Free Republic

You've just gotta love Sarah Palin! Unless, perhaps, she's your state's governor, and her antics are distracting the state from its business. Or unless you're Mitt Romney, trying to make the next Republican presidential primary campaign a sober affair that you can control. Or unless you're Mike Huckabee, fearful of being outflanked on the anti-abortion right. Or unless you're an Arctic wolf, dodging large-caliber bullets fired from a helicopter. Other than those, I can't think of any good reason not to thank Providence for sending her to us. Named after a feisty Jewish lady – the very first Jewish lady,...

Sunday, July 19, 2009 Latest State-Run Media Palin Lie: Her Hair Is Thinning Unreal. They're even lying about her hair. Several state-run media outlets including The New York Times, Inside Edition, Keith Olbermann and the WaPo's Chris Cillizza all spread the lie this week that Sarah Palin's hair was thinning due to stress: But, like the rest of the Sarah Palin attacks, it's not true. Conservatives 4 Palin reported: Chalk this up as Stupid Palin Meme of the Week:In a July 12th hit piece published on the front page of the New York Times, reporters Jim Rutenberg and Serge Kovaleski...

Alaska as Democratic Opportunity?: The soon-to-be official resignation of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) could hand Democrats a legitimate pickup opportunity, according to a recent poll in the Last Frontier obtained by the Fix. The survey, which was conducted by Global Strategy Group, showed Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell (R) at 41 percent to former state Sen. Ethan Berkowitz's (D) 40 percent -- a statistical dead heat. Democrats held the Alaska governorship from 1994 until 2002 as Gov. Tony Knowles (D) benefited from a fractured Republican party and serious independent candidates. As for those who argued that Palin decided to leave...

Who knows how the Sarah Palin story will play out? It seems as if every political pundit in America has a take on PalinÂ’s resignation as AlaskaÂ’s governor. They can be mean-spirited (SheÂ’s hiding a scandal!), or cynical (Since she can rake in $60 grand and up for a simple speaking engagement, sheÂ’s taking the money and running like hell.) Some wonder whether this is her way of tuning up for a presidential run in 2012, or is the resignation a case of a hometown girl unable to stand the heat in her kitchen? We will get more information, but...

I'm not a regular reader of Debbie Schlussel nor am I a fan (she seems a bit low class at times), so I just became aware of her criticism of Governor Palin. If you scan the archives of her site debbieschlussel.com you will see that she was an early supporter of Sarah Palin. That makes her criticism all the more interesting. Here are ten articles from Debbie's site. In the first one, she is still a Palin supporter, but also criticizes her for her choice of baby names. Beginning with the second article, she really begins to tear into her....

The future ex-Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, decided to dip her toe in the water on the national debate over energy and climate legislation in an op-ed in the Washington Post recently. Hailing from Alaska, one would assume the Governor might have noticed the water around her is indeed rising. While the Governor’s op-ed does not mention the words global warming, Alaska sits on the frontlines of climate change, with temperatures rising four degrees Fahrenheit in the last 50 years; melting permafrost is sending homes and roads in coastal villages like the centuries-old Shishmaref plunging into the sea. I do...

Friday, July 17, 2009 Another Liberal from Massachusetts Attacks Palin and Proves That He Doesn’t Know What He’s Talking About By R. A. Mansour Another liberal from Massachusetts is attacking Palin's Cap and Trade op-ed. This time it’s Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) in an article in The Daily Beast. Check this out for some laughs: “Hailing from Alaska, one would assume the Governor might have noticed the water around her is indeed rising,” Markey says. “No matter how hard she looks, Gov. Palin is not going to find enough oil in Alaska to feed our country’s insatiable appetite for energy,”...

Reactions to Sarah Palin’s decision to resign the governorship of Alaska have been a reminder of her unmatched ability to elicit strong emotions from friend and foe alike. We know some of the reasons why. It’s her evangelical Christianity and her folksy manner. It’s her small-town roots and her “new feminism.” But there is something more. A year ago, Palin gave birth to her youngest son, Trig, who has Down syndrome. Since then, mother and son have become objects of the left’s unrelenting scorn and the right’s unflinching fidelity. An underexamined reason why Palin is loved and loathed so fiercely...

As the readers of FR know there is a decided gap between Sarah Palin's favorability numbers among her own party and/or Republicans and Republican Independents and who they would actually cast their vote for as POTUS as multiple polls have shown recently. Here is my take on why this is so: 1)There is a certain segment of Republicans or conservatives who firmly believe that Sarah will be too politically damaged by the MSM to be a viable candidate in 2012 even though many of them like Sarah personally or her policies. This is a legitimate concern that I hope does...

Within the margin of error, as these early polls of Republican frontrunners always are. Interestingly, while Sarahcuda’s favorable rating among Republicans remains dramatically higher than either Mitt’s or Huck’s (partly due to the fact that she’s much better known), she can’t put any daylight between herself and them as a choice for the nomination. And then there’s this:

Wow. In the editorial page of The Washington Post, our soon-to-be ex-governor just delivered a howler of a jeremiad: If President Obama's cap and trade proposal for carbon emissions becomes law, America will crumble. Gov. Sarah Palin rolled out every device in the ultra-right arsenal of unsubstantiated declarations and sloppy logic. She shamelessly knits hysterical patriotism to a new energy-based species of Manifest Destiny. (We are ripe for economic growth and energy independence if we responsibly tap the resources that God created right underfoot on American soil). She touts the promise of the natural gas pipeline, conveniently leaving out the...

Conservative intellectuals and pundits are old hands when it comes to being at odds with grassroots America. Whether it was William F. Buckley's opposition to the War in Iraq, Milton Friedman's championing of legalized marijuana or Heather Mac Donald's defense of atheism, conservative writers and thinkers have been unafraid to take unpopular stands even if it means thumbing their nose at the home crowd. A few of them were at it again this week. Exhibit A is the recent criticism of soon-to-be former Gov. Sarah Palin. The Los Angeles Times noted that while Palin remained the darling of the Republican...

Governor Sarah Palin’s resignation speech of July 3, 2008, along with the reasons she provided, were obviously exactly what the Palin supporters wanted to hear. When the funding report for Palin’s SarahPAC was filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the Anchorage Daily News (ADN) reported that through June 30, the political action fund had received almost $733,000 in donations since being established roughly six months ago. Meg Stapleton, SarahPAC spokesperson, added that since the resignation announcement, another $200,000 has been received. Following her announcement in early July, Governor Palin began speaking out about the injustice she sees with Mr....

When Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announced her resignation two weeks ago it was after a series of strange, petty bouts with her detractors. Many "frivolous ethics violations" had been alleged against her, she noted. David Letterman had told an ugly joke about her daughter. A blogger had posted something that was probably not true. Someone had photoshopped a radio talker's face onto a picture of her baby -- a "malicious desecration" of the image, in the words of Ms. Palin's spokeswoman. Team Palin got duly indignant at each of these. They took special, detailed offense. They issued statements magnifying their...

Sarah Palin still won't say whether she's building towards a presidential campaign in 2012. But she does plan to stay involved in national politics and appears to be casting herself as the possible leader of a new movement in American politics, one that would welcome Republicans and Democrats. "I will go around the country on behalf of candidates who believe in the right things, regardless of their party label or affiliation," she said in an interview with the Washington Times on Sunday. "People are so tired of the partisan stuff - even my own son is not a Republican," she...

Where do I begin?” Thus replied one senior Alaskan Republican when asked to comment on Sarah Palin’s latest eccentricity. Her decision to quit as Governor of Alaska with 18 months of her term still to go left him reeling. Amid all the speculation about her finances and her family and book deals and presidential runs and the bizarre reasons she gave for walking out on her job, where should he begin? The same question presents itself when reviewing the state of the modern Republican Party. What with all the revelations about adultery, the regular resignations and defections, the talk show...

The latest poll ratings suggest that many Republicans have turned negative towards Gov. Sarah Palin after her surprise resignation announcement. Reports CNN: A majority of Americans think Sarah Palin is stepping down as Alaska's governor for political reasons, according to a new national poll, with a majority of Republicans now saying that they do not believe that Palin would be an effective president. Only 33 percent of Republicans questioned in a CBS News survey released Monday night say that Palin would have the ability to serve effectively as president. Last fall, 71 percent of registered Republicans felt that way.

Poll: Majority of Republicans don't think Palin's qualified for prez Posted: 11:53 AM ET (CNN) — A majority of Americans think Sarah Palin is stepping down as Alaska's governor for political reasons, according to a new national poll, with a majority of Republicans now saying that they do not believe that Palin would be an effective president. Only 33 percent of Republicans questioned in a CBS News survey released Monday night say that Palin would have the ability to serve effectively as president. Last fall, 71 percent of registered Republicans felt that way. "It's unclear whether the change in Republicans'...

If you're wondering what Sarah Palin will do after leaving the Alaska governor's office, look no further than her op-ed in the this morning's Washington Post. She writes, "at risk of disappointing the chattering class, let me make clear what is foremost on my mind and where my focus will be: I am deeply concerned about President Obama's cap-and-trade energy plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy." As a card-carrying member of the chattering class, let me say that I am in indeed disappointed by this development. Not because Palin is showing a greater interest...

Sarah Palin Doesn't Know What Cap And Trade Is Jay Yarow|Jul. 14, 2009, 8:39 AM|109 PrintTags: Sarah Palin, U.S. Government, Garbage, Carbon, Emissions, Cap And Trade, Energy, Alternative Energy, Politics Sarah Palin wades into the debate on cap and trade, or as she prefers to call it, cap and tax, today in the Washington Post's editorial pages. Predictably she doesn't like it, but it doesn't appear as though she understands the issue at hand. "There is no denying that as the world becomes more industrialized, we need to reform our energy policy and become less dependent on foreign energy sources....