Posted on 07/02/2009 1:25:38 PM PDT by yongin
Another day, another leak from the wreckage of the McCain campaign. First Todd Purdum publishes a harsh piece in Vanity Fair on the Palin nomination, filled with harsh quotations from anonymous senior campaign sources. Politico follows with an even more revealing exchange of charges and counter-charges. Now at NRO, Mark Hemingway reproduces a series of leaked internal emails. The issue in all cases: Who was revealing to the world these damaging insider descriptions of Gov. Palin?
I'm as fascinated as the next person by the insider details. But let's pause for a sobriety check. The 2008 campaign is over. The 2012 campaign has begun. Gov. Palin is a leading candidate for the Republican nomination. As much as everybody enjoys code-breaking the mystery of who blabbed, isn't the more urgent and important question: Is it true?
Palin evokes a devoted response from a large following. In the mysterious soup of motives that sustains her supporters, enthusiasm for effective governance does not seem a very major ingredient. But you'd think they would at least care whether she could campaign competently. Purdum argues intensely that she cannot - that a Palin candidacy would be the greatest self-inflicted disaster since George McGovern or Barry Goldwater. Here are some of the highlights from Todd Purdum's Vanity Fair piece:
ITEM: The top McCain aides who had tried hard to work with Palin—Steve Schmidt, the chief strategist; Nicolle Wallace, the communications ace; and Tucker Eskew, her traveling counselor—were barely on speaking terms with her, and news organizations were reporting that anonymous McCain aides saw Palin as a “diva” and a “whack job.”
ITEM: At one point, trying out a debating point that she believed showed she could empathize with uninsured Americans, Palin told McCain aides that she and Todd in the early years of their marriage had been unable to afford health insurance of any kind, and had gone without it until he got his union card and went to work for British Petroleum on the North Slope of Alaska. Checking with Todd Palin himself revealed that, no, they had had catastrophic coverage all along. She insisted that catastrophic insurance didn’t really count and need not be revealed. This sort of slipperiness—about both what the truth was and whether the truth even mattered—persisted on questions great and small.
ITEM: By all accounts, Palin was either unwilling, or simply unable, to prepare. In the run-up to the Couric interview, Palin had become preoccupied with a far more parochial concern: answering a humdrum written questionnaire from her hometown newspaper, the Frontiersman.
ITEM: In every job, she surrounded herself with an insular coterie of trusted friends, took disagreements personally, discarded people who were no longer useful, and swiftly dealt vengeance on enemies, real or perceived.
ITEM: More than once in my travels in Alaska, people brought up, without prompting, the question of Palin’s extravagant self-regard. Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of “narcissistic personality disorder” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—“a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy”—and thought it fit her perfectly.
ITEM: A year ago, 80 percent of Alaskans viewed Palin very favorably or somewhat favorably; by this spring, just 55 percent had a positive opinion.
The McCain campaign is over. The duty of confidentiality has expired. The next campaign has begun. If conservatives are to avoid catastrophe, they need to hear from those inside what exactly happened. If true, the leaks constitute an urgent warning and public service. I believe they are true. For sure they confirm what I have heard during the campaign and after. Instead of complaining about these leaks, conservatives should heed them - and fast.
"I can tell you’ve been crushed by the weight of my intellectual superiority.
So, I’ll refrain from describing my rugged good looks, my amazing athletic prowess or the satisfaction I bring to my trophy wife (42-26-34) several time (sic) each day."
Coherent and Cedric is an oxymoron.
Interestingly, for a woman who has NO chance (her detractors say) of winning the Republican nomination let alone the presidency, there have been over fifty threads about her within the last three days. I suppose the next claim they’ll make is her lack of name-recognition.
/s
Let me set the POS Fuc*ing leftists straight!!! Biden went to Erie, PA and couldn’t even draw a hundred people!! The VP of the United States!!!!!!!!!! Gov. Palin in Erie, PA TODAY! would draw close to 50,000!!!!!!!! Now you know why these flaming fag leftist assholes fear her!
Guy looks like moron!! I mean seriously!
1. Who are “they”?
The people opposing Palin
2. Again, remember, the assault began AFTER the election.
Like h-ll it began after the election, it started before she was nominated.
3. It’s been alleged that Kristol was the conduit, with Randy S. the source.
{no links}
By who? Randy S. is the one who keeps defending Palin, unlike Steve Schmidt and Nicole Wallace.
Those with the most bitter animus against Palin are from the LGBT community.
Fearing Palin in 2012, immediately after the election Obama/Emanuel/Soros operatives launched a vicious, Divide & Conquer assault against Palin and (what's left of) the GOP by planting horrible anti-Palin lies and unfounded rumors with fellow travelers in the press.
As the coup de gras, they got the media to attribute these salacious stories to people within the McCain campaign.
All hell broke loose, much to the delight of the media/Obama/Emanuel/Soros.
I saw through it right away because I'm smarter than anyone else who ever lived.
However, there's only on of me, unfortunately, and too many people around here still fall for it: That's why the Left keeps rolling it out, periodically.
These stories hit the media, big-time, TWO DAYS (Thursday) after the election.
Look it up.
I see, so when we see “McCain staffer” we know that actually the article is quoting George Soros or Obama or Emanuel?
Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of “narcissistic personality disorder” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—“a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy”—and thought it fit her perfectly.
Well, well. I've got an 'item' of my own, Mr. Frum:
Several journalists and editors have told me that they had consulted the Editors' Guidelines for Detecting Journalistic Fraud to look up the neon-flashing red flag presented when a writer makes the wildly improbable claim that several of his many suspiciously anonymous sources would independently, without prompting, & within mere days of each other, spontaneously volunteer the astonishingly similar information to him that they had just so happened to look up the same diagnostic description of a particular personality disorder in the same psychiatric reference book and come to the precisely identical conclusion about the subject of his article which just so happened to coincide so perfectly with the very thesis of his piece.
Alas, every one of those writers & editors I interviewed, independently & without prompting from me, came to the same conclusion that Todd Purdam was obviously just making the BS up out of whole cloth as he went along for his piece for Vanity Fair and that every anonymous source he's ever cited & indeed everything he'd ever written should be vetted for the commission of journalistic fraud, pronto.
You’re getting warm.
Sorry, I am completely out of tinfoil. (Thanks for finally letting me see where you were going)
Bzzzzt. Wrong, grasshopper.
Timing is everything.
The reason Gov. Palin is attacked NOW is because of ... Mitt Romney.
But he doesn't have the juice to have pulled this off.
C’mon, step up your game!
Bitter infighting over 'diva' Palin in McCain campaign: report
Bitter infighting over 'diva' Palin in McCain campaign: Report
Oct 25, 2008
WATERLOO, Iowa (AFP) — Bitter infighting between aides to John McCain and Sarah Palin erupted into public view in a sign of tension gripping the Republican camp with the election 10 days away.
A series of recent surveys have suggested Palin's presence on the ticket is hurting McCain's chances in the November 4 election, at a time when Democratic rival Barack Obama has surged clear in most key polls.
The inquests into what has gone wrong with McCain's campaign appear to have already begun, according to reports, with Palin's camp blaming the Arizona senator's senior advisers for mismanaging her contribution.
The Politico.com website cited four Republicans close to Palin as saying she had grown frustrated by advice given to her by campaign handlers, whom her supporters blame for a series of public relations gaffes.
The report said Palin was now increasingly willing to disregard orders from advisors, suggesting the Republican running mate was in the initial stages of forging her own identity for a future tilt at the White House.
(excerpted)
SOOOOOOOO...care to change your story now?
I’d put Frum on my list but he’s already been on it for some time.
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