Who is the Handler?
Sarah Palin's small-town-girl-takes-on-Washington act is a brilliant success, for today anyway. But anytime political parties bring their aw-shucks, folksy Gomer Pyles out in front of the klieg lights, it's time to be suspicious. And that's especially true when the Republicans, party of corporate America and Big Oil, are casting the show.
Yes, Governor Palin hails from a town called Wasilla, hunts caribou, married "her guy" from high school who races, in her words, "snow machines" (when did they graduate from being snow-mobiles?) and apparently knows how to load and shoot a gun. She also really is a mother, a mother of a hockey player too, and a member of the PTA.
However, one need only check out Jim Yardley's enlightening reportage from Wasilla in yesterday's New York Times to smell the rat. Sarah Palin is no average Jane, much as she looks and sounds like one. On the contrary, Sarah Palin's entry into politics and subsequent rise has all the hallmarks of having been engineered, coached and groomed by bigger outside forces with a bigger plan.
Her first election to mayor in 1996 was based on "wedge Issues" - abortion, gun control, and proof of hard-core religiosity - issues that had never been discussed before in the town of 7,000, where politicians had run on where they stood on bingo revenue and fixing muddy roads.
Listen to the shell-shocked fellow she beat in that first election, the three term incumbent Mayor of Wasilla, John C. Stein. "Sarah comes in with all this ideological stuff, and I was like, 'Whoa. But that got her elected: abortion, gun rights, term limits and the religious born-again thing. I'm not a churchgoing guy, and that was another issue: 'We will have our first Christian mayor.'"
There was a time when America's small town governments were about local civics and its churches really were mainly about spirituality. That quaint era vanished, within living memory, with the rise of the "Christian right" which literally infected mainstream American Christianity with hateful brochures about gays, guns, and abortion.
The movement didn't emerge from within those little country churches, either. It was brought to them by a sophisticated set of well-funded groups and foundations, many with ties to the Republican Party and its copious moneybags. These organizations are based a long ways from Wasilla, in places like Washington, D.C., Arlington, Norfolk -- the state of Virginia, in fact, seems to have spawned or hosted most of them.
But they have a long reach and they are run by cautious, clever, watchful men.
I learned never to underestimate these right wing Svengalis involvement in small things in Omaha, Neb. when I was sent to interview a pretty little red-headed, then 16-year old named Bridget Mergens, in 1990. Bridget had the dubious distinction of having fought her high school over the right to form a Bible Club on high school grounds and won -- at the Supreme Court! Sweet little Bridget's last name is now forever embedded in the law books, in a case called Board of Education of Westside Community Schools v. Mergens, in which the court ruled that yes, Bridget and other religious kids were not Constitutionally prohibited under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment from holding Bible Club meetings on public school grounds.
What I learned, rather quickly, was that Bridget had her personal Svengali, a lawyer from near Washington, D.C., and that she was simply the pretty little front face, carefully selected by an organization called the Alliance Defense Fund, to help break down one more barrier between unsuspecting Americans and the theocracy. And the Alliance is just one of an army of well-funded, often deceptively named Christian law firms and organizations (in addition to the obvious ones associated with names like Robertson and Falwell) that run around the country seeking individuals to help transform America into God's country.
Had I but cash enough and time, I'd go up to Wasilla myself, and try to find what's left of the trail of out of town handlers who must have helped Sarah Palin launch her career on the cultural wedge issues, providing training or a handy DIY kit for polluting the tiny town of Wasilla with squabbles over who was holier and more Christian, filling the local churches, no doubt, with ghastly pictures of late-term abortions, terrifying the hunting populace about losing their gun rights to liberal bogeymen and so on.
I hope the crack investigative reporters up in the Northland now can track down the original groomers, although I suspect the fingerprints from the brainy individuals based in Virginia have been wiped away. They are a careful lot, and they think a long, long ways ahead.
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I remember from sometime back in the early 80's reading about the new tactics of the religious right. They couldn't win the big elections because they didn't have a grassroots base of politically-involved supporters (in fact, their members had for a long time shown an aversion to participating in politics). So their new, long-term strategy was to get their people involved in government from the very lowest levels, school boards, city councils, etc. I believe Sarah Palin was a product of this strategy, which has now had its greatest success.
I'm not sure when this began, because the article was talking about seeing the effects in Orange County, CA.
Nina writes: “I learned never to underestimate these right wing Svengalis involvement in small things in Omaha, Neb. when I was sent to interview a pretty little red-headed, then 16-year old named Bridget Mergens, in 1990.... What I learned, rather quickly, was that Bridget...was simply the pretty little front face, carefully selected by an organization called the Alliance Defense Fund, to help break down one more barrier between unsuspecting Americans and the theocracy.”
Um, except ADF wasn’t even formed until 1994. Oops! It’s a little hard to be part of a vast theocratic conspiracy when you don’t even exist.
You are right. The organizations involved were The National Legal Foundation and another one out of Atlanta, devoted to pushing religion into schools, also misleadingly named.
To find the puppet master, simply look at the lobbyists running McCain's campaign. McCaign and Palin are so ambitious that they have become the perfect tool. EXAMINE THE LOBBYIST CONNECTION AND YOU WILL FIND WHAT YOU WANT TO KNOW.
And I'm sure you wrote a similar article on the political handlers/groomers of Obama: Harold Washington (all things Chicago), Emil Jones ("godfather" of Chicago politics), David Axelrod (lobbyist), Tony Rezko (financier), and Saul Alinsky, the ideological groomer of the man who cannot spell 'change,' Obama.
Palin scares me. Im an atheist but could never admit it in our town,there is such hatred for those who do.
THat rant at the Assy of god in Alaska was creepy. I saw it on Current.Com which is a super Tv /website telling so much truth in this lying world of GOP idiots.
McSame and Palin IS NOT the way Amer needs to go,NO WAY NO HOW.Keep religion OUt OF THE GOVT.
WE HAVE HAD IT with Bush and evil Cheney. IM 51-so old enuff to know what this country used to be and used to represent. Now we torture,and beat the crud out of peaceful protestors at RNC. ThEY were imprisoned and treATED BRUTALLY by the local cops as errand boys of the GOP. Its really APPALLING. LiSTEN TO aMY gOODMAN TELL WHAT HAPP on NPR AND dEMOC nOW.
Obama you must win.Weve been in trouble big time for too long. Peace.
Nina Burleigh: Sarah Palin's small-town-girl-takes-on-Washington act is a brilliant success, for today anyway. But anytime political parties bring their aw-shucks, folksy Gomer Pyles out in front of the klieg lights, it's time to suspend disbelief. And that's especially true when the Republicans, party of corporate America and Big Oil, are casting the show.
===
It's time to suspend disbelief?
So you believe in her as a bona fide aw-shucks, folksy Gomer Pyle.
Is that what you're saying?
According to Nicole Wallace of the McCain campaign, the American people don't care whether Sarah Palin can answer specific questions about foreign and domestic policy. According to Wallace -- in an appearance on Joe Scarborough's show -- the American people will learn all they need to know (and all they deserve to know) from Palin's scripted speeches and choreographed appearances on the campaign trail and in campaign ads.
Wallace's bash-the-media exercise has its merits as a campaign tactic. It rallies the base. But the base won't lift McCain to 50% in November. More importantly, in her smug dismissal of the media's role in asking questions of the candidates, Wallace was really showing contempt not for reporters, but for voters. I bet there are a lot of undecided voters out there who were intrigued by Sarah Palin last night, but who don't yet know enough about her -- what she believes, what she knows -- to be comfortable with the idea of her as vice president of the United States. It's important to them to know if Palin can handle herself in an environment that isn't controlled and sanitized by campaign image makers and message mavens. Maybe she can, maybe she can't. As far as Wallace is concerned, it's none of their -- or your -- business.
This even shocks me and I am as cynical about politicians as one can be. I'd prefer a ticket of Foghorn Leghorn & Daffy Duck. They also exclusively use scripted speeches and are much
(end of clipped comment) ...wittier and vastly more entertaining!
She's the new face of Republican hate -- guilless, utterly self-absorbed and un-self-aware ambition. In her small world it's perfectly fine to make your pregnant unwed daughter's boyfriend (who does not want ot have kids) stand at the center of the media circus; perfectly fine to attack african americans (the GOP code word 'community organizer' meant this group); perfectly fine to lie about your past and resume. 'Causse none of it matters 'cause someone else wrote it and besides I know I'm sincere so...
(brain explodes)
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McCain's "administration" could be the same way. Palin: divisive local leader, governor in a state of the Oil Empire, corporate-church idealogue, below-average student with absolutely no clue of life outside her county.... who does that sound like to you?
There is a massive tide behind Obama. People who dropped out of mainstream culture decades ago are coming back to get involved because of his promise as a leader. We are a greater majority than anybody realizes. And a lot more people are in agreement about the right thing to do than ever before. And a lot more people are beggining to figure out the Neocon strategy.
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Great post! I hope a lot of people check it out and start thinking about how managed Palin's whole appearance has to be.
I noticed on some of the comments an interesting connection to Pat Buchanan's sister, which could also explain Pat's weirdly immediatly extatic response to Palin's acceptance speech. These are things people need to consider before this two months is up.
Finally, this is not the first time a trojan horse has been slipped into the White House in the form of a vice president. You might say "Cheney," and that's a good one too. But look at who Reagan's VP was - Mr. Bush Senior. Reagan charmed the crowds and made everybody forget about Nixon and Watergate and Ford's transparently criminal pardon, and then look how George HW Bush orchestrated the era of Iran Contra and the Grenada and Panama invasions. Look at Eisenhower before that. His VP, Richard Nixon (a Senator Prescott Bush protege), oversaw the rise and golden era of CIA black operations up through the Bay of Pigs. When Eisenhower left office, he gave the most famous farewell address in American history, warning us about the power and designs of the military-industrial complex. Do you have to wonder why? Ike's granddaughter, by the way, just officially became a Democrat.
First, regarding the conspiracy theory criticism, I would suspect our shadowy right wing organization helped boost Sarah's career not because she was a standout, but because belonging to her church she was just another potential future candidate. In fact, the 'handler' may have consisted of some rightwing bullet points to her church. That she grabbed the tools available speaks to her ambition and ruthlessness. We don't have to have an organization that reached out to her; she could have contacted them... Meanwhile, don't forget Dobson has thirty-six policy councils in the states and a $150M budget.
Second, there IS a shadowy organization. As posted at Democracy Now, Max Blumenthal of the Nation uncovered a right -wing group that vetted Palin, the Council for National Policy, comprised of Grover Norquist, Erik Prince and family (Blackwater), Paul Weyrich (Catholic right organizer), "Left Behind" LaHaye, Dobson, and the biggest donors of the right wing.
Per his report they met Sarah the Barracuda in Minneapolis while the Dems were in Denver...
Link (copy and paste): http://www.democracynow.org/2008/9/2/report_secretive_right_wing_group_vetted
I can certainly believe this post. The Religious Right are tremendously powerful. Also, some of them are Dominionists, and this group horrifies me. By the way, I am a "person of faith" who is hesitant these days to call myself a Christian because I belive that what Jesus stood for has been polluted by the Religious Right.
The following is excerpted from a Progressive Majority e-mail:
"Sarah Palin is a GOPAC graduate. GOPAC is the leading candidate recruitment and training operation for the conservative right.
Other graduates:
http://www.gopac.org/alumni/?lk=7611783-7611783-0-33279-vHFUzES/yHpzFu8vpmHZRVGnAsmYwpop
"GOPAC was founded in 1978 by conservatives who knew they were going to have to work outside the Republican Party to take it over. They ... would have to recruit their own kind ... to wrest control of government from the Democrats. They knew they needed a long-term plan to build their "farm team".
"They went to work and Newt Gingrich took over the organization in the 1980s. Gingrich wasn't satisfied with the election of Ronald Reagan. He wanted to see conservatives in control at the local, state AND national levels - even if it took a generation. Under Gingrich's leadership, GOPAC stepped up its candidate recruitment efforts, sought out "movement conservatives" and taught them how to run campaigns and talk about issues in a way that galvanized the far right base while not completely alienating moderate voters.
"It worked. During the next 20 years, they took over the majority of state legislatures and governors. They singlehandedly led the "Republican Revolution" that took over Congress in 1994. They elected George W. Bush.
"Don't think for a moment, despite Democratic victories in 2006 and a good climate for 2008, that they are finished. Today, GOPAC is the sixth largest national political organization in the country."
Palin describes herself as a "dominionist," one who believes the US Constitution should be an instrument of applying Biblical law. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominionism
Palin was vetted by the secretive Christian right Council for National Policy, as reported in
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/9/2/report_secretive_right_wing_group_vetted
(Scroll about 2/3 of the way down.)
Yeah - and while you're at it, lets look at the Svengalis' behind Obama (perhaps George Soros?? who knows?) After all who da thunk this freshman Senator could taken down the big, bad Clinton machine!!
I don't think the influence of Soros on Obama's positions is nearly as pronounced as the influence of the Christian Right strategists on those of Palin, but just for the sake of the argument, just what sort of police state does Soros want to impose, in your view? My take on the guy is that he's seen Naziism and Communism and firmly believes in the values of a pluralist civil society. Ideally, a pluralist civil society where he can continue making the big bucks. I don't see him trying to marginalize people based on their race or religion, or anything else for that matter. What evildoing have I missed?
why so scared to post all comments? an informed mind is such a waste?
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