Fortunately, there are some politicians who simply cannot be bought, and the Ron Paul family is one of them. Sarah Palin is not. I want to comment on what I believe is the crucial way in which Sara Palin has been co-opted by the money issue in her quest for political power. An interesting piece came out in Vanity Fair this week entitled, “Palin in Private” by Michael Joseph Gross. It was clearly a hatchet job on Palin by a Leftist, but I have to admit, it was based mostly on truths that the Palin team does not want aired. Gross fails to balance his embarrassing revelations with any of Palin’s redeeming qualities.
During her vice presidential candidacy with John McCain, Palin underwent a painful transition from principled libertarian to controlled Republican show girl. She’s being used now and doesn’t see that all the attention the media is lavishing upon her is not intended to promote her, but to set her up for a fall. During the 2008 campaign she started out bucking the establishment advisors that were clearly attempting to control her. But despite initial resistance to the fame, fancy hotels and celebrity treatment, she eventually succumbed to the new lifestyle and learned to like it.
From: Rense.com…
The Battle For The Republican Party
By Joel Skousen
Editor – World Affairs Brief
9-3-10
Begin Excerpt
Actually, there is no doubt who controls the Republican Party, and it is not K-Street lobbyists, as Examiner columnist Timothy Carney claims. These big lobbying machines work, indirectly, for the Powers That Be (PTB) – the real forces that control both Republicans and Democrats. The powerful and wealthy lobbyists that have historically had big offices on K-street in Washington DC only provide a level of insurance to keep things running smoothly. The real battle for control of the GOP is over the conservative base that is increasingly joining the Tea Party rebellion in opposition to mainstream control of the Republican party and its role in growing big government. Establishment Republican leaders like Newt Gingrich and Michael Steele continue to promote false conservative candidates with big money backing, hoping to convince Tea Party supporters that only moderate Republicans can win in November. Sadly, uncompromising and hardline candidates have won only a few races in the primary season, while main-stream candidates have generally succeeded in snookering conservatives into supporting re-branded liberals as conservatives.
Big wins by the Tea Party hardliners were Rand Paul’s victory over Tim Greyson in Kentucky, Joe Miller’s slim defeat of Republican Senator Lisa Murkowsky in Alaska, and the ouster of Utah mainstream Senator Robert Bennett in the Utah primary. The nomination of anti-global warming scientist Art Robinson in Oregon to challenge Democrat Peter DeFazio was also a big win for constitutional conservatives.
Big wins by the establishment, on the other hand, were the renomination of Senator John McCain in Arizona, the Texas defeat of Debra Medina by Gov. Rick Perry and the wins of Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina over their respective conservative challengers for the Republican primary in California. In most of the smaller races, mainstream (but fairly conservative) Republican candidates won as well. There were a few outright conservative frauds that won–Ben Quayle in Phoenix, the lackluster son of former VP Dan Quayle, was the prime example. He was funded by former Pres. George H. W. Bush and his entire entourage of establishment hacks from Washington.
Despite the fact that most Tea Party candidates failed to win in Republican primaries, the movement is still a huge force to be reckoned with because of its size and uncompromising demeanor. Nothing was more exemplary of this than the huge rally organized by Fox News commentator Glenn Beck in Washington DC this past week, which drew an estimated 800,000 people. The media played its usually role as truth saboteur by grossly underestimating the crowds in attendance and by giving excessive play to the objections of black civil rights leaders who were incensed that Beck grabbed “their spot” on the Washington mall before they could.
The media was successful in taunting Beck so badly over the “politicization of the rally” issue that Beck was forced to downplay his rhetoric, discourage banners, and bill the event as a moral and religious rally honoring our troops(everyone’s favorite ploy) instead. It lost some of its fire in doing so, but it made up for it by appealing to an ecumenical spirit of cooperation among the various conservative religious factions–which is badly needed.
The establishment is in the middle of a powerful campaign to co-opt the Tea Party movement, so we must understand how they intend to do this. Primarily, they intend to use the power of money to make sure that real conservatives are denied funding and that controlled conservatives are so richly funded that they won’t dare to risk losing that funding.
First, I will comment on Tim Carney’s piece in the Examiner for its interesting analysis on the role of well healed lobbyists in the Republican party. [my comments in brackets]
“Bob Dole, once the standard-bearer of the Republican Party, parlayed his political clout into personal wealth [only happens to lawmakers who play along with the PTB during their tenure], and now he’s putting that wealth to work against a conservative Republican Senate candidate in a general election. Dole, now a lobbyist at Alston Bird, contributed $1,000 on Aug. 11 to the independent Senate campaign of Charlie Crist, who left the GOP in April. Dole’s may be an extreme case– because he’s actually backing a non-Republican [this is actually a reflection of the fact that Dole is on the globalist team and they’ll support fellow liberals like Crist even after they have been forced out of the party, when their masquerade fails]– but it epitomizes the fundamental split within the Republican Party.
“The current GOP fault line is not exactly conservatives vs. moderates or new guard vs. old guard. For 2010, the rivalry is the Tea Party wing against the K Street wing [what I call the mainstream wing, because it is not just a matter of catering to lobbyists and big money]. To tell which kind of Republican a candidate is, see how the Democrats attack him: If he’s branded a shill for Wall Street, he’s from the K Street wing. If he’s labeled an extremist outside the mainstream, he’s a Tea Partier.
“More tellingly, study their campaign contributions [yes]. K Street Republicans’ coffers are filled by the political action committees of defense contractors, drug companies, lobbying firms, and Wall Street banks. A Tea Party Republican is funded by the Club for Growth or the Senate Conservatives Fund, which is run by the Republican leadership’s least-favorite colleague, Jim DeMint [not so. True Tea Party candidates are supported almost exclusively from small contributions from individuals].
“In Colorado’s Senate primary last week, the Tea Party trumped K Street as Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck upset former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton. Norton, herself a former lobbyist who tried to run from that background, raised $293,000 from PACs. Buck got only $2,500 in PAC cash. Buck got zero support from Republican lawmakers’ PACs while 15 GOP incumbents funded Norton, including leaders Mitch McConnell, Lamar Alexander, John Thune and Kay Bailey Hutchison. Two senators who have cashed out to K Street — Mel Martinez and Trent Lott — also put their money behind Norton [all mainstream insiders].
“Kentucky shows an even starker contrast. Before the May 18 Senate primary, secretary of state and McConnell acolyte Trey Grayson had raised a half million dollars from PACs –20 times the PAC haul of upstart Rand Paul. Paul got a check from outgoing curmudgeon Sen. Jim Bunning, but 18 Republican senators bankrolled Grayson’s campaign, plus the Republican Mainstreet Partnership and three top House Republicans. Grayson pocketed political action committee cash from businesses that have sided more with Obama than with Republicans, such as $10,000 from drug maker Pfizer — a key champion of Obamacare. Other Grayson funders are a rogues’ gallery of subsidy sucklers and regulatory robber barons: bailout bandits like the American Bankers Association and the Managed Funds Association; Obamacare backers like the American Hospital Association and a dozen drug companies; ethanol baron Archer Daniels Midland; cap-and-trade profiteers like Duke Energy; and government contractors like the Chubb Corp. and Northrop Grumman. A K Street lobbyist who had represented AIG during the bailouts hosted a fundraiser for Grayson, and at least a dozen lobbying firms and industry groups backed him with cash.
“And of course, Trent Lott was a Grayson donor. Lott is the captain of the K Street team. He told a reporter last month his thoughts on the Tea Partiers: ‘We don’ t need [or want] a lot of Jim DeMint disciples. As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them [very telling].’ Lott’s proposed co-opting is not primarily ideological — Norton and Grayson, and their inside-the-Beltway patrons are all fairly conservative [as only the mainstream would define it]. The main distinction between Team Lott and Team DeMint might have less to do with policy platforms and more to do with a politician’s attitude toward the Washington nexus of power and money.”
This last part is absolutely true. That is the key issue whether or not a candidate is owned by the establishment. If he is, Tea Party supporters don’t trust them, no matter how conservative they claim to be. One only need to view John McCain’s complete reversal of position on illegal immigration to see how essential it is not to believe what they say, but watch who’s behind them.
“Nevada’s Sharron Angle [battling Senate majority leader Read] is anti-bailout and anti-subsidy [and the establishment is pulling out all the stops to discredit her]. Paul could try to shrink defense spending and ethanol subsidies. In Florida, Republican Marco Rubio isn’t a game player like Dole’s buddy Crist is.
“You can see today, by their improved personal financial situations, what Lott and Dole were trying to accomplish in Washington. You can also guess which current Republicans will join them on K Street in a few years — andplay ball with them in the meantime. But Tea Partiers and DeMint disciples will come to Washington with an aversion to K Street. Now that Lott and Dole have sided so clearly against them, maybe K Street will have a harder time trying to co-opt them.”
In a more recent article Carney finds another gem about Republican manipulation–trying to help re-elect Democratic Senator Reid: “Why would the former chairman of the Republican National Committee — he ran the GOP for six years during Reagan’s presidency — endorse Democrat Harry Reid in a dead-heat election? Because that GOP bigwig is from the K Street Wing of the Republican Party [wrong–because he is part of the PTB working to control both parties]. Frank Fahrenkopf is now head of the American Gaming Association, the gambling industry’s lobby. This cycle, like last cycle, Fahrenkopf has funded Reid’s reelection [Why is a supposedly conservative Republican running the gambling lobby? It is just more evidence of their true colors – they are and were only playing roles to fool conservatives].”
Fortunately, there are some politicians who simply cannot be bought, and the Ron Paul family is one of them. Sarah Palin is not. I want to comment on what I believe is the crucial way in which Sara Palin has been co-opted by the money issue in her quest for political power. An interesting piece came out in Vanity Fair this week entitled, “Palin in Private” by Michael Joseph Gross. It was clearly a hatchet job on Palin by a Leftist, but I have to admit, it was based mostly on truths that the Palin team does not want aired. Gross fails to balance his embarrassing revelations with any of Palin’s redeeming qualities.
During her vice presidential candidacy with John McCain, Palin underwent a painful transition from principled libertarian to controlled Republican show girl. She’s being used now and doesn’t see that all the attention the media is lavishing upon her is not intended to promote her, but to set her up for a fall. During the 2008 campaign she started out bucking the establishment advisors that were clearly attempting to control her. But despite initial resistance to the fame, fancy hotels and celebrity treatment, she eventually succumbed to the new lifestyle and learned to like it.
When Palin returned to Alaska, vowing to rise again and break loose from the coercion of the establishment, the PTB sicced their media dogs on her to set her up for failure and to bring her back into their arena. Legal and media pressure were applied almost constantly while she was governor of Alaska and nearly drove her to bankruptcy with various ethics charges and the resulting legal challenges. As I indicated, I’m convinced it wasn’t their purpose to destroy her, but rather to drive her into the arms of the monied Republican king-makers who could offer to be her “saviors” (a book deal worth at least $10M was a good start) and then set traps to control her once she had become used to the lavish lifestyle of a political celebrity. Look at what she has become, according to interviews conducted by Michael Gross:
“Warm and effusive in public, indifferent or angry in private: this is the ‘pattern of Palin’s behavior toward the people who make her life possible.’ A onetime gubernatorial aide to Palin says, ‘The people who have worked for her–they’re broken, used, stepped on, down in the dust.’ On the 2008 campaign trail, one close aide recalls, it was practically impossible to persuade Palin to take a moment to thank the kitchen workers at fund-raising dinners. During the campaign, Palin lashed out at the ‘slightest provocation, sometimes screaming at staff members and throwing objects. Witnessing such behavior, one aide asked Todd Palin if it was ‘typical of his wife.’ He answered, ‘You just got to let her go through it… Half the stuff that comes out of her mouth she doesn’t even mean.’ When a ‘campaign aide gingerly asked Todd whether Sarah should consider taking psychiatric medication’ to control her moods, Todd responded that she ‘just needed to run and work out more.’
“Her anger kept boiling over, however, ‘and eventually the fits of rage came every day. Then, just as suddenly, ‘her temper would be gone. Palin would apologize and promise to be nicer.’ ‘Within hours, she would be screaming again.’ At the end of one long day, ‘when Palin was mid-tirade,’ a campaign aide remembers thinking, ‘You were an angel all night. Now you’re a devil. Where did this come from?’ The intensity of Palin’s temper was first described to me in such extreme terms that I couldn’t help but wonder if it might be exaggerated, until I heard corroborating tales of outbursts dating back to her days as mayor of Wasilla and before. One friend of the Palins’ remembers an argument between Sarah and Todd: ‘They took all the canned goods out of the pantry, then proceeded to throw them at each other. By the time they got done, the stainless-steel fridge looked like it had got shot up with a shotgun.’ This friend adds, ‘She has a horrible temper, but she has gotten away with it because she is a pretty woman.’
“When Palin was mayor, she made life for one low-level municipal employee so miserable that the woman quit her job, sought psychiatric counseling, and then left the state altogether to escape Palin’s sphere of influence–this according to one person with firsthand knowledge of the situation. Palin’s former personal assistants all refused to comment on the record for this story, some citing a fear of ‘reprisal.’ Others who have worked with Palin recall that, when she feels ‘threatened, she does not hesitate to wield some version of a signature threat: ‘I have the power to ruin you.’
“William Kristol [a neocon globalist], editor of The Weekly Standard, and Fred Malek, aide to Presidents Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush are advisors. Lawyer Robert Barnett, the most successful literary agent in Washington–his clients range from Hillary Clinton to Dick Cheney to Tony Blair–negotiated Palin’s reported $7 million advance for Going Rogue, and he helps oversee her ‘speaking schedule, which is arranged by the Washington Speakers Bureau.
“The small inner circle that shapes Palin’s voice day to day includes lobbyist Randy Scheunemann, a director of the neoconservative think tank ‘Project for the New American Century,’ [which provided the theoretical “New Pearl Harbor” impetus for the government’s false flag attack on the WTC] who advises Palin on foreign affairs [which explains her neocon positions supporting more wars of intervention]. Palin’s speechwriter is Lindsay Hayes [from the McCain camp]. Doug McMarlin and Jason Recher, both of whom did advance work for George W. Bush, serve as ‘bodyguards and confidants. Both Hayes and Recher were on Palin’s 2008-campaign road team, and both were known for indulging her whims, according to their colleagues.”
In short, her life is very different now than before. When initially presented with a fancy and expensive new outfit during the McCain campaign, she expressed horror that the campaign would spend huge sums on designer clothes. Now she only buys expensive clothes, demands first class airfare when her private jet isn’t available, and drives a new Cadillac Escalade with tinted windows. FOX pays her over a million dollars a year for her pat, unoriginal commentary (broadcast from her own studio at her home), and she still commands huge 6 figure fees for speaking engagements which guarantees that the most principled Tea Partiers (who are poor) can rarely afford to attend. A new 6,000-square-foot stone-clad château style home is being built for her, complete with an airplane hangar for Todd Palin’s Piper Cub.
End Excerpt
World Affairs Brief – Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World
Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted.
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Related:
Can Sarah Palin be a real, going-to-heaven Christian?
Palin Goes Rogue Against Tea Party Candidates, by Valerie Richardson
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