When GOP political maven Karl Rove takes swipes at Sarah Palin it isn’t as if it’s just another pundit. It’s clear that he’s reflecting the viewpoint of some others in the political establishment and is close to the Bush family. And Rove has taken another potshot at Palin — again a deserved one, saying Palin doesn’t think the political rules apply to her.
This comes amid renewed speculation on the part of the news media and eternally speculating talking heads and new and old media pundits that Palin is ready to throw her hand with notes written on it into the Republican Presidential race ring.
She’s now going on a big, glitzy national bus tour with photo ops that’ll be sure to get coverage and give her what she wants in terms of enduring imagery, has a pro-Palin movie coming out that will glorify her uncompleted term as Alaska Governor and her role on the losing GOP 2008 ticket — which non-Palin-fan analysts said seriously hurt Arizona Senator John McCain in the end with crucial independent voters.
On the other hand, all of this new speculation seems on shaky ground since Fox News says there has been no change in Palin’s status with them. Others who indicated to Roger Ailes their desire to run for the Presidency were no longer official Fox News contributors.
Here’s the current segment with Rove:
Rove notes that if Palin’s style of politicking — a very carefully controlled message in controlled situations where she is protected from the normal give and take (which is testing) of American national politics — succeeds she could one day be viewed as a political trend setter.
PREDICTION: If Palin does run, look for GOP establishment types and that includes those associated with the Bush family to move heaven and earth to stop her and to quickly get behind one of the others — most likely Mitt Romney.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.