The Neocon "Purity" Purge Over Palin

This Daily Kos post links to a column in today’s WaPo by Richard Cohen telling us of how all of the usual conservative suspects fell in love with “Governor Hottie” and trumpeted her for months before John W. McBush eventually selected her as his running mate.

Cohen’s column references this New Yorker story by Jane Mayer (love the illustration), which tells us, among other things, that two cruises to the frozen north full of right wingers (bet THAT was a fun time…I don’t want to imagine what that crowd is like when they “let their hair down”) turned out to be highly fortunate for the former mayor of Wasilla, AK.

Concerning the first one (from Mayer’s story, and Cohen recounts much of this, but it’s here again for background)…

On June 18, 2007, the first group disembarked in Juneau from the Holland America Line’s M.S. Oosterdam, and went to the governor’s mansion, a white wooden Colonial house with six two-story columns, for lunch. The contingent featured three of The Weekly Standard ’s top writers: William Kristol, the magazine’s Washington-based editor, who is also an Op-Ed columnist for the Times and a regular commentator on “Fox News Sunday”; Fred Barnes, the magazine’s executive editor and the co-host of “The Beltway Boys,” a political talk show on Fox News; and Michael Gerson, the former chief speechwriter for President Bush and a Washington Post columnist.

...

During the lunch (where they all made nice, of course, featuring a big spread with “halibut cheeks,” which apparently is a choice item), everyone was charmed when the Governor’s small daughter Piper popped in to inquire about dessert. Fred Barnes recalled being “struck by how smart Palin was, and how unusually confident. Maybe because she had been a beauty queen, and a star athlete, and succeeded at almost everything she had done.” It didn’t escape his notice, too, that she was “exceptionally pretty.”

According to a former Alaska official who attended the lunch, the visitors wanted to do something “touristy,” so a “flight-seeing” trip was arranged. Their destination was a gold mine in Berners Bay, some forty-five miles north of Juneau. For Palin and several staff members, the state leased two helicopters from a private company, Coastal, for two and a half hours, at a cost of four thousand dollars. (The pundits paid for their own aircraft.) Palin explained that environmentalists had invoked the Clean Water Act to oppose a plan by a mining company, Coeur Alaska, to dump waste from the extraction of gold into a pristine lake in the Tongass National Forest. Palin rejected the environmentalists’ claims. (The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Coeur Alaska, and the dispute is now before the Supreme Court.) Barnes was dazzled by Palin’s handling of the hundred or so mineworkers who gathered to meet the group. “She clearly was not intimidated by crowds—or men!” he said. “She’s got real star quality.”

God, conservatives in love – I may retch (and nothing like making fun of those dastardly environmentalists in the bargin, eh?).

And sensing the self-promotion opportunities, Mayer tells us that “Governor Hottie” wanted some more wingut love; you betcha!

On August 1, 2007, a few weeks after the Weekly Standard cruise departed from Juneau, Palin hosted a second boatload of pundits, this time from a cruise featuring associates of National Review. Her guests, arriving on the M.S. Noordam, included Rich Lowry, the magazine’s editor and a syndicated columnist; Robert Bork, the conservative legal scholar and former federal judge; John Bolton, who served as the Bush Administration’s Ambassador to the United Nations from 2004 to 2006; Victor Davis Hanson, a conservative historian who is reportedly a favorite of Vice-President Dick Cheney; and Dick Morris, the ideologically ambidextrous political consultant, who writes a column for The Hill and appears regularly on Fox News.

This no doubt explains the origins of Lowry’s adolescent infatuation with the “Alaska Disasta,” as noted for all time here.



As Mayer tells us…

As Jack Fowler, National Review’s publisher, recalled it, when the guest speakers were invited to come to a special reception at the governor’s mansion, “We said, ‘Sure!’ There’s only so much you can do in Juneau.” The mansion itself, he said, was modest—“not exactly Newport.” But the food was great, and included an impressive spread of salmon. Palin, who circulated nimbly through the room, and spoke admiringly of National Review, made a good impression. Fowler said, “This lady is something special. She connects. She’s genuine. She doesn’t look like what you’d expect. My thought was, Too bad she’s way up there in Alaska, because she has potential, but to make things happen you have to know people.”

And as far as “the Pericles of Petticoat Junction” is concerned (here, a nickname coined by James Wolcott, definitely someone I don’t want to have mad at me if I can help it)…

Hanson, the historian, recalled Palin in high heels, “walking around this big Victorian house with rough Alaska floors, saying, ‘Hi, I’m Sarah.’ ” She was “striking,” he said. “She has that aura that Clinton, Reagan, and Jack Kennedy had—magnetism that comes through much more strongly when you’re in the same room.” He was delighted that Palin described herself as a fan of history, and as a reader of National Review’s Web site, for which he writes regularly. She spoke about the need to drill for oil in Alaska’s protected wilderness areas, arguing that her husband had worked in nearby oil fields and knew firsthand that it wasn’t environmentally hazardous. Hanson, a farm owner, found it appealing that she was married to an oil worker, rather than to an executive.

As you can read from Wolcott's link, Hanson turned out to be as right about Palin as he has been about the Iraq war.

Bolton, for his part, was pleased that Palin, a hunting enthusiast, was familiar with his efforts to stave off international controls on the global flow of small weapons.

Yeah, that sure has been a pet cause of Bolton’s all right; what a contemptible gutter snipe – this story from July 2001, when the U.N. small arms treaty was proposed and subsequently gutted by the U.S., tells us that…

Frustration at Washington's tactics was felt most strongly among African governments, many of which have seen their countries torn apart by internal conflicts. "The United States should be ashamed of themselves," said Jean Du Preez, a South African delegate. "We are very disappointed."

Any other person of conscience should feel the same way (and I realize that that automatically excludes the neocons).

Back to Mayer’s story…

(Palin) spoke knowledgeably about missile defense, too, he said, and discussed his role, in 2001, in guiding the Bush Administration’s withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Jay Nordlinger, a senior editor at National Review, had a more elemental response. In an online column, he described Palin as “a former beauty-pageant contestant, and a real honey, too. Am I allowed to say that? Probably not, but too bad.”

Mayer’s story goes on to tell us how all the other cruising neocons “went king size,” if you will, for Palin, and it also gives us a good bit of insight into the back-and-forth that ultimately led to her selection.

Which brings us to this moment, of course, with Palin going “more Rogue” now, as K.O. put it last night, and some of the “divided conservatives” whining as follows (from the Murdoch Street Journal last Friday here)…

The abuse being heaped on Sarah Palin is such a cheap shot.

The complaint against the Alaska governor, at its most basic, is that she doesn't qualify for admission to the national political fraternity. Boy, that's rich. Behold the shabby frat house that says it's above her pay grade.

…

Sarah Palin didn't design a system of presidential primaries whose length and cost ensures that only the most obsessional personalities will run the gauntlet, while a long list of effective governors don't run.

These rules have wasted the electorate's time the past three presidential elections, by filling the debates with such zero-support candidates as Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, Al Sharpton, Duncan Hunter, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden (8,000 total votes), Wesley Clark and Alan Keyes.

(I should note that I omitted Daniel Henninger’s swipe at Congress because I considered it a bit of childish temperament that wasn’t pertinent to anything.)

Oh sure, let Henninger bray about the ridiculous length of our election cycle (off point a bit, but I believe I should note this), when, as it turns out, our media companies are the ones who prefer that status quo just as it is, thank you very much, as noted here (and here are more current numbers).

And of course, Henninger tells us that that same media sustaining itself on political ad money is also really to blame for what he perceives as poor Palin treatment (gosh, I may cry)…

By not bothering to look very deeply at the details beneath either candidate's governing proposals, the media have created a lot of downtime to take free kicks at Gov. Palin. My former colleague, Tunku Varadarajan, has compiled a glossary of Palin invective, and I've added a few: "Republican blow-up doll," "idiot," "Christian Stepford wife," "Jesus freak," "Caribou Barbie," "a dope," "a fatal cancer to the Republican Party," "liar," "a national disgrace" and "her pretense that she is a woman."

And who was it who called Palin a “cancer” again, as noted here?

And along with the charge that Barack Obama has “next to no record of political accomplishment,” (apparently, Henninger’s boss didn’t get the memo...aaarrrggghhh) the intrepid WSJ hack spews as follows…

For nearly two years, all the major candidates have rotated through our lives as solitary personalities attended by careerist campaign professionals. Barack, Hillary, Rudy, Mitt, Mike, McCain. When the moment arrived to pick a running mate, input from the parties was minimal. That famous party boss, Caroline Kennedy, advised Barack Obama. They picked a three-decade denizen of the Senate. John McCain's obligation was himself and his endless slog to this big chance.

Caroline Kennedy a “party boss”? On second thought, I don’t think I’ll cry after all, because I’m too busy laughing my ass off.

And in today’s Journal, Henninger’s fellow propagandist William McGurn praises Palin for her supposed commitment to special needs children (not calling into question anything she does as a mother, but in her role as a politician), which, as noted here, is surprising because…

(Palin) signed legislation that would increase financing for children in Alaska with special needs — though she was not involved in its development — yet that state is the subject of two lawsuits that allege inadequate services and financing for those children, particularly those with autism.

Also, as Think Progress notes here, Palin cut funding for the Special Olympics, though the amount is in dispute somewhat (still, though, it belies her claim as a special needs advocate as far as I’m concerned).

And just think, primarily because of two cruises to her state full of a bunch of right-wing bottom feeders, the Repug nominee for president ended up saddled with the governor of Alaska on the party ticket, an admittedly charismatic individual who told the cruise guests before they left (according to Mayer)…

..when the moment came for (Dick) Morris and other guests to depart, Palin was sad to see the Washington insiders go. Hanson recalled, “She said, ‘Hey—does anyone want to stay for dinner? We’re going to eat right now.’ She also invited everyone to come back the next day. ‘If any of you are in the area, all you have to do is knock. Yell upstairs, I’ll be right down.’ ”

Gosh darn it, ol’ Sarah is just plain folks, dontcha know!

So the reckoning is coming, my friends, due to arrive in about a week. And afterwards, I strongly suspect that “Governor Red High Heels” will go traipsing back to the hinterlands where she belongs, having propelled “Senator Honor And Virtue” into crashing something else besides one of his five jets when he served in the Navy.

And as the Repug political bloodletting begins in earnest, we’ll all know some of the people we have to thank for it.

Update: OK, so…Obama braves the bad weather and speaks at a rally of about 9,000 today, but the Palin-McBush team bails before a possible crowd of 10,000 because of snow flurries? And “it was to be the last time the two appear together for a rally before Election Day,” huh?

And you still think Palin-McBush have a glimmer of hope of seizing PA in the election, huh J.D. (sorry Ed, but c'mon)? Well, check this out.

And nice cheap shot to resurrect the "guns, clinging, bitter" stuff again. Well then, what do you have to say about this guy?