Trashing Governor Palin; The Fiscal Times Edition

Proving that the media lives in an echo chamber, The Fiscal Times published an article last week that was a virtual repeat of every article written about the speculation surrounding Mitt Romney's vice presidential pick. It began by mentioning some current Republican women who these authors think might be considered for the ticket. Then predictably, it descends into the typical Palin bashing that the media is so well-known for. The authors collected quotes from some left-wing academics, and Republican talking-heads, who seem to think that Governor Palin cost John McCain the election, even though poll numbers from the time prove otherwise.

We all know that the McCain campaign had serious management issues, combined with a horrible economy leftover from the Bush years. The authors ignored all of that, and instead, proceeded to interview a man who refuses to take any responsibility for the 2008 election outcome:

Steve Schmidt, a senior strategist with the McCain presidential campaign who was instrumental in recruiting Palin, has been widely quoted as saying that the McCain-Palin ticket was a testament to an inadequate, hasty review of Palin. “The vetting process did not disclose what would become obvious afterward,” Schmidt told The Los Angeles Times earlier this year. “We had a person who fundamentally lacked the knowledge and basis – at a very, very deep level – to be a plausible commander in chief.”

And I'm a millionaire...

Writers from Breitbart News, C4P, members of Governor Palin's staff who where there, and others, have already taken Schmidt down a few notches in the credibility department, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Any "journalist" who uses Steve Schmidt as a source, with this much information at their disposal, is a fraud. End of story.

Now that we've established that the writers of this Fiscal Times article can't be trusted to report facts or context, the article continues with a jab at Governor Palin from Larry Sabato:

"Romney wants people to look at his VP and say, ‘This person is qualified to be president if called upon. Palin never passed that test. Some women and men being mentioned today may not qualify either.”

Perhaps Sabato believes "Palin never passed that test" because the media, McCain staffers, and people who still work for Mitt Romney, did everything in their power to distract people from Governor Palin's actual record. It was, after all, Steve Schmidt's job to educate America about Governor Palin's record, and lo and behold, Steve managed to mess that up too.

If you read Governor Palin's record, you can see that she was more than qualified to serve, if need be. She also had more executive experience than anyone on either ticket. So, the notion that she was "unqualified" is just another false narrative being perpetuated by the elites. They obviously judge qualifications differently than do most Americans. It's not about actual governing experience, it's how long you've been in D.C. and you're friends with in that swamp.

Another thing that stood out about this article; just as Steve and Mary Beth pointed out in their post about the recent U.S. News hit-piece on Governor Palin - The Fiscal Times also used failed left-wing politician, Jennifer Lawless as a source. In case you didn't know, Lawless ran for office as a Democrat in 2006, for U.S. Congress in the 2nd District in Rhode Island. Steve and Mary Beth wrote:

Jennifer Lawless is portrayed in the article as an author who writes books on women in politics. Further, she’s lauded as a Director of American University’s Women and Politics Institute.

Nowhere in the article does it mention that Jennifer Lawless actually ran a failed Congressional campaign back in 2006 against a sitting Rhode Island incumbent. In fact, running against the popular Democrat incumbent in the primary, Lawless was ultra-pro-choice which awarded her the endorsements of NARAL Pro-Choice America PAC and Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

Needless to say, the authors of the Fiscal Times article failed to disclose Lawless' political history and associations with left-wing organizations to their readers, and instead, present her as simply the "director of American University’s Women and Politics Institute."

It's no wonder why nobody trusts the media anymore. Governor Palin has been lied about repeatedly, by the same people over and over again, who possess no discernible credibility. And it certainly doesn't help when people like Larry Sabato, who should know better, repeats the garbage as though he forgot how to do his own research. It just smacks of lazy, beltway group-think.

Cal Thomas Buys Into, Repeats HBO's 'Game Change' Lies

On Fox News Watch last Saturday, Cal Thomas made it painfully obvious to those of who have, that he didn't research HBO's 'Game Change' very well before discussing it on the show. He said that he watched the movie, and he obviously tuned in to MSNBC to get their take, but it's clear that he really didn't comprehend what that movie was all about, or the motives behind those who made it.

Jon Scott: As the left is touting this supposed "war on women," what about the war on Sarah Palin? The 'Game Change' movie got big numbers. She was not exactly portrayed in a flattering light, and the other half of the book essentially gets left out.

Cal Thomas: Well, I saw the movie and I'm probably going to surprise some people. I thought it was very sell done. I thought she came off as a sympathetic figure. She was put into a situation, she was not prepared for. She was not able to be a quick study on a lot of the issues. Forced out in front of interviewers like Katie Couric, and she wasn't ready for the job. I was very sympathetic. She went on that, she got picked less than a year after having a baby. And all of these pressures on her, I thought it was extremely well done.

Alan Colmes: Nicolle Wallace and Steve Schmidt both said it was realistic.

Cal Thomas: Yeah.

The main problem is that Thomas accepted HBO's version of events. In fact, he repeats Mark Halperin, the author of the book that the movie was based, by saying it was "sympathetic" to Governor Palin. No, it was not.

The entire movie is based on distortions and lies. The writers at Big Hollywood (including myself) have documented these lies, and made a case against the claims of the filmmakers using facts, eye-witness accounts, and press reports from the 2008 election. To repeat, Thomas said:

"I thought she came off as a sympathetic figure. She was put into a situation, she was not prepared for. She was not able to be a quick study on a lot of the issues. Forced out in front of interviewers like Katie Couric, and she wasn't ready for the job."

Unfortunately for Fox News Watch viewers, he just repeated a fabricated version of events. From the "Top 10 Lies of HBO's 'Game Change'" piece I wrote for Big Hollywood (emphasis):

"Game Change" also depicts Palin as highly forgetful. Around the 70 minute mark, Mark Wallace tells Steve Schmidt that Palin couldn't remember "any" of the information he used to prep her for the debate. As it turns out, another Democrat didn't get the memo. In 2008, former editor in chief of Ms. magazine, Elaine Lafferty wrote:

I'd heard rumors around the campaign of her photographic memory and, frankly, I watched it in action. She sees. She processes. She questions, and only then, she acts.

Lafferty also said Palin was "smart" and "more than a quick study." She, however, was not interviewed by "Game Change" screenwriter Danny Strong for the film.

Also:

A.B. Culvahouse has also stated on record that the Katie Couric interview left viewers with the "wrong impression" about Palin's knowledge of the Supreme Court. He said:

She clearly did ... My law firm represents Exxon in the Valdez matters,'' he noted. "Until she became governor, Gov. Palin was a plaintiff in that case...

Regarding foreign policy, the movie depicts the Director of Foreign Policy and National Security for the McCain campaign, Randy Scheunemann, as teaching Palin as if she were a child learning about geography for the first time. The movie implies that using maps while discussing foreign policy and national security with a political leader was necessary because she was so dumb. However, during a press conference last week, Scheunemann said:

I always use maps as a briefer and did so even with McCain.

Around the 46 minute mark, the filmmakers portray Palin as unfamiliar with basic knowledge pertaining to World War I and World War II. During that same press conference, Scheunemann said:

The idea that at any point that Gov. Palin expressed any uncertainty as to who were the various sides in World War I or World War II, or any other war, is absolutely untrue. She was incredibly intelligent. She asked very informed questions. She was very interested and she wanted to understand John McCain’s view of foreign policy because she wanted to be the best possible vice presidential nominee.

Scheunemann went on to explain that his discussion with Gov. Palin about these historic topics was in the context of the historical roots of John McCain's foreign policy world views, not a history lesson.

Thomas then went on to say:

"She went on that, she got picked less than a year after having a baby. And all of these pressures on her, I thought it was extremely well done."

Am I to take this to mean that Thomas bought into the notion that Governor Palin really did have a mental breakdown? He associates her pregnancy and the "pressures on her" saying it made him sympathetic towards her. Clearly, Mr. Thomas didn't know that this part of the movie has been proven false, given the time-stamp in the movie.

From the "'Game Change': Palin Breakdown Meme Crushed by Facts" piece I wrote for Big Hollywood:

At the 68 minute mark in the movie, the filmmakers show Palin (Julianne Moore) at a table with campaign staff going over material to prep for her debate against Joe Biden. The movie depicts Palin as being detached and unresponsive. She mutters to herself about missing her baby.

They want you to believe that she had a complete mental meltdown. Just like most of the movie, this simply isn't true. As a matter of fact, it's impossible. Keep in mind that at the beginning of that scene, the filmmakers stamp the bottom left-hand corner of the screen with the location and date they claim the events took place. It says "Philadelphia September 27."

[...]

According to the makers of "Game Change," Palin spent Sept. 27, 2008 losing her mind while prepping for the upcoming debate with campaign staff, and then in a "catatonic stupor" in her hotel room later that evening. But according to Peter Hamby, the real Palin was actually taking questions in a Philadelphia restaurant:

Sarah Palin partook in an established political ritual on Saturday night when she headed to Tony Luke's in south Philadelphia to order a pair of cheesesteaks with whiz and onions.

But as the kitchen sizzled and orders were barked out, Palin found herself talking politics, calling McCain's debate performance "awesome" and taking questions from a voter about the hunt for terrorists in Pakistan.

[...]

Also, the night before the phony mental breakdown, the real Palin attended a Presidential debate watching party at an Irish Pub:

Fresh off an afternoon jog along the Schuylkill River, Sarah Palin stopped by a debate watching party at The Irish Pub on Walnut Street in downtown Philadelphia. It was an invite-only event that pulled in about 450 McCain supporters who had been drinking and eating for several hours before the candidate arrived (around 7:20PM EST). It was Palin's first campaign stop in Philadelphia this cycle.

How do the makers of "Game Change" explain the fact that Palin was (according to their sources) losing her mental grasp, yet at the same time, attending campaign events and talking to the press? People who are truly mentally ill and "constantly falling into catatonic stupors" cannot turn off their symptoms to take questions from CNN...

The worst part of Mr. Thomas' analysis however, is that he agrees with Alan Colmes when he claims that the movie is credible because Nicolle Wallace and Steve Schmidt said so. Could it be that Cal Thomas doesn't know that Steve Schmidt was the main source used by both the book's authors and the filmmakers, to gain their dirt on Governor Palin? Is it possible that Mr. Thomas overlooked the glowing portrayal of Schmidt in the movie, and completely white-washes his role in the failure of the McCain campaign? Did Cal Thomas not see the leaked memos from last week, proving that there was an effort by Steve Schmidt's cronies to save his reputation (even before the campaign was over,) by talking to members of the press "off the record," including one of the writers for the book?

For some reason, Cal Thomas bought into HBO's propaganda, and even the spin they delivered after they came under scrutiny. He neglected the fact that many of Governor Palin's current and former staff (as well as others around her at this time) have repeatedly said the movie is false. Thomas didn't take into consideration the motives behind the left-wing book authors, the left-wing filmmakers (in an election year, no less), or the two main axe-grinding sources of information that each used to produce their product.

I don't believe that Cal Thomas was being intentionally malicious while discussing this movie. I do however, believe that he is ill-informed and would certainly benefit from a better research staff. Or perhaps, getting his own hands dirty and researching it for himself. Is it too much to ask that Fox News Watch, watch the news (no matter where it is) instead of repeating lines of propaganda by people with known agendas?

Media Helps HBO While Nicolle Wallace 'Squirms'

Sunday morning, Zeke Miller, a writer who works for Ben Smith at Buzzfeed, (re) tweeted the following:

Uncanny Valley! RT @TPM: McCain-Palin adviser: Game Change was "true enough to make me squirm" http://bit.ly/y5y2D7

The article he links to is from the left-wing site, TPM, or "Talking Points Memo." The actual headline for the piece is titled "Nicolle Wallace: Game Change Film 'True Enough To Make Me Squirm'." So, TPM tweets out a link excluding the name of the "McCain - Palin adviser" then on their site, don't explain to readers who Nicolle Wallace is, or what role she played as one of the primary sources that the 'Game Change' book authors and screenwriter used to create their fiction. Of course Nicolle Wallace is going to say that the movie 'Game Change' was "true enough." Many of the lies they tell are lies SHE told them!

Tony Lee caught what they were doing on Twitter and responded:

See what MSM does there? "McCain/Palin Adviser" instead of "Nicolle Wallace" and idiots who tweet w/o reading just RT headline. #WeSeeYall

Yes we do.

ABC News is even worse in their reporting about the Wallace appearance. They don't explain who Wallace is, that she has a history of having no credibility, or that she is one of the main people responsible for the lies told by HBO in an effort to cover her own tail.

Now, the reference to the words "Uncanny Valley" in Miller's tweet relates to a "movie review" he wrote last week for Ben Smith's Buzzfeed. Miller's piece is a good example of what the left's little helpers in the MSM have done to promote and lend credibility to HBO's smear-u-drama. He wrote:

The first thing you need to know about “Game Change” is that the acting is great — so great, in fact, that Americans who followed the 2008 presidential campaign may have trouble watching it.

Such wishful thinking from Zeke. The acting in 'Game Change' by Julianne Moore was atrocious. The accent is totally wrong, her mannerisms were off, she clenches her teeth during the entire movie, and the personalty of the character she's trying to emulate isn't that of Governor Palin. If anyone thinks the character played by Julianne Moore bares any resemblance to the governor, they have no clue who she is, and obviously haven't spent any effort trying to learn.

Miller continues:

Though the acting is remarkably close to life, the plot is stylized. Game Change is an epic tragedy, with Schmidt as the classical hero.

And there's Schmidt's payoff for telling the screenwriter what he wanted to hear. The Steve Schmidt character (played by Woody Harrelson), is portrayed as a level-headed, dedicated, overall good guy who's only mistake was bringing Governor Palin into the campaign.

In 2008, Politico described Schmidt as a "bald and barrel-chested operative known for his aggressive brand of political combat." During the same year, the New York Times wrote an article about Schmidt which described him as having a "street-brawling style of politics." They wrote:

Mr. Schmidt, a thick tower of man with a shaved head who can go from jovial to belligerent in an instant.

Michael Scherer referred to Schmidt as the "Lord of Outrage." And Meg Stapleton, who also worked on the 2008 campaign trail with Governor Pain, described Steve Schmidt as "abusive," "abrasive," and stated that he is "nothing short of a world class bully.” Hardly the mild-mannered, grapefruit-eating "hero" that HBO attempts to depict in their movie.

While Miller won't go as far as HBO is laying all of the blame on Governor Palin for the 2008 loss, he ends his "review" by writing:

The worst thing about this film may be being forced to come to grips with the fact that it isn’t exactly fiction.

No, the worst thing about this movie is that it is fiction being sold as truth to the American public by HBO, and the MSM. It's classic propaganda.

Zeke Miller is not alone. He's one of many in the media who have been trying to aid HBO in selling this garbage as "reality" to the public. The press is doing back-flips to get you to believe that HBO has credibility and that this movie is accurate. They don't dare tell their readers and viewers anything about the source of HBO's information. They repeat the line put out by the entertainment company that 'Game Change' portrays Palin in a "sympathetic" light, and that the film is "balanced" because Danny Strong lifted one line out of 'Going Rogue.' It's nonsense. The media is carrying water for their fellow-travelers in the entertainment industry. They don't care about the truth. They want people to believe that the person in that movie is the real Governor Palin. They need her to be some sort of monster, not who she really is because her success and her true character prove their entire world-view, wrong.

Steve Schmidt Admits Role in HBO Smear-U-Drama

Last December I wrote about a piece titled Behind the Smears of HBO’s “Game Change.” While writing about the authors of the book that the fictional HBO smear-u-drama is based on, I noted:

They claim to have interviewed over 300 people during their research, but not one of those people are named. Heilemann and Halperin do however, name the people who where present during each instance during the ’08 campaign that they claim happened. I found it interesting that within the Palin chapters of the book, Nicolle Wallace, her husband Mark Wallace, Steve Schmidt, and or the mysterious “famous GOP strategist” are always present.

After reading the book, it was pretty obvious to me that the unnamed sources for the book were primarily Steve Schmidt, Nicolle, and Mark Wallace. That was verified in Saturday's edition of the Los Angeles Times when Schmidt and Wallace finally signed their names to this deal. Entertainment writer James Rainey notes:

Schmidt and a chief Palin '08 aide, Nicolle Wallace, said they found it highly credible. Wallace said the film "captured the spirit and emotion of the campaign."

Of course they did! They sold their souls and their careers to the enemy in an effort to save their sorry reputations. I am happy to see that none of the current GOP presidential candidates were dumb enough to hire any of these losers.

And now here's proof that Schmidt sold his garbage to two left-leaning book authors, in a publication that essentially glorifies Barack Obama, right after he failed in his job (emphasis):

Schmidt and most of the other top operatives from the McCain campaign gave extended interviews to John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, the book authors. Many of the same sources also spoke to Danny Strong, writer of the film, and to director Jay Roach, who also teamed on the Emmy-winning docudrama "Recount," about the razor's edge 2000 election finish. Chris Edwards, one of Palin's 2008 staffers, served as a technical advisor to the filmmakers.

I don't know who "most of the other top operatives" are supposed to be, but I assume he's talking about Nicolle and Mark Wallace, as well as Chris Edwards mentioned above. These former "consultants," (who destroyed their own careers by running a horrible campaign in 2008, losing the election to a junior Senator from Illinois) sold their version of events to writers with an agenda. They were trying to restore their own reputations by passing the blame on to Governor Palin, making up details and accounts to make her look culpable. But any honest observer could clearly see that Governor Palin was not the problem in that campaign. Under Schmidt's "expertise" the McCain campaign fumbled the economic meltdown and were absolute cowards when dealing with Obama's history and associations. And I don't need to falsify accounts of Steve Schmidt having a his own mental meltdown to prove that he was incompetent. The facts speak for themselves.

Is there any question why Governor Palin always makes it a point to encourage the current crop of GOP presidential contenders to be wary of campaign consultants?

Behind the Smears of HBO's "Game Change"

Many months ago, HBO announced it was planning to make a movie based on the book, "Game Change" by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. After reading John Nolte's article, which indicated that the movie would be focused primarily around Governor Palin and it wouldn't be portraying her in a very positive light, I decided to study up on it. I purchased a copy of the book, read the TWO chapters based on Governor Palin, and took down some notes.

As Nicole recently noted, HBO decided to release a trailer to that movie during this holiday week. The actual movie doesn't air until March of 2012, or as John Nolte wrote in his follow-up piece on Wednesday:

The one dynamic HBO probably didn’t count on was Palin’s decision not to run for the 2012 nomination. The film’s promotion and the cable news chatter that’s sure to follow seems timed to hit on, before, and around March 6, which is Super Tuesday.

The one line from the notes I took back in March that stood out as I was reviewing them for this piece, was:

Even though this book is supposed to be a story about 2008, it's really all about 2012.

This movie was orchestrated from start to finish as a way to damage Governor Palin during an election year by people who are not merely "artists & entertainers." Just look at the people involved in the making of the movie. First you have the director, Jay Roach who donated $2,300 to Barack Obama in 2008. Danny Strong, the person who wrote the screenplay, gave Obama $2,500 in 2008. Julianne Moore, the woman who does a poor impression of the governor, only gave $250 to Obama in '08 but shelled out $2,500 to the DNC in 2010. And then there's the film's producer, Tom Hanks, who has one of the most nauseating donation lists I have ever seen, including giving a staggering sum of $345,000 to Obama. It's safe to say that these people only donate large sums of money to causes they believe in. By looking at their donations, it's easy to see what it is that they believe in.

Danny "Obama Victory Fund" Strong, based his HBO screenplay on a book that came under significant scrutiny after it was published, even by MSM types. The thing that stood out amongst most of it's critics was the fact that Heilemann and Halperin didn't source any of the accusations they made. They claim to have interviewed over 300 people during their research, but not one of those people are named. Heilemann and Halperin do however, name the people who were present during each instance during the '08 campaign that they claim happened. I found it interesting that within the Palin chapters of the book, Nicolle Wallace, her husband Mark Wallace, Steve Schmidt, and or the mysterious "famous GOP strategist" are always present. It's no secret that Nicolle Wallace has been trashing and undermining Governor Palin since the 2008 race. Most recently, she was caught in a lie by a former senior adviser to the McCain campaign, Charlie Black. From National Review Online:

Over at the Washington Examiner, Byron York reports that Wallace is claiming, in a new Time interview, that McCain’s team considered bumping Palin from the veep slot. “There certainly were discussions — not for long because of the arc the campaign took — but certainly there were discussions about whether, if McCain were to win, it would be appropriate for her to be sworn in,” Wallace tells the magazine.

[Charlie] Black says that’s nonsense. “Nicolle, like any author, is trying to sell books. This comment to Time, like her book [It’s Classified], is a piece of fiction. There were never any such discussions. At no high level of the campaign was there ever such talk. She’s probably doing this to sell her book.”

“Look, I was with McCain 90 percent of the time. If I wasn’t around, I knew what was happening. And nothing like this happened.” Wallace, he says, “is one of the few dissidents,” one of the “disaffected” staffers who continues to criticize Palin, and “she is inaccurate in doing so.”

Steve Schmidt also has a long history of trashing Governor Palin. In a 2010 post, Dan Riehl pegged the source of Schmidt's animosity (emphasis):

The only modest bit of news in all this is that the pathetic Steve Schmidt continues to lack the class and intelligence required to simply shut up. Look at the basic facts even Schmidt is forced to confess. He would make it seem as though Palin was the absolutely worst thing about the McCain campaign, then he turns around and admits that, without her, things would have been much worse. That makes no sense.

On top of that, the fools running the campaign, including Schmidt, continued to consider Joe Lieberman for VP up until the very last minute, absolutely without realizing what a disaster that would have been. It took reactions outside the campaign to finally give them a clue how foolish they were in formulating and managing the campaign. Now suddenly, Schmidt is the all wise and wonderful know it all with the reputation, intellect and credibility to dump on Palin yet once, again? That makes no sense, either.

In continuing to not take responsibility for what a colossal failure he, as much, if not more than anyone else, was - all Schmidt has managed to accomplish with all his blathering is to put every potential national Republican candidate on notice that hiring Schmidt for perhaps anything other than coffee and sandwich fetching, would be an unmitigated disaster dooming them and their campaign to eternal hell across the Republican base.

It's clear that McCain's campaign failed on many levels. But former staffers who were responsible for that failure, used the leftist media to shift blame from themselves on to Governor Palin, and that is reprehensible. Both the left and these former staffers had a motive to run this trash against the governor. They simply made up anything they thought sounded really bad then leaked it to an eager, Obama-rooting media who was more than happy to take their word for it. So, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the Wallaces and Schmidt are consistently present during Heilemann and Halperin's tales. But what does that say about Heilemann and Halperin as journalists?

Can you really be a "respected journalist" if you never cite your sources? Sources are used so that readers can judge for themselves the credibility of each claim. Without them, "journalists" are doing nothing but repeating rumors, which usually earns one the title, "Gossip Columnist." What about bloggers? Personally, I try not to write on an important topics without listing my sources and posting links to back up claims. It's one reason that I've never wrote a piece about all of the rumors I've heard about Mark Halperin sexually harassing and making inappropriate comments to female professional acquaintances. After all, they're just rumors, right? (note: I have actually heard these rumors before, I didn't just make them up for effect)

For years now, I've held to the notion that Governor Palin's foes will do whatever it takes to destroy perceptions of her in the eyes of Americans. From ex-staffers with an axe to grind, to smear merchants like Heilemann and Halperin, to the left-wing activists who "produce" all things Hollywood, this book and the movie that followed shows how folks with an agenda can work in concert to achieve their ends. While each player may have a different overall agenda, the goal is the same. In the United States, 28.2 million households subscribe to HBO. That's a lot of people who, by and large, are not familiar with the antics of the Wallaces, Schmidt, the rumors about Mark Halperin, or how devoted Tom Hanks is to pushing liberalism with campaign contributions and through the use popular culture. A fact not unnoticed by those responsible for this production.