we won nothing, just held on to lose a bigger battle (I am not saying that is why we lost, read further) . If GWB was very popular he could just veto things that lose opinion polls. But for him to mandate these things, without winning a PR battle, and while being very unpopular (similar to Carter) was a disaster, and setup Palin.

To win elections we need the Christian base but we need non-Christians too. That comes from selling ideas. It comes from focus groups. It comes from prioritizing battles. Look at leftist Pelosi. She shelved Sheenan Moonbats to slaughter republicans in two elections, by focusing on GWB. Now they will try to keep us from focusing on Obama. We need Obama to do things we can alarm people about.

Reporters were able to frame abortion questions to McCain in a way to make it look like McCain would outlaw ALL abortions. If he was confident and smart he would have sold public on why Alito/Roberts/Scalia/Thomas are for freedom in ordered society. But it looked like (set up) to viewers Mccain was promoting a christian dictatorship. Scalia is great at selling the constitution and freedom. Neither McCain or Palin looked like they had a clue when asked about justices (to McCain it was just a talking point, to Palin she probably never thought much about it.)

[ari-freedom]

that’s all emotional. We need more substance.

[ohioman]

You couldn’t be more wrong. Palin was the only real conservative on the ticket. Sounds like you would only be happy with a liberal Republican (i.e. a closet Democrat).

[tarheelswamprat]

that’s all emotional. We need more substance.

Obviously not. We just elected Obama. Substance mattered not one whit...

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

Someone who blithely says we should go to war with Russia if it invades Georgia (as she told Charlie Gibson)

She never said that. She demonstrated what our obligation would be under article 5 of NATO if Georgia was a NATO member.

You are right.

I saw that interview. Her reply to Gibson was exactly correct.

I can't imagine how anyone could think otherwise. Other than falling for the usual MSM's penchant for misinforming the general public via out of context quotes.

Conservatives need to stay better informed and give the benefit of the doubt to ourside before jumping to ill informed conclusions.

[GipperGal]

Perhaps if you spent a few hours seriously researching her record you would actually understand that she has not "parroted" the ideas of others, but has actually lead and got really big and important things done in her state.

In two years she negotiated a natural gas pipeline that was stalled for 30 years. Got that? 30 years and no one could get that pipeline deal down. She did it. In her own words:

For the next three decades, there had been talk of building another pipeline to transport cleaner, greener natural gas down to the Lower 48. But that’s all it ever amounted to — talk. And one of the main obstacles was big oil itself — ExxonMobil and other companies.

They should have been competing to invest in a new means of delivering their product to market. Instead, they wanted a higher price than fair competition would yield. They were holding out for more billions of dollars — in public money. No one in good conscience could pay them what they wanted to build that pipeline. And that’s how we found things when I became governor: No progress, no pipeline, no gas revenue for Alaska, no added energy security for America.

So we introduced the big oil companies and their lobbyists to a concept some of them had forgotten — free-market competition. They had a monopoly on power and resources, and we broke it.

The result is, finally, progress on the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history — a nearly forty billion dollar natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence. When the last section is laid and its valves are opened, that pipeline will lead America one step farther away from reliance on foreign energy. That pipeline will be a lifeline — freeing us from debt, dependence, and the influence of foreign powers that do not have our interests at heart.

Don’t believe her? Try this article from Byron York from National Review.

[GipperGal]

that’s all emotional. We need more substance.

That's exactly what the libs said about Reagan. They said he had found America's "sweet tooth" and duped the public with red, white, and blue emotionalism. Try looking at her record and keep your mind open. Try not to throw a proven conservative under the bus. It's really quite ugly when so-called conservatives start eating their own.

And if you don't like her leadership, then get off your fat pontificating a@@ and run for office yourself. I'd love to see you give an interview to a hostile journalist willing to edit your words and parse them out of context to do maximum damage to your image.

[techno]

How then can Sarah Palin still be promoted by the MSM as a detriment to the McCain campaign. The facts just don’t jibe with reality.

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

Well, Peggy, it’s a much better looking face than yours.

The 'Green Eyed' monster rears it's exactly head.

[GipperGal]

So we introduced the big oil companies and their lobbyists to a concept some of them had forgotten — free-market competition. They had a monopoly on power and resources, and we broke it.

You know what I love about that statement by Palin? It is libertarian free market principles at their finest! The big oil empire in Alaska was a textbook case of "corporatism" -- the collusion of big government with big business. A true free market system is not corporatism. In fact corporatism was first introduced by fascist regimes. When she took on the big oil companies she was not being "anti-business" or "anti-development", she was being anti-corporatism. She was fighting the oil empire (that's how they refer to the big three oil companies in Alaska) that had bypassed free market principles by buying off government.

Her stance in fighting these oil empires represents to me a strong and new voice for true free market principles.

[Aquinasfan]

There’s no doubt about it now: Peggy’s jealous.

[Aquinasfan]

Someone who blithely says we should go to war with Russia if it invades Georgia (as she told Charlie Gibson), and who did little more than repeat her applause lines over and over again on the campaign trail hasn't yet shown the substance it will take to draw a wider base beyond a segment of conservatives.

If it makes you feel any better, she's the odds-on favorite for the '12 nomination.

Who does she take us for, a bunch of boobs? Include me out!

Will do.

[ari-freedom]

We didn’t offer substance. We offered McCain and Palin and attacks against “greed.”

We can’t compete with the democrats on emotions and fluff so if that’s all we offer then we’ll lose again.

[RightWhale]

While even I have more academic creds than the Gov, and thanks to FreeRepublic know more about international affairs, I can see that she has an excellent presentation and the attitude and stamina of a winning athlete. She is a cross between TR and Andy Jackson. There aren’t many Conservatives to the right of her and this side of sanity.

[trisham]

Great photos! Thanks, GG.

[Al B.]

In two years she negotiated a natural gas pipeline that was stalled for 30 years. Got that? 30 years and no one could get that pipeline deal down. She did it. In her own words:

Here's another one for your collection in case you haven't seen it -- from Investors Business Daily -- an editorial on the Pelosi gang and her environmentalist allies shifting blame for not drilling Alaska's offshore reserves to the oil companies while her buddies lock up the issue in the courts on environmental grounds. This is one Sarah is fighting right now:

In Alaska, The Drill Is Gone"

In a July interview with IBD in which we asked better questions than Katie Couric, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, before she was picked as John McCain's running mate, said: "There are even bigger sources of crude than ANWR . . . such as offshore areas like the Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea."

Palin in May challenged the listing of the polar bear as an endangered species; the listing was another move designed to block drilling in these areas. She argued that polar bears were and are well-managed and their population has dramatically increased over the last 30 years. Since 1960, when the Alaska oil hunt began, only two oil-related bear fatalities have been documented, according to the federal Mineral Management Service.

The problem, Palin said, was "we frequently find ourselves at the mercy of those who think that we must be protected from ourselves. Shell is up here wanting to drill offshore, but they've been fighting various environmental groups through the 9th Circuit Court and are running into very fierce push-back."

[DaveyB]

I am so sick of the phrase "new ideas". All "new ideas" ever turn out to be are new ways to use the constitution of the United States as toilet paper, and it doesn't seem to matter which party they come from. Here is a new idea for you. Rather, it's an old idea - the constitution, liberty, and a republican form of government.

AMEN!

Let us forget the new ideas and go back to the old tried and true that bring prosperity and liberty - Ideas like: the smallest possible government, a moral people who fear God, a strong defense, but not to be used as the world's police force. Ideas like elimination of most of the government's bureaucracies, property tax, estate taxes and while we are at it income tax. What you tax you get less of and what we would wish to encourage is more income not less. Party planks should unabashedly support the outlawing of abortion, homosexuality and adultery. A moral people is a free people and an immoral people will come to ruin. Work for less regulation on the small business - encourage entrepreneurial risk and protect the small guys from the corporate predators. GO after corruption in the government to restore morality and respect from the nation. Most of the career and union government workers should be laid off and the state department in particular needs a shift change. Judaical appointments should always be strict constitutionalists (the constitution is the litmus test). Personally I think Ginsburg should be impeached for her work on the Kelo case and Lawrence not to mention her use of international law for president. The old ideas are what is best for the country and are winners if only we have the leadership and candidates to run on them.

[Badeye]

Its worth noting nobody is talking about the top half of the GOP ticket from the recently concluded election.

And there is a reason for this. Palin struck a chord with millions of voters. A very strong chord at that.

And this is why so many can’t stop attacking her, from all sides.

I suspect if cable news and the internet were available in 1976, the same would be true about Reagan.

I’m not saying ‘Sarah Palin is the next Reagan’ here, to be crystal clear.

What I’m saying is Palin has grabbed the imagination of the voters in much the same way he did.

I don’t know if she will be a factor in national politics. But its pretty obvious many fear that she just might become one.

Noonan and Kathleen Parker among them, along with that idiot Mikey Huckabee.

[DaveyB]

oops that’s precedent not president - I beg the mercy of the court and blame my blunder on a stupid public school education!