Republican Delusions

The following article lays out what I have been trying to say for weeks: that Republicans and America are in real trouble because we will probably get another term of an Obama presidency if we do not wise up. Of the candidates now in the race, it is delusional to think that anyone but Mitt Romney can beat Obama - and although I love Sarah Palin, she can't beat him either.

This is a long article, but well worth reading:

Republican Delusion is Obama's All-Too-Secret Weapon

By John Ziegler August 21, 2011 American Thinker
When exactly did Republicans seemingly become so delusional?

The first sign that the GOP base had left the gravitational pull of the rational earth in the Obama era was when professional blowhard Donald Trump shot to the top of the presidential polls on the strength of his bogus birth certificate crusade.

Fortunately, that particular problem took care of itself (at least for now), but the overall situation may have actually gotten worse. The most troubling part is that the vast majority of the party's rank and file seems to have no idea the peril its prospects of unseating President Obama are really in.

There is no doubt that Obama is very vulnerable, far more so than most observers (including me) believed likely when he was swept into office by a tidal wave of biased media coverage less than three years ago. His approval ratings are in the low forties, and in many of the battleground states he appears to be a heavy underdog.

The census-induced changes in the Electoral College slice his margin of error to almost nothing, and the economy shows very little sign of improving enough to rescue him. He has also left a trail of damningly false televised statements which should make for great attack ad fodder.

And yet the Republican Party appears on the verge of making Obama's reelection about as likely as the circumstances surrounding his presidency would make possible.

Consequently, this golden opportunity to help the country largely dodge the Obama bullet is on the verge of being squandered.

While the vast majority of conservatives (including many prominent commentators) would find that notion laughable, the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that, thanks largely to their predilection for seeing reality through overly optimistic and star-spangled glasses, they are dangerously out of touch.

The first misunderstanding that has led to this dangerous case of Republican hubris is the nature of the polling data. When the average conservative thirsting to see Obama be a one-termer hears that his "approval rating" is in the low forties (or even lower) they seem to think this means that almost sixty percent of the voting public has decided that they are unlikely to vote for him next year, but this is far from the truth.

Plenty of people have no problem saying now that they "disapprove" of a president in 2011 and still decide not to vote him out of office in 2012. In fact, saying they "disapprove" of the president's job performance doesn't even mean that they want him replaced at the instant they are asked.

The best way to think of this may be to consider the president as the national spouse. Plenty of wives may say at any given moment (especially when the honeymoon is long over and things seem to be going poorly) that they "disapprove" of the job that their husband is doing, but that doesn't mean they are necessarily going to leave him for someone else, particularly when there is no other specific option available at the time.

Another red herring in the political data is the "Obama vs. Generic Republican" number, which could not be more deceiving. Currently, Obama regularly loses nationally to this fictitious candidate, but if anything, these numbers show just how unlikely it really is that he will actually be defeated. When a poll respondent processes that question they conjure up the image of Republican who has no major blemishes and has yet to have their entire careers picked apart by a media all too eager to destroy them.

The only thing this number really means is how high the eventual Republican candidate's vote total could be. Unfortunately, this data currently actually provides good news for Obama because while he has lost at least once to the mythical untarnished Republican, this nonexistent challenger still has yet to get over 50 percent of the vote. Currently, despite all of his recent problems, no named candidate comes close to beating Obama in an actual head to head matchup except Mitt Romney.

Of course, none of the leading or even potential Republican candidates comes close to fitting the 'generic" description either. Ironically, the one candidate who came by far the closest, Tim Pawlenty, ended up, through little fault of his own, being the very first to be knocked out of the race.

The early demise of the Pawlenty campaign tells you everything you need to know about how this delusion/ignorance regarding political realities is stunting the Republican nominating process in a way Obama should only be able to dream about.

Pawlenty was the one candidate who clearly would have made the election an unambiguous referendum on Obama. That is a battle which, even with the media on his side, the president cannot win unless the economy makes an unexpected recovery.

Pawlenty's campaign was doomed by some of the very qualities which made it so attractive to those who understand how a national presidential election works in the modern age. He was seen as "boring" by a Republican electorate that is clearly looking to be highly stimulated. But in his case 'boring" also meant "electable."

He would have provided very little ammunition for the forces traditionally set to obliterate the Republican candidate. His record was strong and inoffensive, he didn't say things that the press could make sound outrageous, and he wasn't too rich, dumb, old, corrupt, crazy or racist (the usual laundry list of attack points on Republican candidates). In short, he was nearly the perfect candidate to run against Obama, and yet he barely got out of the starting gate, mostly because, as he said, the "audience" (which polls indicate believes electability is the most important quality in a nominee) was looking for something different.

Unfortunately for Pawlenty, he was either unwilling or unable to even make this argument. A couple of months ago at an event in Los Angeles attended by hundreds of conservatives in the entertainment industry (yes, they do exist), I asked Pawlenty during the Q and A how he planned to communicate the reality that he obviously had the best, and perhaps only, chance to beat Obama.

In a moment that directly foreshadowed his "Obamnycare" debate debacle, the former governor balked at the opportunity I presented him in a way that is emblematic of this issue of Republican overconfidence. Pawlenty's answer not only didn't augment the argument for his campaign, it actually destroyed it. He didn't accept the premise that he was the only candidate who could beat Obama and attacked the notion that the president was going to be particularly difficult to take down, saying that it would be a mistake to overestimate his electoral strength.

Well, even forgetting the obvious dangers of underestimating Obama, why wouldn't the base go for a "sexier" option if nearly anyone could slay this Democratic dragon? He was basically saying, "If you don't like me, go ahead and take a flyer on a riskier candidate."

That is exactly what the Republican base is in the process of doing.
As of now, there is only one current candidate who, barring a total economic collapse, has even the slightest chance of beating Obama and he (Romney) is distrusted by at least half of the Republican electorate. This is not simply a matter of opinion. The facts overwhelmingly point towards this conclusion as being patently obvious.

Even most Republicans would admit that Ron Paul (foreign policy dove/nut), Rick Santorum (just google his name and homosexuality) and Herman Cain (the Muslim issue and lack of experience) can't possibly win a general election, especially against a media darling like Obama. It also seems to be accepted wisdom that Newt Gingrich (his global warming commercial with Nancy Pelosi and his Paul Ryan comments) and Jon Huntsman (worked for and praised Obama) can't possibly win the nomination.

This of course leaves Romney along with, for now, Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry.

Regardless of what Tea Party activists will tell you, neither Bachmann nor Perry has any chance to defeat Obama unless there is an economic catastrophe or massive scandal between now and the election. This would be the case if both of these candidates didn't hold policy positions (which they do) that the media will easily be able to use to make them seem far outside the mainstream.

This argument can be made almost entirely without even looking at their politics (a factor, by the way, which is becoming increasingly overrated as the electorate becomes more ignorant and frivolous). One need only see how the basic narratives of the general election would take hold with each candidate as the nominee to see that Obama would win, probably easily.

In the case of Bachmann, she would be trying to become the first female president (ask Hillary Clinton about how tough that is just on its own) with the added burden of being seen by the media as a near clone of Sarah Palin, who herself has already been, largely wrongly, destroyed in the eyes of sixty percent of the public. Heck, Saturday Night Live already uses a Bachmann character that is just as devastating as their Palin impression was.

On top of that, she would be trying to become the first congressperson to be elected president in the modern history of the country -- during a time period when Congress is probably the most unpopular it has ever been. If that weren't enough, Bachmann leads the portion of that Congress (the Tea Party caucus) which is by far the scariest and easily demonized to non conservative portions of the country.

Heck, even if everything broke her way (which the media would never allow), the statement about her from her own former governor, Tim Pawlenty, at the last debate, where he mocked her lack of accomplishments in Congress would be played on a televised loop until Obama got over the top.

Quite simply, even if she were qualified and politically sound (two very questionable presumptions) Bachmann could never beat Obama without some sort of massive disaster hitting the country or his campaign.

The Perry problem is only slightly less definitive. At least he has been the governor of a major state for the past ten years and has a plausibly sellable record. Unfortunately, thanks to that state being Texas, the negative narrative about his candidacy almost literally writes itself. It took all of one day on the campaign trail for comedians to practically quote Perry when joking that the big difference between him and the roundly vilified George W. Bush is that the famously "stupid" former president is better educated.

Thanks to the obvious comparisons to Bush (they were even both on school cheerleading squads!) Perry will be far easier to negatively caricature than even Bachmann. His free-wheeling campaign/speaking style will provide fertile ground from which the media will inevitably reap a bounty of easily manipulated sound bites.

His rant on the Federal Reserve chairman was a classic example. The fact that he was correct on the issue and said " almost treasonous" was completely (and purposely) lost in the coverage of that event.

Should Perry get the nomination, this phenomenon would only get more pronounced.

While Perry would likely fight back (perhaps the one characteristic that truly separates him from Bush) and hold his own, his record of accomplishments would not be enough to sustain him against the inevitable onslaught. For one thing, Texas is in the middle of its worst drought in a generation and by election time Perry's economic stats will not look nearly as impressive as they do today, especially when put in the biased light shined on them by the pro-Obama media.

So now we are left with only Romney or a late entry into the race. There appear to still be two legitimate possible future candidates: Paul Ryan and Sarah Palin.

Since he is a congressman and a Tea Party favorite, Ryan has many of the same disadvantages in his narrative that Bachmann does, but without the attention grabber of being a woman. While he is clearly brilliant, he has the great misfortune of having already put down his plan to save the country in detailed writing. This would provide the Obama campaign team far too many attack points where the rebuttal would take more than the six seconds the tiny attention span of the media and the public would allow him to explain why electing him wouldn't really mean the end of Medicare and Social Security.

If we lived in a country where facts and details mattered and where courage and intellect were rewarded, Ryan would at least have a shot. Sadly, we don't and he doesn't.

As a legitimate Sarah Palin expert, I have written extensively (at great personal cost) about how her premature resignation as governor of Alaska completely disqualifies her as the person who should take on Obama. Even if she hadn't already been unfairly destroyed during the 2008 election, quitting her only major job, in a way that appears to have been designed for her to stay famous and get rich, would make it impossible for her to take on an incumbent president. Not surprisingly, in nearly every head-to-head poll Palin does worse against Obama than every other Republican candidate. Her fans have seemingly forgotten about the resignation, but were she ever to get the nomination the nation would be reminded of it on a daily basis.

That leaves only Mitt Romney as the last hope.

This is not to say that Romney doesn't have "issues" even in a general election, because he does as well. Being a Mormon won't help, though the media will really have to do gymnastics to justify this as an issue after the way they protected Obama on the Rev. Wright scandal in 2008. His business record as a job cutter would certainly be exploited and his personal wealth would play right into the class warfare campaign the Obama forces intend to run (which is why Pawlenty should have been the nominee). Finally, his penchant for changing positions would potentially allow him to be cast as the Republican equivalent of John Kerry.

While these circumstances are hardly ideal, against a weakened Obama they can be overcome. None of them rises to the level of a "disqualifier" and together they are still less dangerous than the negatives in any of the other candidates. Plus, Romney would have the ability to win key states like Michigan and New Hampshire which would be clearly out of reach for Bachmann or Perry. Then, of course, there is the fact that he looks and sounds more like a president than perhaps anyone else who has ever run for the office. Unfortunately, that seems to matter more than just about anything else these days.

While the evidence (both from polling and observational data) strongly indicates Romney has the best chance to beat the Obama candidacy the Republicans are most likely to face in 2012, his biggest problem appears to be that while the base claims electability is the most important quality it is looking for, it doesn't yet understand that he may be the only person with a real shot.

It is also possible that, much like a young woman on the dating scene, what the Republican base says it wants and what it really desires are two very different things. They have already discarded the "nice" guy who would have been best for them in the long run (Pawlenty) and are now enamored with the latest "bad boy" (Perry) who is exciting but who has very little "marriage" potential.

In short, Romney is in great danger of being left at the alter by a base which wrongly thinks that Obama's weakness has left them free to follow their hearts instead of their brains.

So, how it is all going to work out? Obviously, no one knows for sure, but here is my best analysis.

I continue to believe that Sarah Palin has no choice but to get in the race. While I am no longer in contact with her or her team after I came out against her running, everything I observed from the "inside" indicated to me that she was very open to running and nothing since then has changed my mind about that.

Her brand depends on her running because if she doesn't, her followers will feel let down and she will have no apparent next act. Once there are two new nominees on the 2012 ticket, she is old news with no office to change her narrative. By 2016 she would be ancient history with either a Republican president in office or with a brand new crop of highly qualified challengers ready to pounce on what should be the slam dunk of replacing a term-limited Obama.

My prediction is that she gets in and runs almost exclusively an air war intended to create the appearance of a real primary campaign without any of the hassles. She knows that her vote is pretty much set in stone and it won't be impacted much, if at all, by creating a traditional organization. If she is as smart as I think she is, her goal would be to exceed low expectations and finish a respectable second to Romney and thus use the campaign to change minds about her for the future. In a sense, she would then become a hybrid of Romney and Mike Huckabee after 2008: technically "unemployed" but well known and respected enough to sustain her viability into the future.

Weirdly, one of the reasons I am convinced Palin will get in is that there is actually a chance she could come "close" to winning the nomination. The spotlight of scrutiny is already directly on Bachmann and Perry and it is possible that one or both could either evaporate or at least wear thin in an era when two months is an eternity.

If things break her way, she could end up as the last Tea Party Star standing up against Romney (not counting Ron Paul) and it would be possible that Romney would not be popular enough with the base to reach the vote threshold needed to put her away. Still, she could not beat Romney in a protracted battle because, as Obama proved in 2008, winning a delegate battle is still all about organization, an area when Romney would dominate Palin, who frankly may not even want to actually win the nomination.

In that sense, Palin entering the race would probably be the best development the Romney campaign could hope for. She would immediately split votes from Bachmann and Perry and simultaneously raise the issue of electability to the front burner. Ironically, the fact that she probably helps Romney would be the only genuine excuse Palin could use at this point not to run.

An entry by Ryan seems less easy to predict both in likelihood and potential impact. Like Palin, he would probably hurt Bachmann most, but he could also take votes from Romney. Having him in the debates would definitely change their tenor and tone in a way that would heighten their substantive nature, but also may have negative consequences for the eventual nominee in a general election. For instance, I doubt that Romney would look forward to having to either embrace Ryan's plan on camera and hurt himself in a the general, or reject it and further turn off the base. Ryan is definitely a wild card, but my gut tells me he will not get in, especially if it becomes clear that Palin will.

As far as the potential implosions of Bachmann and Perry, this will not happen as easily as it may have in past cycles. This is where Obama's current weakness may end up as his greatest strength.

If Obama was perceived as nearly unbeatable, the Republican base would be far more sensitive towards the obvious signs that Bachmann and Perry can't play to a national audience. But now the base is so suspicious of "moderation" (especially after John McCain) that any attacks from the media/left are seen as a badge of honor by those who will be voting in the early primary states. As shown by Bachmann's victory in Ames the week of her "crazy eyes" Newsweek cover photo, the more a candidate is seen as the target of the left, the more they are instinctively trusted by the hard right, even when there is little or no logic to such support. It is also important to point out that the conservative media has shown itself extremely hesitant to strongly criticize any Republican candidate with a following (Palin being a prime example) for fear of losing their fans as customers.

If Obama were really smart (I know what you are thinking), he would spend every day ripping/mocking Bachmann and Perry and praising Romney. Doing so would single handedly make it almost impossible for Romney to win the nomination.

This is not to say that Bachmann and Perry can't fade away by the time South Carolina comes around. Bachmann will be vulnerable to a run by Palin and Perry will now have to deal with the absurdly high expectations of a frontrunner which would make anything less than a second place finish in Iowa a campaign killer. Assuming Palin gets in the race, only one of the Bachmann/Perry duo (likely the one who wins Iowa) makes it to South Carolina as a still viable candidate.

Palin, on the other hand, thanks to her celebrity, low overhead, the overwhelming desire of the news media to keep covering her, and lack of anything to lose, will be able to keep going as long as her bus doesn't break down.

This means South Carolina will likely come down to Romney, Palin, Paul and either Bachmann or Perry (probably Perry). In that scenario, if Romney finishes second (third at the very worst, which he barely did in 2008) he should be fine. Thanks to Michigan and Florida on the horizon, he should be able to outlast whoever wins South Carolina unless it is decidedly Perry. If Romney fails to meet this mark, it could create the nightmare scenario of a Perry, Palin and Paul death march to the finish, a race which would eventually be "won" by Perry.

One of the keys to the race is whether Palin catches fire in Iowa, which seems unlikely at this point. She is beloved by much of the base, but they also have grave suspicions about her electability. If she finishes third or worse in Iowa (which will happen without at least either Bachmann or Perry collapsing) the same will happen in New Hampshire and her greatest weakness will be set in stone, making it much easier for Romney to beat her in South Carolina. Again, her lack of organization and the fact that the establishment greatly fears her nomination, make it impossible for her to win a long slog, but how well she does will play a huge role in shaping the dynamic of the race.

In the end, Romney is still the favorite, but almost nothing can go wrong for him. Should he somehow lose the perception of being the most electable option, he would almost immediately be toast. He is like golfer Nick Faldo in the final round of the 1987 British Open: eighteen pars and he is the winner, but any major blunders and he will need a huge break to pull it out.

When it comes to the general election, there are two other important factors in Obama's favor that are being totally overlooked at this time. The first is that Obama will not just be running against an unpopular Congress, but rather against the even more powerful force of undivided government.

Americans have usually mistrusted too much power being in the hands of one party, but in today's toxic environment this trend is on steroids. Even in 2008, Obama benefited greatly from a massive misperception among his voters that Republicans still controlled Congress. In fact, according to two national polls I commissioned after the election, had voters been required to know that it was the Democratic Party which ruled Congress, Obama would have actually lost. Huge portions of the country had little or no idea that they would be handing one party total control of the political process.

In 2012, Obama will undoubtedly make sure that every voter knows that if he is replaced there is an excellent chance that Republicans will be in total command and that there will be nothing from keeping the Tea Party from sending the country into fiscal chaos. The debt ceiling debate will be made to work in his favor because he will be able to make it seem as if his defeat would cause the United States to default on its debt, with economic calamity certain to follow.

The "Obama as goalkeeper against the Tea Party" argument has the potential to be very powerful, especially with the media more than willing to help sell it and the president still personally popular. And yet I have yet to hear anyone even mention it.

The other unmentioned pro-Obama factor is even less likely to get any public conversation.

Thanks to the massive fragmentation of the media, the landscape of news outlets has been dramatically altered over the past decade. One of the many consequences of this reality has been that "news" organizations have been forced to make decisions base almost solely on business considerations and to become ideologically driven in order to attract and please a core audience.

The dirty little secret of this development is that it is actually economically beneficial for conservative outlets to have a Democratic president and for liberal ones to have a Republican commander in chief. In fact, about the only part of the economy that President Obama has dramatically improved is that of conservative commentary, especially that of Fox News whose ratings have never been better.

There is absolutely no doubt that conservative news/commentary outlets will have a profound self interest for Obama to remain in office. While many of them will not act on that self-interest, at least some of them undoubtedly will. I know this because a few of the most influential "conservative" sources took a dive for Obama in 2008 and have so far gotten away with it without their customers even having a clue.

Even if this problem somehow doesn't transpire, there is no doubt that the vast majority of media will be favoring Obama in 2012 almost as much as they did in 2008. If the conservative base hasn't yet learned the obvious lessons of that unprecedented display of "Media Malpractice," then perhaps they deserve to have history repeat itself.

It is not too late yet, but it is getting close.

She Told Us So

This article addresses a complex issue. I don't want the federal government paying doctors to advise patients to end their lives, but I DO want to be able to go to a doctor (under restrictions that serve to guarantee that I have both a terminal condition and am in sound state of mind) and request a prescription that will end my agony. Sarah Palin has been ridiculed for using the term, "death panels", but that they are part of Obamacare becomes clearer every day.

She Told Us So

By Cal Thomas 12/30/2010 Townhall

Sarah Palin deserves an apology. When she said that the new health-care law would lead to "death panels" deciding who gets life-saving treatment and who does not, she was roundly denounced and ridiculed.

Now we learn, courtesy of one of the ridiculers -- The New York Times -- that she was right. Under a new policy not included in the law for fear the administration's real end-of-life game would be exposed, a rule issued by the recess-appointed Dr. Donald M. Berwick, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, calls for the government to pay doctors to advise patients on options for ending their lives. These could include directives to forgo aggressive treatment that could extend their lives.

This rule will inevitably lead to bureaucrats deciding who is "fit" to live and who is not. The effect this might have on public opinion, which by a solid majority opposes Obamacare, is clear from an e-mail obtained by the Times. It is from Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), who sent it to people working with him on the issue.

Oregon and Washington are the only states with assisted-suicide laws, a preview of what is to come at the federal level if this new regulation is allowed to stand. Blumenauer wrote in his November e-mail: "While we are very happy with the result, we won't be shouting it from the rooftops because we aren't out of the woods yet. This regulation could be modified or reversed, especially if Republican leaders try to use this small provision to perpetuate the 'death panel' myth."

Ah, but it's not a myth, and that's where Palin nailed it. All inhumanities begin with small steps; otherwise the public might rebel against a policy that went straight to the "final solution." All human life was once regarded as having value, because even government saw it as "endowed by our Creator." This doctrine separates us from plants, microorganisms and animals.

Doctors once swore an oath, which reads in part: "I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion." Did Dr. Berwick, a fan of rationed care and the British National Health Service, ever take that oath? If he did, it appears he no longer believes it.

Do you see where this leads? First the prohibition against abortion is removed and "doctors" now perform them. Then the assault on the infirm and elderly begins.

Once the definition of human life changes, all human lives become potentially expendable if they don't measure up to constantly "evolving" government standards.

It will all be dressed up with the best possible motives behind it and sold to the public as the ultimate benefit. The killings, uh, terminations, will take place out of sight so as not to disturb the masses who might have a few embers of a past morality still burning in their souls. People will sign documents testifying to their desire to die, and the government will see it as a means of "reducing the surplus population," to quote Charles Dickens.

When life is seen as having ultimate value, individuals and their doctors can make decisions about treatment that are in the best interests of patients. But when government is looking to cut costs as the highest good and offers to pay doctors to tell patients during their annual visits that they can choose to end their lives rather than continue treatment, that is more than the proverbial camel's nose under the tent. That is the next step on the way to physician-assisted suicide and, if not stopped, government-mandated euthanasia.

It can't happen here? Based on what standard? Yes it can happen in America, and it will if the new Republican class in Congress doesn't stop it.

Surprising Liberal Post on Sarah Palin

This is a surprisingly favorable treatment of Sarah Palin as to be found in a liberal publication such as the Washington Post. Sarah is my hope for the future; she may not have all the answers, but I trust her instincts and her integrity to do the right thing for America.

Five myths about Sarah Palin

By Matthew Continetti, October 17, 2010 Washington Post
Think you know Sarah Palin? The former Alaska governor has been in the spotlight ever since John McCain named her as his running mate on Aug. 29, 2008. Yet, while practically everybody has an opinion about Palin, not all of those opinions are grounded in reality. Many of them are based more on a "Saturday Night Live" caricature than on the living, breathing, 46-year-old mother of five. The real Sarah Palin is a complex woman who has risen in no time from obscurity to the stratosphere of American politics, fusing celebrity and populism in novel ways. Now that she's laying the foundation for a possible presidential run in 2012, it's worth taking a moment to separate the fact about Palin from the fable.

1. Palin cost McCain the 2008 election.

She didn't. CNN's 2008 national exit poll, for example, asked voters whether Palin was a factor when they stepped into the voting booth. Those who said yes broke for McCain 56 percent to 43 percent.

Before Palin's selection, remember, McCain suffered from an enthusiasm gap. Republicans were reluctant to vote for the senator from Arizona because of his reputation as a maverick who'd countered his party on taxes, immigration, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and "cap and trade" climate legislation. But Palin's conservative record in Alaska and antiabortion advocacy changed the Republican mood. With her by his side, McCain's fundraising and support from conservatives improved. It wasn't enough to beat Barack Obama -- but McCain probably would have lost the presidency by a greater margin if he had, say, selected independent Sen. Joe Lieberman as his running mate, further alienating the GOP base.

Yes, it's possible that Palin's conservatism and uneven performance on the campaign trail shifted some voters to Obama's column. But even if Obama picked up some anti-Palin votes, he surely didn't need them: The economy was in recession, Wall Street was in meltdown, and the incumbent Republican president was incredibly unpopular. Of course, in the end, it's impossible to know how McCain would have performed if he hadn't selected Palin -- politics does not allow for control experiments.

2. Resigning as governor was rash.

No one expected Palin's resignation on July 3, 2009, just 2 1/2 years into her term.

Her hastily composed and clumsily delivered farewell address left many observers confused about her motives. Some of her critics were only too eager to fill in the gaps with conjecture and hearsay (She's being investigated by the FBI! Sarah and Todd must be headed for divorce!). If there was one thing everybody knew for sure, it was that Palin's career in politics was over. But none of the rumored scandals ever broke. The Palins remain married. And as for Sarah Palin's career, it's taken off. She plays a far greater role in American public life than she did before she left office.

When Palin returned to Alaska after the 2008 campaign, she confronted three problems. The political coalition on which she had based her governorship -- a combination of Democrats and renegade "Palinista" Republicans -- had, needless to say, collapsed. Her critics were using Alaska's tough ethics laws to launch investigations into her behavior, sapping her finances and her energy. Finally, every time she traveled to the Lower 48, Alaskans criticized her for putting her political interests above the state's.

Palin's solution was to resign. Her agenda stood a better chance of passing if then-Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, who shared Palin's goals, succeeded her as governor. As a private citizen, meanwhile, Palin could make enough money to pay her legal bills. And she would no longer be accused of neglecting her official duties.

Some might say that Palin's resignation was shortsighted and showed that she was not ready for the demands of executive office. But if Palin had remained governor, she would have been denied opportunities to rally the tea party and fight in the battle over the Obama agenda. She would have been stuck on a regional stage. Instead, she's back on the national one.

3. Palin and the tea party are destroying the GOP.

You've heard the spiel: The Republican Party is in the midst of a civil war between moderate incumbents and far-right challengers backed by Palin and the tea party. Driving Charlie Crist from the GOP and defeating establishment figures such as Robert Bennett, Lisa Murkowski and Mike Castle spells electoral doom for the party. The only chance Republicans have for long-term success is to move to the center in a bid to win over millennials and Latinos.

But demographics aren't destiny, and no one knows what the future holds. The reality, right now, is that Palin and the tea party are saving the GOP by dragging it back to its roots and mobilizing conservative voters.

Remember, by the time Palin arrived on the national scene, the Republican Party was depleted, exhausted and held in disrepute. An unpopular war in Iraq, an economy in recession and GOP corruption had driven away independents. Meanwhile, massive government spending and a liberal immigration policy had dispirited conservatives.

This is where Palin came in. In the wake of Obama's historic victory, she and countless other grass-roots activists could have abandoned the GOP and turned the tea party into a conservative third party. They didn't. They decided instead to refashion the Republican Party from the ground up, pressuring it to live up to its limited-government ideals. Now, two years after Obama's win, Republicans are poised to reap major gains in the midterm elections. Palin and the tea party haven't hurt the GOP one bit.

4. Palin is extreme.

On many of the most important issues of the day, Palin holds positions that are squarely in the center-right of American political discourse. And many of those positions, not incidentally, are held by a large segment or even a majority of the public. For instance, neither the public nor Palin believes the stimulus worked. And while most Americans may not share Palin's views regarding "death panels," many join her in opposing Obama's health-care overhaul.

Over the past two years, Pew and Gallup surveys have tracked the public as it has moved to the right -- not on just one or two issues but on a whole constellation of them. Even on the controversial topics of abortion, guns and same-sex marriage, Palin is not as far away from the center as some suppose. A May 2009 Gallup poll, for example, found that a majority of Americans identified as "pro-life" rather than "pro-choice." In October 2009, Gallup measured record-low support for gun control. The public is divided on same-sex marriage, with about half the country joining Palin's (and Obama's) opposition.

5. Palin is unelectable.

Without question, a Palin 2012 campaign would be an uphill battle. Palin is unpopular -- massively so among Democrats, decisively so among independents. Even many Republicans don't believe she's ready to be president.

But opinions can change. Look at the political resuscitations of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Hillary Rodham Clinton. If Palin works hard and runs an impressive campaign, wavering Republicans and skeptical independents may give her a second look.

To earn that second look, she may need to find a big idea. It's hard to become president without one. Reagan had supply-side economics and the end of detente with the Soviets. Bill Clinton had the third way. George W. Bush had compassionate conservatism and the freedom agenda. Obama had national unity and hope and change.

At the moment, however, Palin still expresses her agenda mainly in negative terms, focusing on her opposition to Obama and the Washington establishment. She hasn't defined her "common-sense conservatism" in positive language. And she hasn't found a unifying, exhilarating theme.

Then again, she just might get along without one. After all, a presidential contest is a choice. The public might not love Palin. But by 2012, Americans might absolutely despise Obama. Two more years of a bad economy and an unpopular Afghan war, and anything is possible. Yes, there's a ceiling to Palin's support. But in 2012, there also will be a ceiling to Obama's.

Whose will be higher?

I have one strong objection to this surprising article by a liberal journalist – his somewhat sneering reference to Sarah Palin’s comments about ‘death panels’. Despite the hype and the lies, one of the many disastrous features of Obamacare that are being revealed almost on a daily basis is that there are indeed agencies and panels to be set up to decide who lives and who dies. If these are not ‘death panels’ then what are they? Deciding that a particular procedure or medication is too expensive for a particular patient is a life or death decision.

Well What Do You Know! Sarah Palin Was Right About Darth Vader

It’s getting tiresome that every time someone points out an Obama lie or that an act of the Obama Administration is socialist or against the law, the minions jump on TV to pooh-pooh the assertion and then try to destroy the reputation of the whistle-blower. Look at what is happening right now to the reputation of J. Christian Adams, the career Justice Dept. attorney who resigned because charges were dropped against the Black Panthers.

Similarly, all those (including Sarah Palin) who try to point out that Obamacare includes rationing of services to seniors (some will die because of rationing – hence “Death Panels”) are subjected to intense character assassination.

With the appointment by Obama of Donald Berwick to head up Medicare and Medicaid (without a confirmation hearing as required), the wraps are off as the leading proponent of redistributing wealth through the healthcare system and of limiting care to the elderly is now in charge of the government health system.

Sarah Palin Outs Darth Vader

By Stuart Schwartz July 12, 2010 American Thinker

Darth Vader is out of the closet...and we have Sarah Palin to thank.

The intrepid crusader from the north cut to the heart of Obamacare a year ago, slashing through the professor-speak and government gobbledygook with a searing summary on Facebook of its bottom line: "death panels." With those words, the grounds for debate had shifted, the mainstream media ideological blackout was circumvented, and now, although it may have been Obama's new head of Medicare, Harvard's Dr. Donald Berwick, who stepped on the shuttle at Boston's Logan International Airport, it is Darth Vader who has exited at Reagan National.

Darth Vader -- really? The man responsible for the death of a gazillion inhabited worlds, through whom the evil Emperor Palpatine -- described as " a middle-aged politician ... who gains power through deception and treachery"...sound familiar? -- sought to enslave the universe in the fictional Star Wars saga? Surely, an exaggeration! Yes, and deliberately so, for Berwick starts off his gig as head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid as an enthusiastic proponent of, as one British media commentator noted, a system that routinely denies "some poor suffering victim a remedy that is available in other countries." At the same time, it views the elderly as simply less worthy of care, an expendable segment of the population for whom doctors and heart specialists provide less treatment past the official "cut-off" of 65 years, a British health research journal documented.

Palin's column on death panels ignited a firestorm of elite media and beltway criticism. Once, that would have been enough to shut down debate, for the broadcast networks and newspapers controlled information -- we knew only what they wanted us to know. Suddenly, the new media (including the site you're now reading) provided reality, and the Tea Parties and Republican Party followed. And now Darth Vader has become a metaphor, a figure of speech signifying that the coming of Harvard's Berwick represents the same thing to the average American that the arrival of the Death Star, the spaceship used to destroy planets, meant for entire populations. All of a sudden, life-and-death decisions are out of our hands, resting with a government determined to control every waking moment of our lives.

As Investors Business Daily headlined, "The President's One-Man Death Panel" has arrived. Berwick has come to Washington to play Vader to Obama's Emperor Palpatine. The Harvard health specialist's job is to transform Medicare, to make the primary medical insurance system for seniors into an instrument of social policy, to take wealth and years from seniors and redistribute them to favored segments of the population. This is not about health care, and it is especially not about seniors; rather, it is all about the social engineering.

Sarah Palin was right, stubbornly hanging in when the mainstream media -- sensing "a great disturbance in the [leftist] force" -- trained its batteries on her. She was ridiculed on network newscasts, in the White House briefing room, by the media "stormtroopers [who] represented the most visible extension of Imperial [Obama] might." Darth Vader and Star Wars serve as metaphor, Palin as Princess Leia, while network anchors, commentator after commentator, all the president's men showered ridicule on her. "Downright evil," screamed Keith Olbermann; "stupid as s**t," proclaimed a popular Democratic blog.

But she persevered, and the truth emerged. The president and his congressional allies were forcing a crazy quilt of statist bureaucracies, socialist dysfunctions, and authoritarian controls. Each day brought more revelations as Tea Party activists, Republican staffers, ordinary citizens, and new media combed through Obamacare legislation. Sarah Palin was right. Popular radio host Mark Levin put it best: "Sarah Palin's not scary. You know who is? Barack Hussein Obama."

Reality had settled in, so much so that the president circumvented the public legislative process and made a recess appointment of Berwick. He hoped to avoid discussion of the views of the Harvard leftist, who, the New York Post pointed out, is a "fervent ideologue [who] puts social engineering ahead of the individual patient's needs." The Berwick view: Good health care must take from the wealthy and the well, the seniors and those less desired by society, and "redistribute" so as to achieve a "just, equitable, civilized and humane" republic of the people.

Berwick is part of a university health policy establishment that grew out of its original mission to train practitioners in the medical field. They did their job well, providing the United States with health care that, for all of its problems, is the best health care system in the world. But then a disease set in, the same disease that produced Barack Obama and his government-by-professor -- the hubris of an educated class that, as economist Thomas Sowell notes, is "not only wrong, but grossly and disastrously wrong in their prescriptions for the ills of society."

Health policy schools began popping up, as Ivy League universities led the way in thinking of health services as a means to change society. This is known as "policy," and medical schools were soon accompanied by whole schools of health policy. Professors were not content to produce world-class medical professionals; instead, they wanted to change the United States, telling you what you could and could not do in all matters touching upon health. It was as if your plumber suddenly said, "Enough with the plumbing!" and seized control of your life, telling you what type of fixtures are to be allowed in your house, dictating the meals that would ultimately emerge as waste, regulating the number and type of bathrooms permitted...you get the picture.

But with Berwick and his colleagues, it gets worse. He is associated with Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), which is the medical world's equivalent of the leftist community activist group ACORN. PNHP has provided the bodies to fill the white coats on display at Obamacare publicity opportunities and has ties to both elite public health schools (its president is an administrator and professor at the Cornell medical school) and a variety of socialist and communist organizations in vogue in academia (Students for a Democratic Society, the Communist Party, Democratic Socialists of America, etc. -- see Discover the Networks). Their shared goal: replace individual choice with centralized government control.

In the end, it is about power. Donald Berwick and Barack Obama, Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine want to dictate the care you can and can't have. Berwick, for example, calls ultrasounds and cesarean sections a "form of assault and battery." Under Obamacare, he (through his rationing bureaucracy), not you or your doctor, decides whether you have a procedure. This is nothing new -- the political systems and policy bureaucracies Berwick and Obama seek to emulate have been doing it with disastrous results for individuals for years (e.g., England, Cuba, the old Soviet Union, Hitler's Germany). As one senior staff member at Berwick's base in the Harvard School of Public Health has put it so eloquently in his blogs and books, we will do away with a Constitution and government that are the "enemy of the working class."

But Palin and the Tea Parties, the new media, and finally, a newly energized Republican Party have seen through the rhetoric. They see that when it came time for his wife to be treated for a debilitating illness, Donald Berwick went outside the system he was part of, Boston media revealed, and "used his many connections to get her the best care possible." But this is the way of Obama's Washington, of Berwick's Harvard Square, and the mainstream media's Upper Manhattan...of Darth Vader's empire.

Good for thee, but not for me. Darth Vader is out of the closet, and the Death Star has entered orbit.

Katie Couric: Return of the Palin Slayer

Katie Couric: Return of the Palin Slayer

By Stuart Schwartz February 15, 2010 American Thinker

You know they're worried.

Big government, big media, big Barack -- they're all worried. And they've brought in the knight in designer armor, the savior of all that is Washington and New York and Rodeo Drive, privileged and Democratic -- Katie Couric.

Katie the Palin Slayer is back.

The CBS Evening News anchor is on the cover of Harper's Bazaar this month, all progressive chic and mainstream media glitter. And just a week ago, she genuflected before Barack Obama to open the Super Bowl on CBS.

Call her the anti-Palin. In the 2008 election, the Couric interview with Sarah Palin helped put Obama in the White House and gathered a tsunami of accolades culminating in the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award from the Metropolitan Opera wing of the Democratic Party, also known as mainstream media. With heavily edited snark, Couric stomped the pretender from the wrong side of the glaciers beneath her Christian Louboutin booties ($1,400 a pair at the Dollar General of establishment journalism, Bergdorf Goodman).

Neither her eighth cover for the glamor magazine nor the Super Bowl interview are meant to inform. Instead, in concert with the White House, Katie is hitting the "reset" button on a failing presidency. I'm-Katie-Couric-and-I'm-here-to-admire-you. Barack, Nancy, Harry, Rahm -- don't worry, got you covered.

They need Katie and her media platform. The Tea Party is gaining ground, The U.S. Congress and Obama job approval ratings are at historic lows, newspapers -- long an arm of the Democratic Party -- are failing at a record rate, and the networks -- bastions of liberalism -- are hemorrhaging viewers.

And -- OMG!!! -- Sarah Palin is back! Quick, hand me the wooden stakes and call Katie! Katie Couric isn't doing journalism; rather (or...Rather), she is 911 for the Obama agenda. The natives are restless, and who better to call on than Katie the Palin Slayer?

And so Katie has again swung into action. Hail the "conquering Couric," the Washington Post exults, "a power broker in stiletto heels." Katie's back, and as Robert Browning might have written had he been funded by a grant from the Obama administration, "the condom's back on the banana -- all's right with the world." (The original line read "God's in his heaven"; this is Obama safe schools czar Browning, National Endowment for the Humanities poetry.)

Of course, she had no choice. You see, Katie hearts Barack. They are part of what New York Times columnist David Brooks proudly calls the "intellectual class," a political and media elite that knows what's best for the rest of us.

And when Barack got into trouble -- not, of course, because he is wrong, but because the rest of us are a "nation of dodos" (as it was put by another media grandee, Joe Klein of Time, the Ivy League, and Bill Clinton's tony New York neighborhood), the White House reached out to Katie.

After all, she had made her bones on Palin, urged on by an intellectual class only too happy to indulge its inner "gangsta." And she remained close to the Obama White House, a guest at its first state dinner and the public face of a network advocating the statist agenda of Obama while questioning the legitimacy of anti-tax citizens.

But the sheep have become surprisingly reluctant to be shorn, and Katie has been called back into service to lead a media charge designed to prevent the nation from throwing away its best chance at progressive transformation. It is hard for a journalistic establishment engaged in "a slobbering love affair," as conservative press critic Bernard Goldberg calls it, to imagine a citizenry rejecting a president so smart that the Washington Post noted in open-jawed wonder that he has pondered the legal implications of Einstein's theory of relativity (never mind that there are no legal implications).

Katie is only too happy to help a nation stuck on stupid, a nation of Palin-loving simpletons incapable of comprehending the genius that is Barack Obama. After all, as Barack once so wisely explained, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways."

Wait -- was that Barack? Or was that God...in that book written by a dead Jew named Isaiah? Well, no matter. God, Barack...same difference, according to Newsweek.

And who better than Katie to understand the embattled president? Harper's Bazaar notes that a photograph of her staring at her reflection in the mirror is "iconic." She adores what she sees, as does the president when he looks in the mirror.

And so Katie suited up for the Super Bowl, making sure, in her words, to take an "appropriate tone" that would showcase the president's firm grasp of all that is good and fair. With a Palin resurgence as the backdrop, Katie attempted to point out a simple truth to Americans: Obama is good and Palin is bad.

And so the CBS news executive guides the Obamamedia team into the 2010 battle. And she, like the president, has a people's touch -- or so Harper's puts it. Her Obama-like concern for the less fortunate is evident in every part of her life. Her appearance, for example, on the magazine cover touting her $14-million salary and million-dollar wardrobe coincides with layoffs in the ailing CBS news division that she leads.

"This is complete insanity!" CBS employees facing unemployment complained. But Katie merely smiled a sympathetic smile and said, "I always feel sexy when I'm in a little black dress."

Barack, Katie -- it's all about me. When a library expansion near her $6.3-million summer home threatened to attract children from surrounding middle-class towns, she was one of the homeowners springing into action, their representatives urging the zoning board to stop the project. With Obamaesque sensitivity for the chef-less masses, she wanted to protect the children who would feel out of place in a resort town peopled by the likes of Martha Stewart and Jerry Seinfeld.

Imagine the damage to youthful self-esteem, walking by Tiffany and Ralph Lauren and Sotheby Real Estate and checking out a book, only to return at the end of the day to modest homes Palin-large with family. Oh, the horror -- right out of Charles Dickens! Better that they never come. Reading is overrated, anyway.

Katie the Palin Slayer is back, accessorizing with bias and making the nation safe for Obama...and Gucci.

Stuart H. Schwartz is on the faculty at Liberty University in Virginia.

It Depends On What The Meaning of Is, Is

Some left-wing pundits have been pontificating that Sarah Palin does not have the intelligence to be president. They obviously hope, as Gobbels did in Nazi Germany, that this lie will catch on and become regarded as truth.

What I think they really mean, though, is that Sarah has not shown the proclivity to lie and dissemble when faced with a difficult or embarrassing question as their heroes, Clinton and Obama, do so readily and easily. It is one of the traits in her character that draws me to her, although I’m sure that, as president, she would recognize that, occasionally, a president has to lie in the national interest.

An example of this was when the Warren Commission and President Johnson accepted and spread the lie of the ‘single-bullet’ theory after John Kennedy was assassinated. Any one who examined the evidence knew that this was crazy, but we held our tongues knowing that acceptance of this story was best for America.

On the other hand:

If video does not load, go here.

And as for Clinton:

We all know of his lies about Monica Lewinsky, Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers, Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broaddrick. He is the only president to have been convicted of perjury, which resulted in the loss of his law license. I saw right away that they were both liars when he and Hillary talked about his relationship with Gennifer Flowers on 60 Minutes before the 1992 election. As former Senator Bob Kerrey (a Democrat) once said, “Clinton is the best liar we have ever seen”.

There's Something About Sarah

I only contributed to two politicians over the last two years, Scott Brown and Sarah Palin, and I'm proud that I did. I will support Sarah for any office she may choose to run for, including the presidency. The main reason for my support is that I agree with her values and her principles, and I believe that the hard choices she has made in her life show that she can be trusted to be true to these values. She has also shown me that she is very smart, easily besting Joe Biden in their debate, and is a quick study on issues and foreign affairs that she never had to deal with before. She also knows that we have 50 states (not 57), and how to pronounce 'corpsman'. She is our best hope to actually reduce the size and influence of government (not just slow its growth), our best hope to free up the tremendous wealth and job-producing power of free-market capitalism, and our best hope to keep us safe from the islamic butchers who would kill us all.

There's Something About Sarah

By Aaron Goldstein 2.10.10 American Spectator

It has been nearly a year and a half since Sarah Palin became a household name in America and the world over. Despite the fact she was on the bottom half of a losing ticket and hasn't held public office in more than half a year three cable networks provided live coverage of her address to the Tea Party Convention last Saturday night in Nashville. Is there any other private American citizen who could command that sort of undivided attention?

The answer is nobody else could and liberals know it all to well. How else can one explain their sudden obsession with Palin's left hand? The best liberals could do was to say that she had cheated by writing a few words on her hand. So let's see if I get this straight. Sarah Palin has all of six words on her palm and liberals conclude "she needs a cheat-sheet." (1) Yet liberals don't seem to mind that President Obama needs a teleprompter to read a nearly 2,000 word speech during the National Prayer Breakfast last week and still mispronounced the word "corpsman" not once but twice. (2) Talk about hand wringing.

But Palin is well aware life is unfair and that this is par for the course. She responded as perhaps only she could. During a rally for Texas Governor Rick Perry the following day, she wrote on her palm for all to see, "Hi Mom!" Now that's telling liberals to talk to the hand.

Yet for all their disdain for the former Alaska governor, liberals still can't quite put their finger on her. Much in the same way they couldn't understand Ronald Reagan. I don't know if the Tea Party Convention organizers did this by design, but Palin's speech fell on what would have been President Reagan's 99th birthday. Indeed, she paid homage to the Gipper when she began her speech. Palin, like Reagan, has an uncanny ability to read the public pulse and tend to it with a common touch.

During Reagan's lifetime he was at various times called an "amiable dunce," derided for describing ketchup as a vegetable (even though he never actually did), and chided for reading from cue cards. Yet it is worth remembering what former CNN anchor Bernard Shaw said in conversation with Wolf Blitzer and others following Reagan's funeral:

SHAW: Can I say something that touches on a very sensitive issue?

BLITZER: Of course.

SHAW: The news media and how we failed to thoroughly cover and communicate the very essences we're talking about possessed by Ronald Reagan. What I've been reading and what I've been hearing I did not get during his two terms in office, or did I miss something?

BLITZER: I think you're on to something, Bernie.

SHAW: I think we failed our viewers, listeners, and readers to an appreciable extent. I can't quantify it, but I'll put it there. Because I certainly missed a lot.

Now there are those amongst conservatives who scoff at the notion that Palin is a Reagan in the making. Yet when reading Shaw's poignant observations one cannot help but think that the liberal media are failing their viewers, listeners, and readers to a considerable extent with Palin as they did with Reagan more than a generation ago. Should Palin run for and be elected to the White House, there is every reason to believe the liberal media will do much the same with her and miss a lot. These sentiments would be especially pronounced should she dethrone Obama. One would hate to think it would take Palin's passing for the liberal media to utter a kind word about her, but that is probably what it would take.

Yet then again I am sure Palin would just as soon not to live long enough to see the day when MSNBC sings her praises. During her address before the 2008 Republican National Convention she said, "Now here's a little news flash for those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion. I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this great country." (5)

Of course, there are those who will always believe that Palin will need someone to hold her hand. But she does not stand alone. To paraphrase that great gospel song penned by the late Gene MacLellan, she has "put her hand in the hand of the man who stilled the water/put her hand in the hand of the man who calmed the sea." Just so we are clear the man with that hand is not the "charismatic guy with a teleprompter." Yet so long as Sarah Palin keeps a firm grip on that hand she will be able to reach out and be received. Meanwhile, liberals will be left to grasp at straws.

From Sarah Palin's Facebook December 22, 2009

Sarah Palin: Midnight Votes, Backroom Deals, and a Death Panel

From Sarah Palin's Facebook December 22, 2009

Last weekend while you were preparing for the holidays with your family, Harry Reid’s Senate was making shady backroom deals to ram through the Democrat health care take-over. The Senate ended debate on this bill without even reading it. That and midnight weekend votes seem to be standard operating procedures in D.C. No one is certain of what’s in the bill, but Senator Jim DeMint spotted one shocking revelation regarding the section in the bill describing the Independent Medicare Advisory Board (now called the Independent Payment Advisory Board), which is a panel of bureaucrats charged with cutting health care costs on the backs of patients – also known as rationing. Apparently Reid and friends have changed the rules of the Senate so that the section of the bill dealing with this board can’t be repealed or amended without a 2/3 supermajority vote. Senator DeMint said:

“This is a rule change. It’s a pretty big deal. We will be passing a new law and at the same time creating a senate rule that makes it out of order to amend or even repeal the law. I’m not even sure that it’s constitutional, but if it is, it most certainly is a senate rule. I don’t see why the majority party wouldn’t put this in every bill. If you like your law, you most certainly would want it to have force for future senates. I mean, we want to bind future congresses. This goes to the fundamental purpose of senate rules: to prevent a tyrannical majority from trampling the rights of the minority or of future congresses.”

In other words, Democrats are protecting this rationing “death panel” from future change with a procedural hurdle. You have to ask why they’re so concerned about protecting this particular provision. Could it be because bureaucratic rationing is one important way Democrats want to “bend the cost curve” and keep health care spending down?

The Congressional Budget Office seems to think that such rationing has something to do with cost. In a letter to Harry Reid last week, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf noted (with a number of caveats) that the bill’s calculations call for a reduction in Medicare’s spending rate by about 2 percent in the next two decades, but then he writes the kicker:

“It is unclear whether such a reduction in the growth rate could be achieved, and if so, whether it would be accomplished through greater efficiencies in the delivery of health care or would reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care.”

Though Nancy Pelosi and friends have tried to call “death panels” the “lie of the year,” this type of rationing – what the CBO calls “reduc[ed] access to care” and “diminish[ed] quality of care” – is precisely what I meant when I used that metaphor.

This health care bill is one of the most far-reaching and expensive expansions of the role of government into our lives. We’re talking about putting one-seventh of our economy under the government’s thumb. We’re also talking about something as intimate to our personal well-being as medical care.

This bill is so unpopular that people on the right and the left hate it. So why go through with it? The Senate is planning to vote on this on Christmas Eve. Why the rush? Though we will begin paying for this bill immediately, we will see no benefits for years. (That’s the trick that allowed the CBO to state that the bill won’t grow the deficit for the next ten years.)

The administration’s promises of transparency and bipartisanship have been broken one by one. This entire process has been defined by midnight votes on weekends, closed-door meetings with industry lobbyists, and payoffs to politicians willing to sell their principles for sweetheart deals. Is it any wonder that Americans are so disillusioned with their leaders in Washington?

This is about politics, not health care. Americans don’t want this bill. Americans don’t like this bill. Washington has stopped listening to us. But we’re paying attention, and 2010 is coming.
********************
As the Senate prepares to vote on health care reform, American voters "mostly disapprove" of the plan 53 - 36 percent and disapprove 56 - 38 percent of President Barack Obama's handling of the health care issue, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.


Voters also oppose 72 - 23 percent using any public money in the health care overhaul to pay for abortions, the independent Quinnipiac University poll finds.

Lowdown on the Wilding of Sarah Palin

Some think that the sliming of Sarah Palin and of her husband and of her children by those on the left has just been normal, political name-calling. If this is what you think, read on.

The Wilding of Sarah Palin

By Robin of Berkeley November 24, 2009 American Thinker

I finally beheld what my eyes had refused to see: that leftists are Mr. and Ms. Misogyny. Neither the males nor the females care a whit about women.

Women are continually sacrificed on the altar of political correctness. If under radical Islam women are enshrouded and stoned and beheaded, so be it.

My other epiphanies: those ponytailed guys were marching for abortion rights not because they cherished women's reproductive freedom, but to keep women available for free and easy sex.

And the eagerness for women to make good money? If women work hard, leftist men don't have to.

Then along came Sarah, and the attacks became particularly heinous. And I realized something even more chilling about the Left. Leftists not only sacrifice and disrespect women, but it's far worse: many are perpetuators.

The Left's behavior towards Palin is not politics as usual. By their laser-focus on her body and her sexuality, leftists are defiling her.

They are wilding her. And they do this with the full knowledge and complicity of the White House.

The Left has declared war on Palin because she threatens their existence. Liberals need women dependent and scared so that women, like blacks, will vote Democrat.

A strong, self-sufficient woman, Palin eschews liberal protection. Drop her off in the Alaskan bush and she'll survive just fine, thank you very much. Palin doesn't need or want anything from liberals -- not hate crimes legislation that coddles her, and not abortion, which she abhors.

Palin is a woman of deep and abiding faith. She takes no marching orders from messiah-like wannabes like Obama.

And so the Left must try to destroy her. And they are doing this in the most malicious of ways: by symbolically raping her.

Just like a perpetuator, they dehumanize her by objectifying her body. They undress her with their eyes.

They turn her into a piece of ass.

Liberals do this by calling her a c__t, ogling her legs, demeaning her with names like "slutty flight attendant" and "Trailer Park Barbie," and exposing her flesh on the cover of Newsweek.

And from Atlantic Magazine's Andrew Sullivan: "Sarah Palin's vagina is the font of all evil in the galaxy."

Nothing is off-limits, not actress Sandra Bernhard's wish that Palin be gang-raped or the sexualization of Palin's daughters.

As every woman knows, leering looks, lurid words, and veiled threats are intended to evoke terror. Sexual violence is a form of terrorism.

The American Left has a long history of defiling people to control and break them. The hard core '60s leftists were masters of guerrilla warfare, like the Symbionese Liberation Army repeatedly raping Patty Hearst. Huey P. Newton sent a male Black Panther to the hospital, bloodied and damaged from a punishment of sodomy.

The extreme Left still consider themselves warriors, righteous soldiers for their Marxist cause. With Palin, they use sexual violence as part of their military arsenal.

Palin is not the only intended victim. As Against Our Will described, the brutality is also aimed at men. By forcing men to witness Palin's violation, the Left tries to emasculate conservative men and render them powerless.

The wilding of any woman is reprehensible. But defiling a mother of five with a babe in her arms, and a grandmother to boot, is particularly obscene. It is, of course, Palin's unapologetic motherhood that fuels the leftist fire.

Because as a mother and a fertile woman, Palin is as close to the sacred as a person gets. She is not just politically pro-life. Her whole being emanates life, which is a stark contrast to the darkness of the Left, the life-despoilers.

These "progressives" are so alienated from the sacred that they perceive nothing as sacred. And they will destroy anyone whose goodness shines a mirror on their pathology. The spiritually barren must annihilate the vital and the fertile.

It has been almost two years since I woke up and broke up with liberalism. During these many months, I've discovered that everything I believed was wrong.

But the biggest shock of all has been realizing that the Democratic Party is hardly an oasis for women. Now that it has been infiltrated by the hard Left, it's a dangerous place for women, children, and other living things.

In the wilding of Sarah Palin, the Left shows its true colors. Rather than sheild the vulnerable, leftists will mow down any man, woman, or child who gets in their way. Instead of a movement of hope and change, it is a cauldron of hate.

From Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.

In these dark times, with spiritually bankrupt people at the helm, thank God we have bright lights like Sarah Palin to illuminate the darkness.

A frequent AT contributor, Robin is a psychotherapist and a recovering liberal in Berkeley

You oh-so-reasonable and good-hearted supporters of liberal politicians should be ashamed of yourselves. When Nixon erred, conservatives got rid of him; when Foley erred, conservatives got rid of him; it is conservatives who are getting rid of the slimeball governor of South Carolina. If it weren't for the support of you silent, well-meaning liberals, these slimers of Sarah Palin would be out of business.

Sarah Palin and the Left-Wing Media

I guess that, even though I have a Master's Degree from Harvard, I am a doofus because I admire Sarah Palin and want her to run for president. The main reason I like Sarah is that she lives her life by traditional values no matter how difficult that may sometimes be, and therefore she can be trusted to do what she says she will do!

USAToday 11/16/09 (Excerpt)

Former presidential candidate John McCain on Sunday played down any discord between his camp and aides to Sarah Palin, as detailed in the former Alaska governor's memoir, Going Rogue.

Sen. McCain, R-Ariz., said he has read the book by his vice presidential pick, which goes on sale Tuesday, and considers it "a good account" of the 2008 campaign. He acknowledged "tensions, a lot of back-and-forth" and "contradictions."

He did not elaborate on Palin's claim that she was "bottled up" from the news media and had to pay a $50,000 tab for a background check the McCain campaign ran on her. McCain campaign lawyer Trevor Potter said Palin was not billed for any vetting expenses. "It's a great book," McCain said.

Palin's Popularity vs. Media Mania

By Robert Stacy McCain on 11.17.09 American Spectator

Monday afternoon, Rush Limbaugh pointed out the most evil, mean-spirited act Sarah Palin has ever committed: She didn't include an index in her new book, Going Rogue.

Elite journalists don't read political books, but instead skim the index to see if their names are mentioned, Limbaugh explained to his national radio audience.

Therefore, Palin omitted the index to exact revenge on her tormenters by forcing them to read her book. To her liberal enemies, this was a deed as inhumane as her moose-hunting.

Rush played an audio clip of MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell complaining about "Sarah's index-and-footnote free, score settling campaign memoir." The same network's Andrea Mitchell -- apparently having assigned some flunky to read the whole book -- recited on her show the only page of Going Rogue (p. 397) where Palin mentioned Mitchell.

What is it about Palin that sticks in the craw of liberal journalists? Perhaps the same thing that has always annoyed them about Rush Limbaugh: Sarah Palin doesn't need their help, and all their efforts to harm her appear impotent.

Her media enemies cite polls to demonstrate that the former Alaska governor is unpopular. Yet her book is a bestselling blockbuster, while anti-Palin outfits like CBS, MSNBC and CNN are the least-popular TV news organizations in America. And as far as Republicans are concerned, Palin is infinitely more popular.

At this point, Palin controls her own destiny. She is independent, and has no need to court the approval of the media "gatekeepers." She's the hottest topic in political news, and if the New York Times or the TV networks want a piece of the action, they have to play by her rules. They're so used to dictating the rules -- every book must have an index! -- that Palin's rogue refusal to follow their rules is even more offensive to them than her good looks, her handsome husband, and her five children.

The Associated Press reportedly tasked 11 staffers to fact-check Going Rogue. How many AP reporters fact-checked Barack Obama's books? Maybe the number wasn't zero, but it sure as heck wasn't 11.

If the AP ever decides to start fact-checking what is written about Sarah Palin as rigorously as it fact-checks what is written by Sarah Palin, maybe they'll be doing a service to journalism. As it is, they're just another tiny cog in the massive anti-Palin machine that also includes Media Matters and every liberal's favorite "conservative," David Brooks. (ABC's "Good Morning America" ran a clip of Brooks calling Palin a "joke" as evidence that "even conservatives" are against her.)

Newsweek devoted its latest cover story to attacking Palin -- a refreshing change of pace from Newsweek's weekly cover stories praising Barack Obama. According to Newsweek, she's a "problem" in need of a solution, perhaps because she looks good in shorts.

There seems to be a media competition at work, a sort of championship tournament.

Every reporter, anchor, and pundit in America is engaged in a frantic effort to be the hero who fires the silver bullet that slays the Republican werewolf from Wasilla.

Whether or not Sarah Palin is the last, best hope of the GOP, she is inarguably the worst nightmare of crusading liberal journalists. Not since Oliver North showed up for a key congressional hearing in his Marine Corps uniform has the Washington press corps been so spectacularly vexed at its inability to destroy an intended victim. Her mere survival makes her Evil with a capital "E." The only way Republicans can save Palin from this incessant maelstrom of media hatred is to nominate a Limbaugh-Coulter ticket in 2012.

The result of this constant Palin-bashing is exactly the opposite of what the bashers intend. Possessing an amazing ability to enrage liberals, she causes them to expose their own nuttiness, as when Andrew Sullivan -- Patient Zero of the Palin Derangement Syndrome media pandemic -- accused her of being "obsessed" with him.

In one of those million-to-one coincidences that have attended Palin's skyrocket ascent, her collaborator on Going Rogue is Lynn Vincent, with whom I co-authored on Donkey Cons. Lynn is a veteran journalist whom I first met when she recruited me to the staff of the Jacksonville (Ala.) State University student newspaper.

This connection caused the werewolf-hunters to cry "A-ha!" and to engage in what one blogger dubbed "second-degree guilt-by-association." In the process of trying to prove that Lynn is a hatefully homophobic racist, however, they exposed the awful truth: She has gay friends and relatives, and attends a megachurch with a black pastor.

Given the mindless ferocity of liberal hatred focused on Palin, she can never expect the media to treat her with the reverential deference that Obama customarily receives from reporters. All she asks is that they stop "making stuff up," but even this seems too much to ask, causing her critics to accuse her of "whining."

Fortunately, she won't need any favors from CBS or CNN to reach thousands of Americans face-to-face in the coming weeks, as she embarks on a national book tour that is sure to attract massive crowds at every stop along the way. Palin announced the schedule, as she announces everything else, on her Facebook page, which has a readership larger than Andrea Mitchell's MSNBC audience.

Why do they hate her? Because Sarah Palin is guilty of a sin for which liberals can never forgive a Republican: She's more popular than they are. And everybody knows it.Labels: Sarah Palin

What Responsible Men and Women Have To Do

In a painfully slow process, many Americans are waking up to the reality of the dangers to Americans' freedoms and prosperity posed by Barack Obama - and why he has so carefully and thoroughly kept hidden all details of his early life and associations. Unfortunately, our young people know very little of the sacrifices made to gain and to keep what we have. Their teachers only taught them of our mistakes, and nothing of our glory and successes. They have been taught to hate their own country, and Obama is the culmination of these efforts. It is, therefore, up to older generations to save America from this man.

The President of Resentment
November 10, 2009 American Thinker

By James Lewis

Some people have a government; and some governments have a people, said Ronald Reagan. We are being turned into a nation where the government owns the people. It is the demagogic heirs to the dreadful history of slavery who are now trying to turn the tables; Obama is a slave master in the making. He looks the part; he acts the part; and behind the scenes his Commissars are making it happen.

Obama has never quite displayed his bitter, long-harbored resentment toward America quite as obviously as he did after the Fort Hood massacre. The President couldn't figure out how to respond with the dignity fitting his office.

I happened to be going through the Washington, DC airport a couple of months ago when I heard a lot of people clapping and whooping, a little demonstration. When I looked, I noticed a single, elderly French horn player, sitting on a folding chair and playing patriotic tunes to enliven a parade -- if you can call it that -- of elderly, wheel-chair-bound vets from World War Two coming off their plane: The Greatest Generation, as even Tom Brokaw called them. They looked shrunken, most of those lifelong handicapped vets, wearing baseball and VFW caps, but some of them left their wheel chairs and walked through the reception as the old horn player did his tunes. My eyes started to tear up and I walked over to join the applause as these real saviors of the West went on by. They were greeted by a little reception committee and then went on to what was almost surely their last celebration with their buddies from the War. And that octogenarian horn player kept on playing his patriotic tunes.

Some of the bystanders joined in the applause, but there were some who made a display of their indifference and contempt as well. It was an interesting lesson in our split society. One young man jauntily walked away from the little final home-coming demonstration, prancing in the opposite direction, a little counter-demonstration all by himself. Those old vets in wheelchairs had no meaning for him; just the opposite. They were just mean old white guys, or something equally bizarre. The most democratic Army in history, the one that brought together Italians, Jews, Germans, Poles, and yes, blacks and Japanese Americans and everyone else, all of them scared of dying but pretty much convinced that their country was in peril from some pretty evil characters in Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and the Soviet Union. So they fought, and died, sometimes in great numbers. Bob Dole got his lifelong wounds in the murderous Italian campaign, just like John McCain got his shoulder bones broken in the Hanoi Hilton. Some of those World War Two guys were wounded for life, and some of them were now being rolled in their wheelchairs in front of our eyes. They meant nothing to the contemptuous young man who pranced away from them.

That'a a small metaphor for this Administration. The young counter-demonstrator had no idea about the sacrifices of the Greatest Generation, the lethal dangers the country confronted after Pearl Harbor, and the heroism of our Soldiers, Sailors and Marines. He'd no doubt been told from childhood onward how evil White America really is. Yes, those WW Two soldiers represented an imperfect democracy; it just happened to be the best one on earth. And they knew that because of their own family histories, because American history was still taught in all the schools, and because they were good and decent people who were shocked by the vile and evil regimes that were conquering Europe and Asia, ruthlessly killing millions of innocent civilians as they went. It was a huge resurgence of barbarism, and their very souls cried out against the injustice of it all. They were Americans. It wasn't necessary to explain things to them. They got it.

And so the high school girls saw their sweethearts going off to war, and were left back home. Some of their men came back, often shell-shocked, but they didn't talk about the war. They went back to their lives and tried to pursue happiness. A lot of them never came back.

And then some guy named Joe Stalin exploded the first Soviet nuclear bombs, an A bomb and an H bomb. After all of their pain and homesickness and sacrifices, another totalitarian enemy had infiltrated the US Government up to and including the White House staff. Those infiltrations were real, as we now know. They were not just the wild imaginings of Tailgunner Joe McCarthy. So Americans became angry and frightened by this new totalitarian danger, especially because the State and Federal bureaucracies, the teachers, the media, and the universities were penetrated by the Stalinist Left and their Front organizations. For the first time in human history, a single Soviet bomber could fly from Europe to New York City and drop a bomb to obliterate all of Manhattan. They were outraged and frightened by this new threat, and they supported a vigorous anti-Communist movement led by people like Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Joe McCarthy, President Eisenhower, and a host of others. For some decades the American people defended itself vigorously and effectively against the Stalin-directed Fifth Column that threatened their lives and freedom.

Today we are seeing a Second Cold War, but the enemy is within, just as it was after World War Two. We are seeing outright front organizations again. "J Street" is a classical front organization, which should be called "J Front." It's a fraud, claiming to represent people who never voted for them. George Soros, who sets up many of these phony fronts, is a man who accommodated the Nazis, among other distinctions. He has never displayed a smidgen of guilt for his role in the the disposition of Jewish possessions after their owners were arrested and sent to death camps -- men, women, and children. Normal Holocaust survivors feel tremendous guilt; Soros sounds jaunty and devil-may-care about the murderous cannibalism of those years. He made out well, and started his long road to fortune. Today he is financing Obama's "Coup from Above," with the same insouciance with which he betrayed his Jewish relatives in Hungary.

There's a story to be told there. But don't expect the media to tell it.

The American people are hearing a call to arms -- not literal arms, for our system can self correct. But we have to out-organize and out-pressure the Left. They have called us "the enemy" ever since Alinsky's little book radicalized the revolutionaries of the Boomer Left after the violent revolutionary groups were readily suppressed. When somebody really considers you their enemy you have no choice. Either you return the compliment, or you get overwhelmed by the new Chicago Mob in DC.

The Left has shown how to fight from a position of the minority and win. American conservatives by a recent poll have a two-to-one majority. They are constantly undermined by the political Left: Ridiculed in the media, demeaned in the schools and universities, out-maneuvered in politics at the state and national level by Leftists who are far nastier and far more ruthless than ordinary, decent Americans. This is a struggle for the country. We need to toughen up.

The first lesson is to start telling the truth without fear. Shout it out. Demonstrate. Tell your truth to your relatives that you've been trying to be nice to all these years. Make it pleasant and polite, but firm. Don't yell. Just talk and talk and talk. Yes, you can stand out from the crowd. Half of your listeners will privately agree with you if you state your case well, and over time they will find the courage to speak up, too.

The second lesson is to build up a cadre of leaders -- in the media, in politics, in the educational system, everywhere. We have at least one charismatic leader now in Sarah Palin. That's why she is under constant, vicious attack from the Left. That's why they burned down her church in Wasilla. They fear her. I love her for the enemies she has made. There are many other good people, but a charismatic political talent comes just once in every generation. She needs and deserves support. So do others.

When conservatives betray American conservatism, let them know you will vote against them, and support their conservative opponents in all the ways that work. Don't get nasty and hysterical. Just be calm and firm.

The third lesson is to organize, organize, and organize. That's how the Left did it. Tea Parties are good, the Heritage Foundation is good. There are many good organizations: We need to support them with our dollars and with our voices. We need to mobilize conservatives into active pressure groups around their greatest concerns: Web freedom is a crucial one right now. So is free radio and TV. When the Left attacks Fox News or Rush, we have to raise a gigantic fuss on their behalf. The media cannot be allowed to ignore our demonstrations. We have allowed far too many good people be attacked and attacked and shrugged our shoulders.

The election of 2010 will be a major survival test. If Americans fail that test, we will become Britain in its catastrophic decline under fifty years of socialism. A new Ruling Class will arise, just as it has in socialist Europe, and they will not care one bit about the people. They will import hostile voters from Third World countries. They will forge alliances with Islamists, as they are already doing. America will be helpless, and all the hostile forces around the world will know it. They will all be trying to push us under. If we are governed by a domestic Fifth Column, then North Korea, Russia, China, Iran, Hugo Chavez, the Sunni Moslem Brotherhood, all will beat us down. Real democracy is just not their thing.

At the UN we see kleptocracies in charge. Behold our future if we do not act. Chicago and Detroit stand as warnings.

Conservatives are individualists, so we have to do something unusual: organize, organize, organize. Local and national. Even international. Some of our friends are in the British media, where they are looking for us to stand up and defend civilization, just as they stood up against Hitler when we were still dithering. Some of our friends are in Australia, in Canada, and yes, in France. Around the world there are millions of people who get it. We can be American patriots with allies all around the world. They need leaders and vocal support just as much as we do.

And we must militantly defend the freedom of the web. The Stalinoids will attack it viciously, just as they will attack talk radio and Fox News. We are fighting the same enemy Ronald Reagan fought. We have to do it just as intelligently and vigorously as he did.

The word "activist" used to be a media word for the Left. It's high time to make it work for American conservatives.

Become an activist or lose your country.

Palin and the Battle for the GOP's Soul

When a decent woman who not only practices Christian values but also has shown that she can govern a state and defeat entrenched and corrupt interests is maligned and slimed with false charges to an extent never before seen in this country, something important is definitely up. According to the secular-progressives, she is Hitler, Genghis Khan and the village idiot all rolled into one. They fear her so much they are driven to distraction.

Now I have no inside information. I don’t know whether Sarah just decided to get out and shield her family from this disgusting nonsense, or whether she has the kind of game plan discussed below, but I do know that my beloved country is being led down the path to destruction by socialists, and that the RINO milquetoasts prominent in today’s Republican Party are worse than useless.

This may be wishful thinking on my part and on the part of the author, but it won’t be the first time that America has been saved by a courageous and unlikely leader.

Palin and the Battle for the GOP's Soul

By J. Robert Smith August 02, 2009 American Thinker

Lost mostly amid Sarah Palin's resignation hoopla was a declaration she made. The now ex-governor made the not newsworthy announcement that she'd campaign for likeminded Republicans and independents. But then she added something very telling. She'd stump for Democrats who "share her values on limited government, strong defense and ‘energy independence.'" At least in states or districts where Republicans aren't competitive.

The governor, one fully suspects, is playing for higher stakes than many may suppose. The presidency -- if she ever seeks it and wins it -- will simply be the capstone of a three and a half year effort to change the nation's political landscape.

That's heady stuff. But Palin already has a blueprint and track record to prove her bona fides, compliments of her stint as Alaska's Chief Executive.

Lest anyone forget, Palin challenged the GOP's old bulls to win the party's gubernatorial nomination. And, as warranted, she battled them as governor. She also wasn't shy about crossing party lines to push her agenda. Hers is a decidedly practical conservatism, based on principle, not profile.

Palin's new freelancing is sending a chill up the collective spine of the left. That same chill is making its way up the pliable spines of establishment Republicans and in-name-only conservatives. How do we know? By the vitriol they continue to spew at her, via the main stream media and their allies in the blogosphere. (Peggy Noonan, David Brooks and Kathleen Parker, raise your hands.)

After the hosing Palin has taken over many months from media elites, it's no surprise her approval ratings have sagged. But Palin unleashed now has the chance to go eyeball-to-eyeball with voters across the Republic. Americans will make up their own minds.

Palin has what one would say about nature: an elemental force. It is seen but not terribly well understood. Supporters admire it; her foes dread it and fight it. In politics, that elemental force translates into powerfully connecting with average citizens. Status doesn't count when it comes to the "force." Aristocrat cousins Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt had it. But so did plebeians Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan.

Commoner Sarah Palin has come along at the right time. Common Americans are increasingly disillusioned with, and alienated from, both major political parties.

They may well be growing doubly so with the Democrats, whose standard-bearer, the princely Barak Obama, sold voters his special brand of snake oil. The President claimed that he would bind up the wounds of a nation rife with partisan fighting. And with a miraculous wave of his hand, and a bright Pepsodent smile, translate a call for fluffy hope and change into hard policies that we all could embrace.

Elmer Gantry has nothing on Barack Obama.

Taking the nation on a leftwing bender, the President is succeeding only in loosening the newly formed attachments that a large bloc of voters made to his party. If you think the bender is bad, wait for the hangover.

Most Americans are natural conservatives; they're pragmatists who care little about ideology, especially of the leftwing sort. But that should be of little consolation and comfort to the recently discounted Republicans, who may well be lulled by polls showing voter movement in their direction.

The political scene is in flux. Voters are moving toward the GOP in the same way a family flees a burning house. They are escaping a fire and seeking shelter under the handiest roof. An assumption by establishment Republicans that they need only watch the Democrats' house burn to the ground to reap the rewards is dangerous. That's particularly true for the longer term. But, then, when do most politicians care about the longer term?

Republicans can't just oppose the President's statist gambits. They have to stand for something, a conservative something. Voters may dance an election or two with Republicans, but then they'll demand more than twirls across the ballroom floor.

Republican leaders, many of whom so cynically and foolishly fumbled away the capital amassed by Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey and John Kasich, are dubious champions of conservatism. They have the lingering stench of "New Think" Republicanism about them, which is nothing more than the old cave-in, go-along Rockefeller Republicanism.

If nothing else, Sarah Palin is a woman who knows where she's going -- and it isn't to A List cocktail parties in Georgetown or soirees on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, even if she is invited.

The good ex-governor intends to remake the GOP, first by reaffirming basic conservative principles, then by drawing distinct lines from those principles to the everyday lives of voters. She'll take whacks at more than a few liberal shibboleths, whether they involve taxes, foreign affairs, national defense, welfare or public education.

She will certainly go into a full court press against longstanding leftwing-inspired false dichotomies. She's done so already concerning an issue near and dear to her heart: energy.

Palin is an outdoors loving woman from an outdoors loving state. She sees no contradiction in protecting the environment and developing and extracting the nation's plentiful energy resources. Responsible stewardship of the earth doesn't mean that Americans need to be Bob Crachits, huddled near stoves counting out lumps of coal (clean burning, of course) from meager piles.

And if Palin is wise, she'll make her crusade about more than fixing the mess that President Obama and his Romper Room Democrats are making. She'll be a reform conservative. The fact is voters do crave meaningful reform. What liberals gave Americans in the 20th Century -Social Security, welfare, the public schools monopoly -- is nearly not working anymore. Voters see that more clearly than their myopic leaders do.

The President's numbers are collapsing precisely because voters don't believe he's making authentic reform, but making a rehash and expansion of every big government idea under the sun. The President may have given liberalism a spiffy new paint job, but it's the same old rust bucket underneath. Voters aren't fooled for very long.

Palin's aim is to cobble together a coalition of the willing, a majority coalition that may - just may -- give a rebirth to the Republican Party. But she can expect more than slings and arrows from the usual suspects on the left. There will be a cadre of establishment Republicans and quislings who will employ whatever subterfuges are necessary to derail the Palin Express.

For them, a big tent fundamentally means tiptoeing leftward. It is a form of comfortable surrender. For Palin, a big tent means fundamentally making conservatism sensible and inviting to a majority of voters. It is premised on a true grasp of the American nature.

Therein lays the irreconcilable difference. There is where the real battle for the soul of the Republican Party will be fought.