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It’s Republican “Family Feud” (Or Civil War?) Over Sarah Palin
A Vanity Fair piece in which former staffers of Arizona Sen. John McCain’s failed 2008 Presidential campaign rip into former GOP Vice Presidential running mate Gov. Sarah Palin has accentuated often bitter Republican party divisions — exposing personal resentments and some of the ideological dividing lines within today’s convalescing GOP.
According to The Politico, it is now all out verbal war among some in the GOP over this piece — with some prominent Republicans defending Palin and others the comments by McCain former staffers that appeared in the magazine. Is this Family Feud or signs of an ongoing civil war that could reach its peak in 2012?
A hard-hitting piece on Sarah Palin in the new Vanity Fair has touched off a blistering exchange of insults among high-profile Republicans over last year’s GOP ticket – tearing open fresh wounds about leaks surrounding Palin and revealing for the first time some of the internal wars that paralyzed the campaign in its final days.
Rival factions close to the McCain campaign have been feuding since last fall over Palin, usually waging the battle in the shadows with anonymous quotes. Now, however, some of the most well-known names in Republican politics are going on-the-record with personal attacks and blame-casting.
Who needs to watch Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reill set up screamfests with people of both parties, when you can watch it all in one place — in the GOP? To wit:
William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard and at times an informal adviser to Sen. John McCain, touched off the latest back-and-forth Tuesday morning with a post on his magazine’s blog criticizing the Todd Purdum-authored Palin story and pointing a finger at Steve Schmidt, McCain’s campaign manager.
Kristol cited a passage in Purdum’s piece in which “some top aides” were said to worry about the Alaska governor’s “mental state” and the prospect that the Alaska governor may be suffering from post-partum depression following the birth of her son Trig. “In fact, one aide who raised this possibility in the course of trashing Palin’s mental state to others in the McCain-Palin campaign was Steve Schmidt,” Kristol wrote.
Asked about the accusation, Schmidt fired back in an e-mail: “I’m sure John McCain would be president today if only Bill Kristol had been in charge of the campaign.”
“After all, his management of [former Vice President] Dan Quayle’s public image as his chief of staff is still something that takes your breath away,” Schmidt continued. “His attack on me is categorically false.”
Asked directly in a telephone interview if he brought up the prospect of Palin suffering from post-partum depression, Schmidt said: “His allegation that I was defaming Palin by alleging post-partum depression at the campaign headquarters is categorically untrue. In fact, I think it rises to the level of a slander because it’s about the worst thing you can say about somebody who does what I do for a living.”
But the Politico has someone supporting Schmidt…and then more of Schmidt’s view. And then more of Kristol (etc…) In fact this piece is so fiery, peppery, packed quotes from all involved that are filled with such anger, resentment, and blame-pointing — including some specifics — that you need to go to the link and read the entire piece yourself. More quotes will only take it out of context.
Is this merely a little family argument, as the Politico suggests? Or does it portend a battle royal for 2012 with Palin the darling of talk radio political culture conservatives and some other candidates attempting to cast a wider net for the partly by trying to win new voters over, rather than dress-down those who aren’t conservative true believers?
We link…you decide…
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11 Responses to “It’s Republican “Family Feud” (Or Civil War?) Over Sarah Palin”
Unless the world comes to an end, Obama will be re-elected in 2012. If I were a Rep Pres nom. hopeful, I'd wait for 2016. The next Rep nominee will be nothing but a sacrificial lamb…,much like McCain was in 08.
Moderate Reps would be smart to let Palin win the nomination.
Despite the GOP infighting the democrats continue to pass legislation after legislation that will penalize America.
Facts.
!. Al Franken Senator number 60. The die is cast. The democrats can do what they want.
2. Cap and Trade is nothing more then the fascist/socialists Democratic party using the AGW to cover up their acorn/socialist agenda by reaping huge amounts of dollars to pay for their social programs at the expense of the American economy.
3. Global warming is a serious issue but it is also a 2 headed hydra that has another less then honest agenda driven group that only wants the money cap and trade will procure to pay for their social agenda in America. They could give a flying flip about global warming.
4. National health care. You got 60 senators. Go for it. Finish the job. Bankrupt America.
Conclusion. The democrats Cap and Trade fiasco is their IRAQ. In this bill you will find the Democrats massacred at the polls in 2010 when inflation rises to double digits and Obama begins taxing the rich to pay for staggering and back breaking deficits.
Good job democrats. Keep up the good work. In the meantime lets talk about McCain and Palin so that no one knows the Democrats are slipping their Fascist/socialism under the door, in the night when no ones looking and the MSM is cheering them on.
I am just trying to figure out just why Joe has such a love for all things Palin. I guess deep down inside, he must have a crush on her!
AR, she's totally hot.
“Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket . . . because I’m capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, natural gas, you name it . . . Whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money, and they will pass that [cost] on to consumers.’’
In the same interview, Obama suggested that his energy policy would require the ruin of the coal industry. “If somebody wants to build a coal-fired plant, they can,’’ he told the Chronicle. “It’s just that it will bankrupt them, because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.’’
All of this being rushed thru congress in the middle of the largest recession in decades because the Democrats know that come 2010 they will be toast. They are only hoping its the other guy beside them that gets fired and not they themselves personally.
Obama knows quite clearly what hes doing with this Cap and Trade legislation. Hes bankrupting the coal industry…putting staggering prices on consumers all in the name of the Tomorrow afternoon end of the world. When the real agenda is money for his Health care reform.
As Obama stated I do not want to do anything with health care that will add to the deficits. So cap and trade must pass and be in place first so that we can start taxing the crap outta everyone to have health care.
But lets talk about Palin and McCain.
This thread appears to be childish (at least; I'm being extremely generous and forgiving) hype.
“AR, she's totally hot.”
That alone might explain why so many among the hordes of pathological hate-filled leftists hate her so much.
Surprise, surprise; Palin and drama. You know, its stories like this that bring out both the best and the worst. In the latter case, how about Andrew Sullivan. I know he's a favorite to link to here on TMV, but seriously, someone should consider passing him a cup of decaf.
I would posit that Palin herself has been less important of a person, and more important as a *symbol*. It's less about exactly who she is, and more about what she symbolizes within the withered husk of the republican party.
Now that Palin is working on her 2252nd minute of her 15 minutes of fame, why do we (and by this I mean the collective “we”) seem to keep talking about her? It's not like she is the least bit relevant to the real world, or has any sway/pull over anything important. So why the continuous Palin bashing and worship?
Seems to me it has less to do with Palin, and more to do with the vacuous hole blown through the middle of the current republican party. We talk about her because of the absence of anything worthwhile to say about the entire republican party as a whole. A leaderless, infantile, fissing-fussing-hissing mass of small-minded people, all sound and fury signifying nothing — so instead we focus on the strong personalities and the positions the represent: Palin, Limbaugh, Joe the Fake Plumber, Bachmann.
Until a real, worthwhile, intelligent, solid leader emerges from the decaying morass that makes up the current republican disaster of a party, we will keep looking backwards towards Palin and the other puffed-up style-over-substance leaders that symbolize the dying party.
And yes, a strong leader (or two, or three) *will* emerge. The republican party *will* rise again. It's not a question of “if” but “when” – before 2012, or before 2016? Only time will tell. And only then will the Palins of the world fade back into the frozen tundra of obscurity that the so well deserve.
“The republican party *will* rise again. It's not a question of 'if' but 'when' – before 2012, or before 2016?”
They can't rely on Democratic failure, and related outrages such as were already well written here about the “global warming” scams. (Too many idiots and diseased people believe in and _want_ those scame to befall us.) Logically the Republicans can revive eventually as the taxpayers' party of opposition to at least the worst excesses of the Dems and their vote-buying plunder program, but that's not enough to truly revive the party. It needs to be an attractive, positive alternative to the Dems and with vote-buying by the Dems I can't see how my preference, for government minimization (especially in Washington, long overdue for shrinkage, by up to 2/3 or more if reform were serious) and ethical as well as fiscal reform, will fare given the hordes of entitlement beneficiaries and other fans of Big Government (including so many dishonestly-named “moderates”). Right now an eventual GOP limping along as the Opposition to lib-Dem outrages is about the only thing we can see in the GOP's future.
Good article on this subject found at an unlikely source.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/douglas-mackinnon…