The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Palin, Newt, Huck and Cain, Oh My!

Posted on | February 23, 2011 | 25 Comments

Rounding up some 2012 news: Both Doug Brady at Conservatives for Palin and Josh Painter at Texas for Palin liked my reaction to “worthless two-faced backstabbing crapweasel” Frank Bailey.

What Bailey has done — trying to cash in with a “tell all” book damaging to his former employer — is a breach of a fundamental principle, best expressed by Elbert Hubbard: “If put to the pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness.”

Think about it: The only thing that makes Bailey’s ax-grinding manuscript newsworthy is the fact that he once worked for Sarah Palin. So what he is selling (or attempting to sell) is the access he gained because of the services for which she paid him, and the trust she placed in him. She actually gave Bailey the password to her e-mail account! And this is how she is repaid? Ed Morrissey nails it:

Maybe someone should work on the title.  “Blind Allegiance”?  His allegiance seems to have been pretty conditional on getting favorable positions in the Palin administration, and when he didn’t get them, the allegiance apparently turned into dislike rather easily.

Of course, anti-Palin trolls (are these people paid to do this?) quickly infested the comments of my post about Bailey, citing this, that and the other thing “revealed” by disclosure of confidential communications.

Question: Why are we always getting these “insider” smears of Sarah Palin but yet we never see any leaked internal e-mails from Team Obama?

Answer: Because Democratic operatives actually believe in their cause, whereas too many GOP operatives are just in it for themselves.

Bailey seems to imagine imagine himself as doing God’s work in backstabbing his former employer. You may search Scripture to your heart’s content and I guarantee you will never find praise for selfish and disloyal servants.

Nor, for that matter, will you find any scriptural blessing for serial adulterers:

Newt Gingrich’s speech at the University of Pennsylvania Tuesday night quickly took a turn for the dramatic when the first student to question him brought up his admitted extra-marital affair and accused him of being “hypocritical” for espousing moral values.
“You adamantly oppose gay rights… but you’ve also been married three times and admitted to having an affair with your current wife while you were still married to your second,” Isabel Friedman, president of the Penn Democrats, said to Gingrich. “As a successful politician who’s considering running for president, who would set the bar for moral conduct and be the voice of the American people, how do you reconcile this hypocritical interpretation of the religious values that you so vigorously defend?” . . .
Gingrich has admitted that he had an affair with a staffer, now his third wife, in the 1990s — the same time he was advocating for the impeachment of Bill Clinton in the wake of the former president’s relationship with Monica Lewinsky. A damning Esquire profile last year shed light on that affair, as well as one he had with his second wife while still married to his first. While the source of Gingrich’s heckling Tuesday night was a Democrat, it nevertheless underscored the trouble many Republicans expect him to face with skeptical religious conservatives in Iowa if he ultimately decides to run for president.

Well, they’re not going to let him forget that, are they?

It has been said that hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue, but that doesn’t work too well as a campaign slogan. Jesus forgave the woman caught in adultery, but forgiveness isn’t the same thing as a presidential endorsement.

Republicans almost universally acknowledge Gingrich as one of the great political thinkers in the party and admire his ability to articulate the conservative message. But a Gingrich presidential campaign involves little problems of a strictly biographical nature like that, to say nothing of his Dede Scozzafava problem.

Meanwhile, it looks like our friend Lisa Graas is on the Huckabee bandwagon for 2012, with a combination book review and interview:

In the book, Huckabee offers the pro-life view very eloquently, however he did not explain what legislation he would support on the issue of abortion, so when I spoke to him, I had to ask him about that. I decided that the best way to determine what his position is would be to ask him which sitting Supreme Court Justice he likes the most. He responded, without any hesitation whatsoever, “Scalia.”

You should go read the whole thing, because I like Lisa, even if I don’t like Huck. But you all know who I do like, and our friend Matthew Newman at Old Line Elephant has an interview with Herman Cain:

NEWMAN: Do you believe that never holding elected office will be a hindrance to your campaign?
CAIN: Many reporters and members of the elite political class would like you to believe that attending an Ivy League school or having a lifelong political career is essential to succeeding in public policy and public service. Such a perspective indicates how out of touch they are with the American people. Most Americans cannot identify with lifetime politicians. They can identify with someone who has run several businesses, raised a family, survived cancer and achieved his American Dream.
And besides, all of the people in Washington, D.C. have political experience. How’s that working out, for you?

Go read the rest of that. You’ll also want to read Cain’s column in Investor’s Business Daily:

Being in a leadership position without leading is called position-ship.
And when you truly lead, you will be criticized because working on the right problems, setting the right priorities, surrounding yourself with the right people and developing the right plans will not make everybody happy.

This column was called to my attention by a Cain supporter who pointed out that Sarah Palin promoted it on her Facebook page and her Twitter feed. That prompted me to do some thinking out loud at The American Spectator:

Was the former Alaska governor signaling that she might not run in 2012? Or, perhaps, was her promotion of Cain’s column — praising Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s leadership — a backhand dig at Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who punted in his own showdown with Democrats and unions?

Reading the tea leaves is a favorite game of pundits, and I don’t usually bother with guesswork and predictions. Best to stick with what you actually know, and what I know is that Palin did everything in 2010 that a presidential contender would do in preparation for a 2012 campaign. So she has put herself in position to run, but the decision to run or not . . . wow, that’s tough.

If Palin runs in 2012 and loses, all the naysayers will say, “See? We told you so.” And then she would be finished, unless she’s able to stage one of those long comebacks like Richard Nixon did after losing to JFK in ’60 and getting beat for California governor in ’62. On the other hand, if Palin were to decide against running, the naysayers will say, “Chicken!” So she’s damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t.

And so we are left to ponder this one little tea leaf — Palin pushing Cain’s column — asking, “Does it mean anything?”

Maybe she just saw the column, agreed with it, and wanted to share it, without consideration of Cain’s status as a potential 2012 rival. And it’s no sweat off her nose: She’s the Big Name no one can miss, whereas for many voters, he’s still “Herman Who?”

On the other hand . . . Well, I’m sure you can see what might be on the other hand.

Category: Election 2012, Herman Cain, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin

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