Were Sarah Palin's recent, critical comments about the GOP's beloved former presidents akin to Sen. Joe McCarthy's self-devastating attacks on the U.S. Army?
Perhaps it's too soon to know. But Joe Scarborough's column this morning is more than a brushback or bow shot; it's a thermonuclear blast designed (Please, say it ain't so, Joe) to send Palin packing right out of the presidential running.
A few choice samples:
Palin can’t stop herself from taking swings at Republican giants. In the past month alone, she has mocked Ronald Reagan’s credentials, dismissed George H.W. and Barbara Bush as arrogant “blue bloods” and blamed George W. Bush for wrecking the economy....
When Sean Hannity asked Palin whether being in a reality show diminished her standing to be president, the former half-term governor mocked Reagan’s biography, dismissing him as “an actor.” Sounding like every left-wing politician and media elitist who ridiculed Reagan for decades, Palin sneered that she could be president if the actor from “Bedtime for Bonzo” managed to do so....
After Palin mocked Reagan’s credentials, the TLC reality show star took aim at the 41st president and his wife.... Palin was perturbed that a former president and his wife would dare to answer a question about whom they preferred for president in 2012. Perhaps her anger was understandable. After all, these disconnected “blue bloods” had nothing in their backgrounds that could ever make them understand “real America” like a former governor from Alaska who quit in the middle of her first term and then got rich....
I suppose Palin’s harsh dismissal of this great man is more understandable after one reads her biography and realizes that, like Bush, she accomplished a great deal in her early 20s. Who wouldn’t agree that finishing third in the Miss Alaska beauty contest is every bit as treacherous as risking your life in military combat?...
I am offended by Palin’s attempt to build herself up by tearing down great men like Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush....
If Republicans want to embrace Palin as a cultural icon whose anti-intellectualism fulfills a base political need, then have at it. I suppose it’s cheaper than therapy. But if the party of Ronald Reagan, Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio wants to return to the White House anytime soon, it’s time that Republican leaders started standing up and speaking the truth to Palin.