Monday, April 18, 2011

Two Tales of One Rally

I am referring to the debacle on Saturday where the Queen of Quitters- one Ms. Ex half term Governor Sarah Palin, stormed the State of Wisconsin to yammer on deliver her message in support of embroiled & likely soon to be recalled Governor Scott Walker, the Union Busting tea party guy. But what I found most interesting, besides this hilarious photo of Palin in all her glory, was how different news outlets reported the event. It almost sounds like they are not reporting about the same rally.
Check this out:
Common Dreams:
That's not much in the way of good news for Walker, whose personal approval ratings have tanked, and whose Republican legislative allies now face recall elections that could cost the party control of the state Senate. But the spin doctors were ready to claim some kind of momentum.

All that was needed was a great big rally to seal the deal, or so Walker's allies and funders -- particularly the billionaire Koch Brothers, who paid for Saturday's event via their generous donations to the group Americans for Prosperity. And Palin was brought in to pull the crowd.

As it happened, she did pull a crowd -- but not for Governor Walker and his agenda.
 

"A solid core of tea partiers were near the stage, but they were flanked on all sides by union protesters who have dominated protests at the Capitol for months. The tea party folks had the microphone, but the crowd had the volume, literally and figuratively."


What happened? Wasn't Palin supposed to be the rock star that rallied conservatives on what she called "the frontlines in the battle for our country"?

When Palin got to the frontlines, she was greeted not with a warm embrace but with a throngs of Wisconsinites holding signs that read: "Grizzlies Are Not a Native Species," "The Mad Hatter Called... He Wants His Tea Party Back," "I Can See Stupid From My Condo" and "Wisconsin Loves Tina Fey!" -- a reference to the comic who famously parodied Palin on NBC's "Saturday Night Live."


That would mean that the Tea Partisans were outnumbered more than 5-1 by the mass of anti-Walker protesters that surrounded the Palin event, ringing cowbells and shouting "Shame! Shame! Shame!" so loudly that many of the Tea Partisans who gathered in the Palin pit complained they could not hear the Alaskan deliver a listless speech that focused mainly on national issues. In her rare references to Wisconsin, Palin offered Orwellian rewrites of reality, such as a claim that: "(Walker's) not trying to hurt union members. Hey, folks he's trying to save your jobs and your pensions."

Though it was organized in only a matter of hours, the protest against Palin and Walker easily overwhelmed the gathering of those who came to support the former Alaska governor and the recall-threatened Wisconsin governor. Police estimated that roughly 6,500 people were on the Capitol Square Saturday, and the vast majority of them were the firefighters, police officers, teachers, public employees, farmers, small business owners and their allies who had come to wave signs that read: "Scott -- Pull a Palin -- Quit!"
 

(Read the whole article by clicking here)

So to recap, a 5 to 1 throng of protesters dominated the Palin speech, opposed the the Union busting/workers rights package Walker is serving up (well unless or until the injunction is lifted).
A ruckus was raised & the majority remain mad as hell & not going to take it.

Here is how the Washington Times reported the story:

Sarah Palin gave a rip-roaring speech in Wisconsin on Saturday that excoriated President Obama’s deficit spending and took swipes at Republicans inside the Beltway for going along to get along.

The former Alaska governor’s pep talk reminds why she would be a formidable candidate. Not only did she hammer away at the substance of today’s economic and moral crises, she was exciting. “We’re flat broke but he thinks more solar shingles and really fast trains will magically save us,” she said of Mr. Obama. “So now he’s shouting ‘all aboard’ his bullet train to bankruptcy.” Turning on establishment elephants, she thundered, “We didn’t elect you just to rearrange the deck chairs on a sinking Titanic; we didn’t elect you just to stand back and watch Obamaredistribute those deck chairs.” 


Sounding like a candidate, Mrs. Palin told the Madison, Wis., crowd, “The 2012 elections begin here.” She should be underestimated by the rest of the primary field at their own peril because lots of Americans support her message and the passion with which it’s delivered. Working to appeal to a new, strong conservative brand of feminism that is becoming an important political force – what Mrs. Palin calls Mama Grizzlies – she said, “What we need is for you to stand up, GOP, and fight … GOP leaders need to learn how to fight like a girl.”
Given the right circumstances, almost anyone can get elected, and Mrs. Palin’s charisma, authentic “woman of the people” quality and common-sense, family-oriented conservatism could get her a lot of the way there. Continued economic malaise will make it hard for Mr. Obama to hoodwink voters to give him another term, which should benefit any GOP nominee. 
It’s frightening to contemplate the damage another four years of Obamaincompetence, amateurism and tax-and-spend policies would do to America. If there’s a lesson in Mr. Trump’s surge and Mrs. Palin’s sustained popularity, it’s that the Grand Old Party needs to be more bold to tap into the deep frustrations of the public. People are mad. 
Palin's presidential potential. 
Someone's been hitting the kool-aid pretty hard. The BS gets pretty thick in the WT article. 
Mrs. Palin’s charisma, (winking & blinking)
 authentic “woman of the people” quality (Concepts I strongly disagree with... in fact I will go as far as saying I have heard many references to the Half term quitter-- but never the words "authentic",  "quality" & "woman of the people" &  " common-sense, family-oriented conservatism"-- if she is so damned family oriented, why is she not home caring for her three minor children? There went the notion of common sense as well-- what is this reporter smoking???
I will give it to the WT reporter, who said "Given the right circumstances, almost anyone can get elected", be it stolen, court appointed, or rigged by funky Diebold voting machines, almost anyone can get elected president... George Bush did just that for eight long & horrific years. 
But the agreement stops there-- "damage another four years of Obamaincompetence, amateurism and tax-and-spend policies would do to America?"
The author has a very short term memory or must be blinded by his awe for Palin. 
Everyone wants to blame Obama for the current budget woes. yea sure blame him. Bush 2 left the office with a  $13 trillion dollar debt he racked up, and lack of regulations so bad, the bank & finance  industry were headed for an epic failure of worldwide proportions.  Using the terms incompetence & amateurism don't even begin to describe the Bush 2 years, but seem to fit Palin nicely. 
So tell me what you think. 

5 comments:

D.K. Raed said...

I think we need to export some of the people in Wisconsin to every state to show them how it's done.

The conflicting articles you cited at least gave some details ... there was total lack of cable news coverage except for the "fight like a girl" quote.

Oh but they did show Trump speaking to the TParty on Saturday, so maybe coverage of Trump trumped Palin? Didn't The Donald go bankrupt a few yrs back? His TParty crowd were all fired up, whooping and cheering his every vague reference about a possible foreign-born prez.

ps, was that rain hitting Palin, or spittle from the crowd ...

Fran said...

Just for the hell of it, I swung by the Fox news web site... you had to dig in a few layers in the "Political" section (not a front page item), but they actually showed both Palin & a segment w protesters-- although they did not state the overwhelming ratio of 5 to 1 supermajority
of those opposed, they did acknowledge they existed. By keeping it off the front page, they diminish the story- either to protect Palin (bad press), or they figure she's just not that relevant.

Trump seems to be the guy getting all the attention-- playing the birther card, and talking about how we need to restore this great country. Let's face it, anyone with bankruptcy on their resume should really not be in office.
(Think George Bush 2)
Plus someone would have to explain to him you can't "fire" Congress. The Donald is used to just dumping those who disagree.

PS- Yes it was snowing (that or Palin has a wicked case of dandruff) but hadn't considered the crowd spittle factor. They staged the supporters to be up by Palin- out of spittle range!

Anonymous said...

Where was scott walker? didn't see him on the 'podium'. is he hiding? don't wanna be associated with the quitter queen?

Anonymous said...

When you view this debacle on amateur videos at YouTube, an entirely different scene happened. The booing was so loud and pervasive it was just simply awesome! Not just one amateur documentation either. Just for the heck of it I checked out the video available to view at c4p and you could hear the booing but it was overshadowed (dubbed) with more positive background noise.

nonnie9999 said...

i wouldn't even wipe my ass with the washington times. when i google to find info on a particular story, i never even bother to read anything at the washington times. total waste of time.