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Sarah Palin – The “Carefully Crafted” Politician.

My friend Dan at Gay Patriot is GaGa over the latest piece by Sarah Palin posted over at National Review. He writes:

She gets it:

The meaning of the 2010 election was rebuke, reject, and repeal. We rebuked Washington’s power grab, rejected this unwanted “fundamental transformation of America,” and began the process to repeal the dangerous policies inflicted on us. But this theme will only complement the theme of 2012, which is renew, revive, and restore. In 2012, we need to renew our optimistic, pioneering spirit, revive our free-market system, and restore constitutional limits and our standing in the world as the abiding beacon of freedom.

If you are a conservative, reads nice… No, not nice… Grand!

But when I read the piece, which provides a list of things conservatives need to do in order to win in 2012, there was a bit, a nugget of unintended revelation, that troubled me to no end.

The last, and possibly most important, lesson is that a winning conservative message must always be carefully crafted.

Uhm…

“…a winning conservative message must always be carefully crafted”???

Really. I thought that the appeal of the true conservative message was that it was so basic, so fundamental, that it’s appeal was easy to understand.

“…a winning conservative message must always be carefully crafted”

Would this explain why are you so afraid to give interviews to networks other than FOX, as your carefully crafted message may not be as well crafted as you think and it might fall apart upon unfriendly examination? She desires to be able to speak “without the constrains of the lame-stream filter“, so she will use the conservative one instead?

“…a winning conservative message must always be carefully crafted”

Guys, that’s called, uhm, propaganda. Haven’t we already suffered enough at the hands of other politicians who have had to rely on their message being “carefully crafted”?

The Nation review piece was “carefully crafted” to propel her coming campaign. You may agree with the sentiments expressed in the article, but, as someone who has spent some time grading papers over the years, I guarantee this is not her thoughts – i.e. she didn’t write it. It’s not in her hand. It’s not in her voice. This has “ghost writer” written all over it! It is, indeed, a “carefully crafted” message.

Comment Of The Day! Noonan, On Palin Trying To Be A Reagan

The point is not “He was a great man and you are a nincompoop,” though that is true….

Oh Snap!!!! Read the whole thing. Now THIS is good thoughtful post-election punditry!

Losing… In Retrospect.

Seeing that it’s only two days into the new political reality, maybe it’s too soon to make this comparison. But…

While looking at some of the silly press and pundit reactions to the Democrats shellacking on Tuesday, it occurred to me how much different the reaction was among most Conservative writers and bloggers in 2006 and 2008, when their supposed endless grip on power faded into the bleak inglorious sunset that was the closing years of the Bush administration:

You know, we didn’t deserve to win. We didn’t do what the voters of this country put us here to do, expected us to do. We lost touch with our core philosophies. We didn’t behave like Conservatives…

In other words, they recognized it was their own damned fault that they lost. They acknowledged they had become arrogant and drunk on power. They weren’t doing the peoples business.  It’s called introspection.  Now, you may not like the purging of the moderates from the party, and / or you may not believe that they’ve really changed from what they were four years ago, but at least they acknowledge they were the root cause of their own defeat.

Fast forward four years. Democrats find themselves facing the same power-sapping sunset. What is their response?

Stupid Racist american Idiots! They’re simply too dumb and uneducated to understand just how good we are for them!!!!!!!!

Dems, it could just be me, but I’m thinking that’s not a great way to start to win back the hearts and sympathies of the American voter. But hey, what do I know.

A Two-Fer! The Memes They Just Won’t Let Die – Dems Lost Because Americans Are Gun Toting Racist! UPDATED.

From Graaaaaydon Caaaaarter, the uber-sophisticate editor of…. Vaaaaaanity Fair:

Well, anger certainly continues to be all the rage in the corridors of American politics. Not to mention American corridors in general. Polls taken prior to the November midterm election indicated that a surprising number of Obama voters said they were going to vote Republican this time and an equally surprising number of McCain supporters said they would be backing Democratic candidates. What that is about, God knows. The general anti-Obama rage out there is palpable. But it’s no more virulent than the anti-Bush sentiment that has pervaded the country for much of the past decade—although this being America, there’s an attendant hatred for Obama that has more to do with race than anything else.

Uhm… Dude. Did the voters who vote for Obama but switched to Republicans this time, including half of the 31% of gays who voted Republican this time around, suddenly become racist?????  The esteemed Graaaaaydon Caaaaarter continues:

What makes today’s fury more worrying is the fact [?] that angry right-wing extremists tend to carry guns in disproportionate numbers to their liberal counterparts.

Can someone from NPR please explain to this erudite fellow that you can’t make these type of sweeping generalizations based on irrational… Oh. You can?… If it concerns angry white gun-totting bible-thumping male conservatives????

UPDATED: Via Glenn Reynolds, a link to Reason Hit and Run, documenting more stupid and inane post election coverage.