The Democrats are really wishing hard that the Sara Palin phenomena would just go away already, like maybe a couple of weeks ago? The Obama campaign, finally realizing that having the number-one on the ticket personally attacking the other ticket’s number-two looks utterly desperate by half and half again, is now trying to ignore any mention of her whatsoever. Unfortunately for them, and in a bizarre twist of fate for McCain/Palin, the MSM isn’t even beginning to let it go. Take today’s NYT for example. Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes they cry out. Boy, there’s a shocker for ya — guess according to the NYT brainiacs she should have hired her enemies and lashed out at her supporters and friends? They’re way too smart for our gal Sarah, huh?

Throughout her career, Ms. Palin has pursued vendettas, fired officials who crossed her and blurred the line between government and personal grievance.

Ooooooooooooooo! Vewy scarwy Governor Palin! Shudder, shake, quiver.

When Ms. Palin had to cut her first state budget, she avoided the legion of frustrated legislators and mayors. Instead, she huddled with her budget director and her husband, Todd, an oil field worker who is not a state employee, and vetoed millions of dollars of legislative projects.

Way to go, Palin! Cut those wasteful spending projects. Hold those legislators accountable. Like I just wrote: Ooooooooooooooo! Vewy scarwy Governor Palin! Shudder, shake, quiver.

Still, Ms. Palin has many supporters. As a two-term mayor she paved roads and built an ice rink, and as governor she has pushed through higher taxes on the oil companies that dominate one-third of the state’s economy. She stirs deep emotions. In Wasilla, many residents display unflagging affection, cheering “our Sarah” and hissing at her critics.

“She is bright and has unfailing political instincts,” said Steve Haycox, a history professor at the University of Alaska. “She taps very directly into anxieties about the economic future.”

“But,” he added, “her governing style raises a lot of hard questions.”

Like, maybe she actually gets something done, instead of just constant bloviating. Like, maybe she decided to challenge the old boys’ network within her own party to change the way the government of Alaska works, so that it functions for the people of Alaska instead of just for the big oil companies that dominate its financial base. Like, folks — she has an 80% approval record in Alaska! 80%! No other governor has that. Obama and even McCain neither. Congress? Please — it’s under 20%. I think that the NYT must have had to find everyone of those 20% who don’t approve to write this article. If they had balanced each of those Sarah haters with four that approve of her it would have been a very different piece, no?

A NYT editorial from last Friday starts out with this:

As we watched Sarah Palin on TV the last couple of days, we kept wondering what on earth John McCain was thinking.

If he seriously thought this first-term governor — with less than two years in office — was qualified to be president, if necessary, at such a dangerous time, it raises profound questions about his judgment. If the choice was, as we suspect, a tactical move, then it was shockingly irresponsible.

It was bad enough that Ms. Palin’s performance in the first televised interviews she has done since she joined the Republican ticket was so visibly scripted and lacking in awareness.

What made it so much worse is the strategy for which the Republicans have made Ms. Palin the frontwoman: win the White House not on ideas, but by denigrating experience, judgment and qualifications.

The idea that Americans want leaders who have none of those things — who are so blindly certain of what Ms. Palin calls “the mission” that they won’t even pause for reflection — shows a contempt for voters and raises frightening questions about how Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin plan to run this country.

They were reacting to the Sarah Palin/Charlie Gibson interviews broadcast on ABC last week. I thought that she had done fairly well answering a condescending-sounding Gibson with confidence and reasonable acuity, especially since she has only been on the national stage for a few weeks. Evidently the NYT was seeing something I’m not? Well, actually all of us were NOT seeing the entirety of her answers, as ABC was ruthless, if not downright dastardly in their editing — doing their dead-level best to make her look stupid and warmongering. Mark Levin has the full transcript of the first interview, with what ABC decided their viewers didn’t need to know emboldened — like in this exchange about Russia invading Georgia:

GIBSON: Would you favor putting Georgia and Ukraine in NATO?

PALIN: Ukraine, definitely, yes. Yes, and Georgia.

GIBSON: Because Putin has said he would not tolerate NATO incursion into the Caucasus.

PALIN: Well, you know, the Rose Revolution, the Orange Revolution, those actions have showed us that those democratic nations, I believe, deserve to be in NATO.

Putin thinks otherwise. Obviously, he thinks otherwise, but…

GIBSON: And under the NATO treaty, wouldn’t we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?

PALIN: Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you’re going to be expected to be called upon and help.

But NATO, I think, should include Ukraine, definitely, at this point and I think that we need to — especially with new leadership coming in on January 20, being sworn on, on either ticket, we have got to make sure that we strengthen our allies, our ties with each one of those NATO members.

We have got to make sure that that is the group that can be counted upon to defend one another in a very dangerous world today.

GIBSON: And you think it would be worth it to the United States, Georgia is worth it to the United States to go to war if Russia were to invade.

PALIN: What I think is that smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against. We have got to be cognizant of what the consequences are if a larger power is able to take over smaller democratic countries.

And we have got to be vigilant. We have got to show the support, in this case, for Georgia. The support that we can show is economic sanctions perhaps against Russia, if this is what it leads to.

It doesn’t have to lead to war and it doesn’t have to lead, as I said, to a Cold War, but economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, again, counting on our allies to help us do that in this mission of keeping our eye on Russia and Putin and some of his desire to control and to control much more than smaller democratic countries.

His mission, if it is to control energy supplies, also, coming from and through Russia, that’s a dangerous position for our world to be in, if we were to allow that to happen.

You see, by leaving out all that came after her statement, “if another country is attacked, you’re going to be expected to be called upon and help.”, the ABC editors made her look like an unbalanced, unprepared rookie ready to send troops into direct conflict with Russia — which she absolutely make clear that is not what she was saying. There’s lots more, so go and read the entire interview. Patterico is making some of the same arguments in support of Palin:

Strike three, New York Times editors. You’re out!

Do they have anything not predicated on a distortion or a lie? Bueller? Bueller?

Leftists, of course, are sure Palin didn’t know the intricacies of the Bush Doctrine as well as Charlie Gibson. After all, he was looking at her over his glasses. Doesn’t that mean he’s smarter? Plus — though we can’t say this part out loud because it makes us seem sexist — but he is a man, after all . . . and she’s not.

It reminds me of the brouhaha over her comment that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are costing the taxpayers money: well, she was right . . . but surely she didn’t know she was right. What with her being a woman and a former beauty queen and all.

Amazing how she keeps getting lucky on the facts, isn’t it? All these smart men keep criticizing her for botching things, and the ditzy beauty queen gets proved right, time and time again. All by luck, I’m sure.

Powerline is seeing panic in the Democratic streets. So is Hugh Hewitt:

The backlash against MSM for the protection-racket its members are running for Obama is combining with the growing unease about Obama’s abilities to create a huge shift in the electorate, one based upon clarity as to the stark choice before them at the top of the ticket, and deep affinity with and growing affection for Sarah Palin.

And Hugh also posts an email from someone that sees the MSM attacks on Palin and her decision to have a special-needs child as borderline criminal in intent, if not in deed:

I KNOW what they are doing, and I KNOW what it could do to Sarah Palin. And I will neither condone nor ever forgive (let alone forget) what they are doing – and not for high moral principle gone awry, but for mean and cheap and petty political gain.

Will they in their evil hearts get the forgiveness I know my Karol received? I am in no position to second-guess God, but if He was to ask me, I’d ask him to create a special circle of Hell for all who heap the coals of guilt (for any reason) on the grieving mothers who give birth to children with live-threatening or life-altering special needs.

The Anchoress has many links to much more Palin Derangement from the MSM.

As for Barack Obama and his fervent wish that the attention on Sarah Palin would vanish into the thin air of Alaska? Well, folks in Hell are wishin’ for ice water, too — but that ain’t happenin’ either!

Technorati Tags: McCain/Palin, Sarah Palin/Charlie Gibson interviews, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin

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