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Palin's Talent Scout
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No wonder Bill Kristol has remained so positive about her while other neocons have fled. He helped push her to the veep ticket—and won out against Karl Rove. (With an update after a Weekly Standard blog post Friday night critiquing this piece.)
In June 2007, a cruise hosted by the political journal The Weekly Standard set anchor in Juneau, Alaska. Standard editors William Kristol and Fred Barnes then lunched with Governor Sarah Palin. It was a moment of discovery to equal Hernando Cortez’s landing at Veracruz.
The Daily Telegraph’s Tim Shipman saw this encounter as the launch of a Neoconservative project surrounding Palin. He interviewed a former Republican White House official now at the American Enterprise Institute about Palin:
“She’s bright and she’s a blank page. She’s going places and it’s worth going there with her.” Asked if he sees her as a “project,” the former official said: “Your word, not mine, but I wouldn’t disagree with the sentiment.
Kristol appeared on Fox News on June 30, 2008, confidently predicting that McCain would select Sarah Palin and as a public display of support, oil prices would miraculously fall.
Kristol can fairly lay claim to having “discovered” Palin for Washington political circles. Palin’s name appeared in 41 Weekly Standard articles since the Juneau meeting—starting with a paean entitled “The Most Popular Governor” that ran right after the reception.
Indeed, Kristol, who was a loyal McCain supporter in 2000 and is often thought to have suffered exclusion from Bush’s inner circle as a result, may have played a key role in McCain’s decision to tap Palin as his running mate. A McCain campaign insider described to me a tight three-way competition between Palin, Joe Lieberman, and Mitt Romney in the final days. McCain himself, it was no secret, wanted Lieberman to be his running mate, but his senior advisors were adamant that Lieberman could not be sold to the Republican base. A Lieberman nomination might risk exposing serious fissures in the party at the convention in Saint Paul.
The inner circle broke down between two choices. Those close to Karl Rove united around Romney. Rove engaged in heavy lobbying in an effort to get McCain to embrace Romney. Others, of whom Kristol was the most prominent, pushed Sarah Palin—arguing that she was young, popular, vigorous, unknown and had the right connections to the Religious Right bloc which had proven so important to Republican wins in 2000 and 2004. Karl Rove himself recognized, with typical insight, that Palin was the real challenger. He attacked Virginia Governor Tim Kaine as an ill-suited candidate for the vice presidential slot on the Democratic ticket. Kaine, of course, had a resume almost identical to Palin’s—he had been a small city mayor and then had served, for less than two years, as governor—and McCain campaign insiders understood the swipe differently from others. Did Rove really care about Kaine’s darkhorse candidacy for the Democrats, or was he launching a cloaked attack on Palin? (In a recent appearance, Rove was asked if he thought Palin would make a good president. “I don’t know” was his unenthusiastic answer.
Kristol, in any event, was quick to press the campaign for the Palin candidacy with the party’s faithful. Taking a cue from the Straussian handbook, Kristol appeared on Fox News on June 30, 2008, confidently predicting that McCain would select Sarah Palin and as a public display of support, oil prices would miraculously fall.
And indeed, weeks after the Palin pick, oil prices did tumble—though analysts link this to concerns about the crisis in financial institutions and not Sarah Palin.
After the nomination, conservative columnists have been very critical of the Palin candidacy. Some have openly distanced themselves from it, such as National Review’s Kathleen Parker, who called on Palin voluntarily to quit the ticket. David Brooks referred to Palin as a “cancer on the Republican Party.” Peggy Noonan was overheard grumbling about the choice as “political bullshit” on an open mike on MSNBC. George Will told a gathering of Senate aides that Palin was “obviously not qualified” to be vice president. Former presidential speechwriter David Frum called the choice a gamble and then said he felt it was “disturbing.” Charles Krauthammer called the choice “near suicidal.”
Kristol is one of the few conservative columnists whose support of Palin has been unflinching. He has used his space as a New York Times columnist to tout her candidacy repeatedly. But in the process Kristol has never bothered to disclose his role in the decision making process that led to the Palin pick. Kristol’s Weekly Standard has figured as Palin’s chief defender, and its writers have gone after even those who dare to pose questions about Palin’s candidacy. Bill Kristol, it seems, has much at stake in the Palin candidacy.
This article has been updated and corrected in response to a post at the Weekly Standard blog by Jonathan Last, which details the Juneau meeting and notes that the Daily Telegraph piece was not quoted in proper context. The corrections are appreciated and the post is worth a gander.
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The election process has become polluted by the reporters who are objectively supposed to report the news and their side(main?) jobs of supporting one candidate/party or the other.
It would be nice if we were somehow informed of this say like having it branded on their foreheads. Yeah, that is too mean but it just represents my passion in wanting a separation of church and state and press and politicians.
What has William Kristol ever gotten right?
Mr. Kristol doesn't seem so bright to me. After all from Bush to McCain/Palin ticket he has been wrong. He supported this administration going to war in Iraq from the beginning. Everything that has gone wrong was supported and sometimes Kristol was carrying the water for this administration. He should be in jail along with Rove and alot of those people in the administration that supported this war knowing full well that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11.
worried
Sounds like Bill Kristol understands the finest of American values - smear talent, then he promoted a valued smear leader in Sarah Palin. If smear tactics are what they are - what it is to be a true American in politics or in every day life according to the Kristols of the world, then I would rather be the wolf that Sarah Palin shoots down from a plane than part of smear-America. Millions of Americans have more hopeful values and dreams and abilities than smear mentality!
So, Kristol "won" out over Rove? One can hardly call this a victory for rational politcal thought-this is a victory for politicking of the lowest common denominator.
The real Greek Tragedy here is that McCain, possibly one of the finest Senators in my lifetime, is compromising his honor and integrity to curry favor with the GOP base. William F Buckley spent his life time attempting to separate the kooks from the party he so magnificently represented. McCain's folly will not only end his political career but deep six Palin's as well. She could ahve been a powerhouse in 2012. That dream is now defered.
McCain has managed to undue a lifetime of hard work in less than sixty days.
So Bill Kristol was the strongest proponet of Sarah Palin for VP on the McCain ticket.... Palin the race-baiting, Christian-supremacist, fear-mongering, anti-intellectual, intolerant, shoot-animals-from-airplanes-for sport former small-town mayor who _busted_ Wassila's budget (to tune of $22 million) even after hiring a DC lobbyist who brought millions of dollars of federal (socialized) "pork" spending home to Wasilla..!
Sarah Palin, whose husband was a proud member of the Alaska SECESSIONIST party....
Sad to say (and no way to say it politely), Bill Kristol, by championing Palin and her agenda, a textbook example of Jewish Neo-Cons today making bedfellows of those who, 50 years ago, they would have been shouting "anti-Semite!" about, and today actually encouraging that racist agenda for reasons of political expediency and gain.
This is the same Bill Kristol who served as Chief of Staff to Dan Quayle and then to William Bennett. He was co-founder of the Project for a New American Century and worked there with a rogue's gallery of neo-con disaster masters, including Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, "Scooter" Libby, William Bennett, et al. He is also editor of the Weekly Standard and a star commentator on Fox News. In short, Bill Kristol has been much like a bizzaro-world version of Forrest Gump. Every ruinous policy shift - from preemptive war to the misjudgment on Hussein's progress toward WMD, to massive military expansion, to U.S. support for the Israeli attacks on Lebanon, to reconstitution of the nuclear arms race, to abandonment of long-standing treaties, to neglecting diplomacy in favor of military aggression, to expansion of the missile defense shield into former Soviet territory, to his sinecure as neo-con cheerleader-in-chief at FOX, his arrogance and naivete have leached into every ruinous policy shift authored by this most incompetent administration of all time.
From the man who brought you all these things: Sarah Palin!
and the problem is?
Gosh darn, The Weekly Standard, gets all the great insights.
Has Bill Kristol, mentioned that Sarah Palin, may very well be our first female president?
If not, he should do another interview with the governor.
Cook Barela, Riverside, Ca.
As has been pointed out, one of Kristol's only actual responsibilities beyond blovating was the maintenance and development of Quayle and his career when he was veep. One need look no further than to the ongoing robust career of Mr. Quayle to see how...oh...wait. Right, that didn't go all that well.
So, now I'm thinking that Mr. Kristol's just trying to take another bite at the apple. You know the old saying: If at first you don't succeed in puffing up an empty headed conservative into something the country can tolerate without breaking into either wild giggles or a nasty rash, try, try again.
Well I don't feel sorry for McCain because know one told him to choice Palin. He did this to himself. God forbid if he does win McCain will have to watch his back because Palin will be pushing him aside. I won't be surprise if he suddenly has a stroke and dies and there she is the countries worst nightmare come true. But the funny thing is even the religious right don't know they are playing with fire when it comes to Palin. She is good at making friends until they disagree with her and out they go. President Palin and First F--k Dude or (Dud). Just think about that. Dobson, Hagee, all that group will see what happens than. I hope american people are smarter than that and we can distroy her message now.
Found it interesting that Kristol bashed the McCain campaign onf Fox News Sunday for sending over Rick Davis instead of Sarah Palin for the interview with Chris Wallace.
Kristol is consistent. He touts something and when it goes to crap, he finds someone else to blame.
The media gives Kristol too much credit for the Palin pick...McCain, alone, is responsible.
Daily Beast...so far I am utterly unimpressed.
John McCain hasn't forsaken his accomplishments as a military hero, US senator and dynamic human being some 20 short days as someone here claims. No one could have imagined how easily the management and members of the national media would abandon professional responsibility, forget about their credibility and do their unchecked personal best to deliver Barak Obama the presidency. Barak Obama's policies, his empty oratory, his broken promises (financing, oil drilling, free trade), his lack of experience, growing misrepresentations (neighborhood buddies) and-yes-character stand essentially unquestioned by the press.
MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC (as well NBC Entertainment via scurrilous character assignation) are Obama's chorus and jet-fighter pilots determined to shoot down any question that might challenge him as he adjusts his cufflinks and picks out shoes. The most obvious, jaw-dropping example has been the response to Senator McCain's healthy, prioritizing suggestion to head to DC and focus fully on fixing the financial crisis for a day or two. Senator Obama had spent days in Florida preparing and primping for the debate-and press immediately interpreted Senator McCain's worthy-career-second-suggestion that they prioritize as plot to put their fragile juggernaut off step. They eventually defined the selfless act-and Senator McCain-erratic.
All this while Senator Obama just sat in his jet, with any questions over his apparent disinterest in Washington during a crisis labeled racist.
Circumstances beyond anyone's control have also fallen into Senator Obama's lap. But the press is not going to let voters believe that it isn't John McCain's fault. Bill Clinton even defended Senator McCain's motives concerning the campaign-break suggestion.
So of course the negative ads show up earlier. They should have long ago. That's because Obama and Press and Co have done their best to distract the public from scrutinizing the candidates' character-for Senator Obama's sake. John McCain radiates character, principle and his word.
Barak Obama's character remains far from obvious, now suggesting some stealth. As his associations become less vague, it's worrying. These should have been vetted months ago.
Momentum is Senator Obama's, darling of the left, the downtrodden and the fourth estate. Only a Rudy Giuliani/Mitt Romney pairing could have prevailed over this next Carter presidency. Until then.
ThatSteven, thats right blame the media. I guess you forgot when McCain said the media was part of his base on the straight talk express. He loved them because they gave him a free pass on his oops. They would say that is McCain being McCain. You can't have it both ways. By the way I just read this morning on another blog that some Itialian reporter interviewed the VN camp soldier that was a guard at the prison camp McCain was in. He said that the place was not easy to live in but McCain was not abused and was given medical attention that their own troops didn't get. Now I can see why McCain blocked opening up the missing POW information because he didn't want people to see what he did. Hopefully the missing POW families will get the information they are entitled to someday after he leaves the senate.
Can someone explain the connection Kristol saw which linked Palin's candidacy with a fall in oil prices.
Also aren't higher oil prices good for corporations, who are usually traditionally associated with the right?
I am interested, Mr. Horton, in this "Straussian Handbook" that you mention in passing. I cannot find it on Amazon -- has it been published yet?
Anyone with information (publisher, etc.) please leave some information in the comments. I'd love to be able to read through the Handbook, if it's not too expensive to purchase.
I guess I'm somewhat dubious as to its existence, although hopeful -- I can't quite believe the Straussians were foolish enough to put their plans in print -- if this is true, may this be the end of them, at long last!
Schulyer, saying that someone "takes a page or cue from the ____ handbook" is a figure of speech. The author is not referring to an actual book.
Thank you.
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