“I am a conservative but I am not mad at anyone”

MoonHowler

“I am a conservative but I am not mad at anyone.”   That statement is a paraphrase of Mike Huckabee’s most famous statement and one that describes what is so likable to many about the ex-governor of Arkansas.

Mike Huckabee announced over the weekend that he would NOT be running for president.  In many polls, Huckabee was the front-runner.  Some analysts believe he is the only Republican who can beat Obama.  So why did Huckabee decide not to run?  Some folks say he lacked the fire in the belly to do what it takes to run for president. 

That’s OK.  Huckabee has a pretty decent show on Fox News. (one of the few I will call FOX rather than Faux.)  He gets to play music  with his band and be a nice guy.   He is making good money and he might not want to give it all up.  That’s OK too.  I still like and respect him.  He isn’t a guy I could ever vote for.  But I can watch him on TV and listen to his ideas.  He isn’t beating me over the head with them.

 

After this announcement, Mike Huckabee is now a true Freebird!

Mrs. Huckabee says that the Governor will never have too many guitars in his own mind.  One gets the impression she would tote half of them off to the dump if his back is turned.

Newt Gingrich: I’m not a hypocrite

MoonHowler

Oaaakaaaay.  Let’s see what Mr. Newt has to say for himself about why trying to impeach a president when he, speaker of the house, was also having an affair. 

According to Politico:

Pressed on “Fox News Sunday” about his adulterous past, Newt Gingrich said it was not hypocritical for him to impeach Bill Clinton while he cheated on his own wife because he never lied under oath.

“I don’t know what you would have had me do,” he said, getting a little testy, “because…the president of the United States [was] committing perjury. Remember, he’s a lawyer! This was not some accidental thing. And I thought the outcome was about right.”

The all-but-official candidate for the Republican presidential nomination granted that his own extramarital affairs will be an issue in the coming campaign, but he sounded hopeful that voters will, if they don’t forgive or forget, at least look the other way.

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Palin said to be becoming Al Sharpton, Alaska ‘edition’

MoonHowler

Some conservative commentators are becoming increasingly put off by Sarah Palin.  One such person, Matt Labash, writer for the Weekly Standard said that because of Palin’s continued cries of victimhood and grievance, “She’s becoming Al Sharpton, Alaska edition.”

Palin has not done much to endear herself to the old GOP guard.  According to Politico:

Sarah Palin has played the sexism card, accusing critics of chauvinism against a strong woman.
She has played the class card, dismissing the Bush family as “blue bloods” and complaining that she is the target of snobbery by people who dislike her simply because she is “not so hoity-toity.”

Most famously, she has played the victim card — never more vividly than when she invoked the loaded phrase “blood libel” against liberals and media commentators in the wake of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting.

For years, conservatives have laughed about liberals playing the victim card.  Now the conservative commentators and intellilgensia have turned the tables.  The backlash gets increasingly stronger each day.

This year, the conservative intelligentsia doesn’t just tend to dislike Palin — many fear that her rise would represent the triumph of an intellectually empty brand of populism and the death of ideas as an engine of the right.

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And did we wonder why? Union Busting to Bust Obama in 2012

MoonHowler

From Rawstory.com:

State Sen. Scott Fitzgerald (R), the Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader, must have forgotten his talking points while appearing on Megyn Kelly’s Fox News show. This afternoon he admitted on-air what many liberals have long-suspected: rescinding collective bargaining rights from state workers is Wisconsin is as much about the 2012 presidential election as Wisconsin’s 2011 budget shortage.

As first reported by ThinkProgress, Fitzgerald told Kelly: “If we win this battle, and the money is not there under the auspices of the unions, certainly what you’re going to find is President Obama is going to have a much difficult, much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of Wisconsin.”

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Sarah Palin not afraid of Jon Stewart

MoonHowler

Well shiver me timbers….Sarah Palin has announced she is not afraid of Jon Stewart.  Then why doesn’t she accept his invitation?  Plenty of Republicans have appeared on the daily show and were treated respectfully–guests like Tim Pawlenty, Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich, Tea Party leader Dick Armey and even longtime punching bags like former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former RNC chair Michael Steele — all have appeared and have engaged in lively discussion and debate.  Rumsfeld even tweeted:  “Just wrapped up one of the most thoughtful interviews of book tour with @thedailyshow”).  Stewart typically is a gracious host.

From the Huffington Post:

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Scarborough tells Republicans to man up and confront Sarah Palin

MoonHowler

Joe Scarborough is attempting the impossible dream–he is admonishing is fellow Republicans to man up and confront Sarah Palin.  Today, on Morning Joe, he desperately tried to get Congressman John Shadegg of Arizona to admit that Sarah Palin was simply not qualified to be president.  The good congressman talked around the question and Joe kept asking.  Shadegg  never would say it publicly.   Mika and Joe both insist that every Republican they talk to off set says Ms. Palin simply isn’t qualified.  However none will publicly state their opinion:

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

Here is what Joe Scarborough said in his opinion piece in Politico today:

Republicans have a problem. The most-talked-about figure in the GOP is a reality show star who cannot be elected. And yet the same leaders who fret that Sarah Palin could devastate their party in 2012 are too scared to say in public what they all complain about in private.

Scarborough outlines the problem until he begins to discuss  President George Herbert Walker Bush.  Then Scarborough takes on a more personal tone:

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Palin Needs to Listen to the Blue Bloods and Learn a Lesson

MoonHowler

Sarah Palin shoots from the not only the hip but also the lip. The other day, when asked about Palin, Mrs. Barbara Bush, that grand matriarch, replied that she thought she should stay in Alaska. That was pretty kind for Mrs. Bush, who also has had a reputation for decades for calling things as she sees them, albeit with a certain amount of style.  Mrs. Bush has been a first lady and the mother of 2 governors, and a president. 

Palin couldn’t let it slide, and she should have. She responded with an ‘with all due respect’ and an ‘I love the Bushes’ but still managed to zing them by referencing them as blue bloods:

I say that in all due respect,” Palin told talk radio host Laura Ingrahm on November 24, who said the Bushes are an example of the “Blue Blood who want to pick and choose their winners, instead of allowing competition to pick and choose the winners.”

“They kinda do some of this with some of the economic policies that were in place that got us in to some of these economic woeful times, too,” Palin added.

Tacky, Sarah, Tacky! Why does she have to engage every slight she sees or hears? How many times did those blue bloods, the Bushes, ignore events and things said and just not comment? Remember the Bush girls? One got in serious trouble for sticking her naughty tongue out at the press early in W’s presidency. No one made up excuses for her. No one said ‘well she was just tired of people saying bad things about her family.’ Remember the underage drinking incident? No one in the Bush family or administration made up excuses that time either.

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