“There are a lot of things you can do when you finish a losing campaign. You can sleep for 30 hours straight. You can get drunk. Your can reflect on what went wrong and why your side lost. Or you can immediately dump every unflattering tidbit you know – or think you know – about your colleagues to the press.” – Byron York, National Review
This quote was in response to this and this right here. I almost can’t even find the words.
There are always stories like this that come out of the losing camp. Me personally, unless you’re willing to man up and put your name on something, anything coming from “unnamed sources” ranges from complete bullshit to a gross exaggeration. I’m sure if John McCain won, “unnamed Obama staffers” would be blaming the loss on Joe Biden not knowing how to keep his mouth shut, and “unnamed Biden staffers” would talk aboot how Obama was the least experienced guy Biden ever worked with. That’s just politics…ain’t it grand?
What I find most offensive is the petty and vicious way that MCCAIN STAFFERS – not the NY Times or MSNBC, but people who if they don’t care aboot the party allegedly care aboot John McCain – are looking to destroy Sarah Palin less than twenty-four hours after the election. And for the life of me, I can’t understand why.
Even if the stories are true, and I don’t think they are, but if they are true…that just makes John McCain and the people in charge (or the “unnamed staffers”) look bad. Why did they choose her in the first place? They vetted her for five months…did NAFTA not come up in conversation? When you couldn’t find any public opinions she’s given on issues…did no one think to ask her? Let’s say for sake of argument that she didn’t know anything…after sequestering her for five days you make her first interview on network news? The same news that even liberals are admitting were in the tank for Obama? No one on the McCain campaign said to themselves, “You know, instead of Charlie Gibson, what about Sean Hannity?”
Are we supposed to believe that she landed in St. Paul, after five days of her and her family being savaged by the media, to give the most important speech of her career in front of the largest audience to ever watch a Presidential convention…and went shopping?
And the hardest one for me…do they really expect us to blame her for John McCain’s loss? I mean, really? I’ve given my thoughts on it last week, but if you need more convincing, consider this from the Wall Street Journal:
But in a strategy session of five McCain advisers — campaign manager Rick Davis, pollster Bill McInturff, strategist Steve Schmidt, ad-maker Fred Davis and strategist Greg Strimple — the back and forth revealed a fundamental problem. Fred Davis posed a question designed to give the campaign a central focus: “Why should we elect John McCain?” Tellingly, after several hours of debate, the five couldn’t reach a consensus.
Think about that. Forgetting the economy and George Bush and the history they were running against…John McCain’s top advisers couldn’t come up with a reason why we should elect John McCain.
All the stories aboot clothes and make-up and geography won’t change that.
Exit quotation: “And it escapes me why they seek to tarnish and diminish the hopes of the person who may serve the Party they claim to love — either as a future Presidential candidate or as a spokesperson for reform and rebuilding.”
UPDATE: This nonsense still?!?
Better they tear her up now, so that she doesn’t even consider running for President in 2012… can you imagine what she’ll face during a republican primary for the presidential nomination???
But lets be frank, she is not and was not qualified to be Vice-President, and the republican party should have better leadership. There is plenty of fault to be found in McCain for this pick, and I’m glad the American public saw through his shenanigans. My favorite joke about the Palin appointment sums this up perfectly:
While mending a cut on the hand of a 75 year old rancher whose hand
was caught in the gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a
conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to
Sarah Palin and her bid for vice president.
The old rancher said, “Well, ya know, Sarah Palin is what you call a
‘Post Turtle’.”
Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a ‘Post
Turtle’ was.
The old rancher said, “When you’re driving down a country road and you
come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a ‘Post
Turtle’.”
The old rancher saw the puzzled look on the doctor’s face so he
continued to explain.
“Well, you know she didn’t get up there by herself, she don’t belong
up there, she don’t know what to do while she’s up there, and you just
wonder what kind of dummy put her up there to begin with.”
[...] for Sarah Palin? 7 11 2008 I’ve given my take the latest Palin controversy here and here, and outside of that I’m done. I make it a rule not put too much faith in “unnamed [...]