By Gary P Jackson
The comparison's between Sarah Palin and Ronald Reagan are quite natural. Sarah herself is a great student of Reagan, quotes him often, and has the same common sense approach to governing. Like Reagan she's a no-nonsense leader who gets things done. It's her adherence to solid conservative principles that has earned her the admiration of supporters from coast to coast.
Of course, while it's gratifying to look at all of the valid comparisons of the two great leaders, one must also look at how both were portrayed by the corrupt media, the democrats, and establishment Republicans. Here is where you find the comparisons absolutely stunning.
Both Ronald Reagan and Sarah Palin started out as sportscasters. Reagan did radio, Sarah did TV. In fact, she wanted to work for ESPN. The elites trashed Reagan as a "
B-movie" actor
who once co-starred with a chimp. Never mind Reagan also played one of Hollywood's most iconic and enduring characters, "
George Gipp" in the 1940 classic "
Knute Rockne All American." No matter, being an actor, was a sure sign Reagan wasn't fit to be President. Might as well forget his decades of political activism on behalf of Conservatism, or his time as Governor of California. Doesn't matter, he was an actor thus "
unserious"
The elites have used the same tact against Governor Palin, a woman with 20 years of public service that includes city councilwoman, Mayor, Chairman of Alaska's oil and gas regulatory commission, and Governor. All of this is negated because she starred in, and was executive producer of, a nature-travel-adventure series on
The Learning Channel [TLC] and her oldest daughter was a contestant on ABC's
Dancing With The Stars, at least according to the left, the media [but I repeat myself] and the GOP elite.
Sarah Palin, like Ronald Reagan, isn't "
serious" because she, like Ronnie, is talented and good on camera. OK. Such is the logic of the "
smart" people.
Clark Clifford, former Secretary of Defense for LBJ called Reagan an "
amiable dunce." In the 21st century, such civility is dead, so our "
betters" just call Sarah Palin "
stupid"! Even among the
hoity-toity, the level of discourse has fallen greatly. At least in the old days, someone would insult you with a little style and flair!
The media along with the Republican elites all cringed and made fun of Ronald Reagan when he referred to the Soviet Union as an "
Evil Empire" and even his own staffers lost their minds when he said these world changing words:"
Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Former Carter and Mondale staffer [and faux conservative] Charles Krauthammer said Sarah Palin should "
leave the room" after she coined the term "
death panels" to describe government health care rationing, and the board of unelected government drones who would determine who should live and die.
Sarah Palin used the term "
death panels" in a lengthy policy piece, where she called out Obama's health care adviser Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, who has written extensively about the need to ration care, giving priority to those who were deemed "
productive to society." She has been proven 100% correct on the facts. My personal guess is Krauthammer was just miffed because he wrote thousands of pretty words trying to make a similar point, and no one noticed.
The way he continually attacks her and proclaims she isn't "
smart," makes me think Krauthammer, the former Carter adviser and Mondale speech writer, is miffed a housewife from Wasilla is better at turning a phrase than he is. Of course, Chuck is a genius, he chose to work on the losing team against Reagan .... TWICE.
The media also laughed at Sarah when she inadvertently created the new word "
refudiate." They had a cow when she playfully tweeted that Shakespeare created new words too. Funny thing happened though. British MEP Daniel Hannan, a political superstar and his own right, and a self proclaimed "
Shakespearean obsessive" wrote at the time:
Sarah Palin, never misunderestimate Shakespeare
I am thoroughly taken with Sarah Palin’s neologism. People often incorrectly use the word "refute" to mean something like "deny" or "reject", only stronger. We could do with a new word to fill this gap and, since both "refute" and "repudiate" are already occupied with their actual meanings, neither can be pressed into service. "Refudiate" occupies the space perfectly, and deserves to become part of every politician’s vocabulary.
The handsome Alaskan politician is quite right to say that Shakespeare came up with countless new-fangled words – including "countless" and "new-fangled". Among his coinages, as far as we can tell, are accommodation, assassinate, denote, dislocate, equivocal, eventful, hobnob, inauspicious, lacklustre, laughable, perplex, raw-boned, submerge, time-honoured, unmitigated and zany.
Read more
here.
Oh, and the
New Oxford American Dictionary named "
refudiate" it's "
word of the year" saying:
From a strictly lexical interpretation of the different contexts in which Palin has used ‘refudiate,’ we have concluded that neither ‘refute‘ nor ‘repudiate‘ seems consistently precise, and that ‘refudiate‘ more or less stands on its own, suggesting a general sense of ‘reject.’ "
I wonder how many words our "
betters" in the media and the GOP establishment can say they've created a new word, let alone say it was recognized as word of the year in a major dictionary?
This brings us to George Will, a sincerely pompous ass, who once wrote an entire column in the
Washington Post called "
Demon Denim" bemoaning the fact Americans love to wear blue jeans and how it has destroyed the world, .... or something.
This "
man of the people" is a real piece of work. The typical Beltway elitist hack. Will passes himself off as a "
conservative" but nothing could be further from the truth.
Mark Levin recently said this of George Will and Charles Krauthammer:
George Will missed the Reagan Revolution not only in 1976 but as late as 1980. In the 1979 Republican Presidential Primary, his first choice was Howard Baker, his second choice was George H. W. Bush, and his third choice was Reagan.
Not until days before the 1980 general election did he write on November 3, 1980 that Reagan deserved election.
For all his wonderful columns, the Republican electorate better understood the needs of the nation and the excellence of a potential Reagan presidency than Will. It is hard to believe he was so wrong about a matter of such great import, despite Reagan’s presence on the national scene for many years.
Charles Krauthammer was not only wrong about Reagan, as late as 1980 he was a speech-writer for Vice President Walter Mondale. Krauthammer, like Will, not only missed the significance of the Reagan candidacy, but was putting words in the mouth of a terribly flawed politician from a philosophical perspective.
So much for either's ability to pick winners or know what the hell they are talking about when it comes to politics.
On Memorial Sunday Will, perched in all of his pomposity over at ABC, went on yet another crying jag and upped the ante by proclaiming we should be very worried about a President Sarah Palin, because, you know, she'll have the nuclear codes and might just blow us all up! Whitney Pitcher talks about the jackass and his nutty statement
here.
This is nothing new for fear mongers among America's Ruling Class. In 1964 LBJ's team ran the now infamous "
Daisy" ad with the young girl picking a daisy apart as a sinister voice counted down to a nuclear launch. The ad proclaimed Barry Goldwater would destroy the world with nukes. America was so outraged, the ad only ran once.
Now I can't find examples of George Will saying it, but plenty of GOP hacks were saying that not only would it be a disaster to let Ronald Reagan have the nuclear codes, the more insane were claiming Reagan would have us in a nuclear war with the Soviet Union within days of taking office!
Folks, this is called desperation. They threw everything they had at Reagan and couldn't stop him. They are throwing everything they have at Sarah Palin, and not only can they not stop her, hell, she's getting stronger!
We've talked about A.B. Culvahouse here before. Long time readers will remember Culvahouse was a Reagan adviser and chairs one of Washington's most prestigious law firms. We first talked about Culvahouse after everyone was falsely claiming the McCain campaign never vetted Sarah. Just picked her and went with it. Such is the pathetic laziness of the media, and those who read and believe that sort of nonsense.
Of course the facts were quite different. She was highly vetted by Culvahouse and his team. Culvahouse and Sarah have a history too, His firm represented Exxon-Mobil, and Palin had been on the opposing side. He knew first hand how tough she was.
In April of 2009 Culvahouse spoke at the National Press Club. Mark Silva
wrote at the time: [emphasis mine]
Arthur "A.B.'' Culvahouse, a prominent Washington attorney who served as White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan during the president's final two years and led Sen. John McCain's search for a running mate - a search that included a "long list'' of 26 candidates - told the tale today of picking Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
After the vetting of all the candidates, and paring them to a short list, McCain asked Culvahouse for the "bottom line'' on Palin.
""I said, 'John, high risk, high reward,''' Culvahouse said today. "His response - 'You shouldn't have told me that. I've been a risk-taker all of my life.'''
Culvahouse was addressing the Republican National Lawyers Association today at the National Press Club, and C-SPAN was running a camera.
"There were three rules,'' Culvahouse said of himself and McCain. "He was the decider. There was no one between him and me.... There was no one who was going to say, 'This one is on the list, this one is off the list'... Third... he could not pick anyone that I had not vetted.''
[ .... ]
They considered many.
"We had 26 people on the long list. It was a blind basis... They did not know they were on the list,'' said Culvahouse, who had a staff of 30 lawyers helping him who wrote 50-page reports on the candidates.
"Gov. Palin told us everything - everything except the pregnancy (of) her daughter was on the written questionnaire,'' he said of Palin, who discussed teenage daughter Bristol's pregnancy privately. "She told me there was one issue she wanted to talk about. We knew everything going in.''
Palin "has lots of presence. She fills up a room,'' said Culvahouse, noting that some of his most cynical colleagues also were impressed with her.
Culvahouse, commenting on the later, damaging interviews that Palin gave to CBS News anchor Katie Couric, suggested that the wrong impression had come from those sessions - such as the idea that Palin was not familiar with Supreme Court rulings.
"She clearly did... My law firm represents Exxon in the Valdez matters,'' he noted. "Until she became governor, Gov. Palin was a plaintiff in that case...''
They asked her why she wanted to be vice president -- "the question Judge Bork was not prepared to answer -- why he wanted to be on the Supreme Court,'' said Culvahouse, who also handled Bork on the Hill.
They asked her if she is prepared to use nuclear weapons in the defense of the American homeland, he said, and they asked her if, say Osama bin Laden should be spotted, but taking him out would result in many other casualties, would she take the shot?
"She knocked those three questions out of the park,'' he said.
"She would have been a great vice president... She wouldn't have been ready on Jan. 20,'' he allowed, but then most people wouldn't, save for Dick Cheney when he joined George W. Bush's ticket in 2000.
"Qualifications in this town meant someone with a great resume,'' Culvahouse said today. "As John... directed me, it was someone who had the capacity to be president.''
.
Here's video of Culvahouse at the National Press Club:
So you guys tell me. Who's opinion would you trust: A guy who missed Reagan's brilliance not once, but twice, or someone who professionally vets candidates for Vice President of the United States, and handles Supreme Court Appointees?
I will give Georgie some credit though. With the fear mongering over nuclear weapons, the comparisons between Ronald Reagan and Sarah Palin are pretty much complete!
I bet Ronnie and Maggie would agree [that George Will is the "
amiable dunce"]!
Video courtesy:
C4P
