More Anonymous Sources Trashing Governor Palin

You may have read by now that the NY Daily News has published another hit-piece about Governor Palin using nothing but anonymous sources. The last time it was Politico 'reporting' negative comments by so-called GOP "insiders." This time however, the comments are allegedly coming from "friends" of George W. Bush and a "Republican official familiar with Bush's thinking." The piece says:

The 43rd President has told friends the ex-Alaska governor isn't qualified to be President and criticizes Arizona Sen. John McCain for putting Palin on the 2008 GOP ticket and handing her a national platform.

"Naming Palin makes Bush think less of McCain as a man," a Republican official familiar with Bush's thinking told the Daily News.

"He thinks McCain ran a lousy campaign with an unqualified running mate and destroyed any chance of winning by picking Palin."

I have no idea if George W. Bush said any of these things but I seriously doubt it. It doesn't mesh with what he has said in the past regarding Governor Palin. According to Jason Recher, who served as special assistant to Bush, the former president thinks highly of Governor Palin. CNN reported back in September:

During a stopover in Fairbanks on the way to the Beijing Olympics last August, Recher said Bush met with Palin and even made a knowing reference to her rising reputation in the Republican Party.

"The president was fully aware of who Sarah Palin was," Recher told CNN. "Even so much that when he greeted the governor and Todd in Fairbanks during a re-fueling stop on the way to the Beijing Olympics, he threw open his arms and said "Madam Vice President!'"

"He was very aware of her rising-star status and who she was and everything about her, even down to the fact that she recently had given birth to Trig," Recher said.

After Palin became the vice presidential nominee, Recher said the White House loaned out both he and Laura Bush's photographer Shealah Craighead to the McCain campaign to help staff Palin and her family.

Recher said Bush and Palin had a warm relationship and talked multiple times throughout the campaign, including after a large campaign rally near Orlando in September and after the Vice Presidential debate in October.

"There is no air, no space between them," Recher said. "Sarah Palin is a big fan of George Bush, and she has said publicly she was proud he was Commander-in-Chief when her son Track was in Iraq."

It should also be noted that Jeb Bush recently said he would support Governor Palin if she were nominated as the 2012 Republican candidate.

The author of the NY Daily News hit-piece is a "well connected" man by the name of Thomas M. Defrank. According to his bio, he "was Newsweek's senior White House correspondent for a quarter century and also served as deputy chief of the magazine's Washington bureau for twelve years." Mr. Defrank should know by now the difference between ethical journalism and writing a hit-piece designed to smear reputations. It's clear he has no problem publishing the latter.

Someone either fed Mr. Defrank these lines and he willingly printed them, or he invented the sources in his own mind. Due to a lack of evidence, the reader has no way of telling which it is. By hiding his sources (mind you, this is not national security we're talking about) he has used his position to turn the NY Daily News into nothing more than a tabloid rag. A Veteran Washington reporter reduced to a gossip columnist.

Assuming these were actual sources Mr. Defrank used to write his piece, this was not the only "insider" attack against the governor since last weeks election. There have also been a few hit-pieces and words spoken by some within the establishment who are trying to pin blame of Governor Palin for the few loses the GOP did suffer. Who knows what else they wish to accomplish by writing and saying these things.

Rush Limbaugh warned us it was coming. He weighed again on the subject last Thursday. Newsmax Reports:

“What's going on here, folks, is very simple,” Limbaugh said. “They want to establish a lie very firmly in the minds of the public that the tea party hurt the Republican Party in these elections. They want to use this to stop Sarah Palin. Republican insiders are trying to figure out now how to stop Sarah Palin.”

[...]

Limbaugh said the ill-advised plan to blame Palin and the tea party for splintering the GOP after a record pickup of seats by Republicans in the midterms turns reality on its head.

“If anybody is an obvious winner here . . . it would be Palin. Look at the grief and the mockery that she got for putting what the media claimed were targets on 20 Democrat incumbents on her website. Look at the grief that she's got ever since she was named McCain's running mate. Eighteen of those Democrats she targeted lost. That's a pretty amazing and impressive record. Sarah Palin targeted a bunch of Democrats for defeat, and 18 of them lost. That's more than any Republican elites are doing.”

Well stated by Mr. Limbaugh...

It seems foolish that the GOP establishment would target Governor Palin in this manner after her efforts and the overall success of the elections. It creates an environment of distrust with the grassroots base who the Republican party needs the support of. Whoever is responsible for these attacks should stop what they are doing and realize that they are only hurting the GOP. While the establishment has a lot of money, the base has a lot of people. Last cycle those people were able to collectively put up a good sum of money themselves. The establishment needs the base. So, my message to the "sleazy insiders" who are behind these attacks - for the good of the Republican party, please knock it off.