Tina Fey was back on Saturday Night Live as Sarah Palin. Just brilliant.
How Sarah Palin Helped Break the Republican Party
E.J. Dionne: “After Obama won, the main goal of Republican leaders of all stripes was to take back Congress as a prelude to defeating the president in 2012. The angry grass-roots right — it has been there for decades but cleverly rebranded itself as the tea party in 2009 — would be central in driving the midterm voters the GOP would need to the polls. Since no one was better at rousing them than Palin, old-line Republican leaders embraced and legitimized her even if they snickered privately about who she was and how she said things.”
“Today’s Republican crisis was thus engineered by the party leadership’s step-by-step capitulation to a politics of unreason, a policy of silence toward the most extreme and wild charges against Obama, and a lifting up of resentment and anger over policy and ideas as the party’s lodestars.”
Stephen Colbert Speaks ‘Palin-ese’
After tasing the part of his brain that understands sentence structure, Stephen Colbert delivered his own presidential endorsement speech in “Palin-ese.”
McCain Says He Respects Palin’s Decision
Sen. John McCain declined to criticize Sarah Palin, his former running mate, for endorsing Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, The Hill reports.
Said McCain: “I respect her view. I have great affection and appreciation for her. I respect what she does.”
Palin Blames Son’s Arrest on Obama
Sarah Palin linked her son’s domestic violence arrest to President Obama’s treatment of veterans, the Huffington Post reports.
Said Palin: “My son, like so many others, they come back a bit different. They come back hardened, they come back wondering if there’s that respect for what it is their fellow soldiers and airmen and every other member of the military have so sacrificially given to this country.”
She added that she can “relate with other families who can feel these ramifications of PTSD and some of the woundedness our soldiers do return with.”
You Betcha Palin’s Endorsement Matters
Rick Klein: “The Palin-Trump alliance marks the ultimate triumph of personality over policy in the Republican Party – at least for this very big campaign moment. Sarah Palin was Donald Trump before Trump took to politics, and Tuesday night’s endorsement event (‘no more pussy-footing around’; ‘drill, baby, drill’) showed she still may have more catch-phrases than him. In backing Trump, Palin is putting her considerable pull among tea partiers and other grassroots conservatives to the test. She’s signaling to them that ideology matters less than attitude – a proposition she tested, intentionally or not, when she joined John McCain’s ticket in 2008. That was as intense a national roller-coaster as we’ve witnessed in politics, so it’s fair to expect dips and turns along the way.”
“It’s also fair to note that Palin is unlikely to motivate many possible Trump voters in Iowa who weren’t already on board. But in its timing and its implications, with Ted Cruz having just started to break through by questioning Trump’s conservative credentials, you betcha this matters for Iowa and beyond. Trump has a figure who can be described as Trump-like to campaign on his behalf – one famously boosted to national prominence by none other than John McCain. The revolving door of politics and reality TV has opened to a new pairing at the center of the presidential race.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“He’s got the guts to wear the issues that need to be spoken about and debate on his sleeve, where the rest of some of these establishment candidates, they just wanted to duck and hide. They didn’t want to talk about these issues until he brought ’em up. In fact, they’ve been wearing a, this, political correctness kind of like a suicide vest.”
— Sarah Palin, quoted by BuzzFeed, endorsing Donald Trump for president.
New York Times: The most mystifying lines of Sarah Palin’s endorsement speech
Sarah Palin Endorses Trump for President
Sarah Palin, who became a Tea Party sensation and a favorite of grass-roots conservatives, will endorse Donald Trump in Iowa, the New York Times reports.
“Mrs. Palin… could amplify the news media-circus aspects of Mr. Trump’s candidacy: Like him, she is a reality-TV star accustomed to playing to the cameras and often accused of emphasizing flash over substance. But Mrs. Palin, who despite her waning visibility within the Republican Party retains a sizable following, provides Mr. Trump with valuable new currency at a moment when he is being attacked over his conservative bona fides by Sen. Ted Cruz, with whom Mr. Trump is neck-and-neck in the Iowa polls.”
The Fix: Does it matter?
Palin Hints at Possible Senate Bid
Former Gov. Sarah Palin (R) “keeps raising questions about whether she plans on running against Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK),” according to the Midnight Sun.
“First she said it was a possibility in a radio interview, then she put her Arizona home on the market, now we’re hearing murmurs from Washington D.C. that she is seriously considering the possibility.”
Palin Backs Trump’s Call to Ban Muslims
Sarah Palin wrote on Facebook that she supports Donald Trump’s call for a ban on admitting Muslims into the United States.
Said Palin: “A broken system allowed terrorists to come to our home and slaughter Americans. A bold, non-politician candidate calls for a pause in this flaw bureaucratic program so it can be fixed, to make sure it doesn’t happen again. That’s common sense, which is why the media and spineless pundits attack it.”
Sweet Freedom
Just published: Sweet Freedom: A Devotional by Sarah Palin.
It’s a signed, limited edition with imitation leather cover.
Palin Says Being Fired Was Hard
Sarah Palin told CBN News that she took her unexpected firing from Fox News last summer very hard.
Said Palin: “Some things happened that I haven’t talked about publicly, things like getting canned from a job I really liked, sort of out of the blue, because I called somebody out. Next morning I got word, ‘Oh, we no longer need you anymore.’ ”
She quickly added: “Yeah, it was a shock, but more power to Fox News. They’re a private enterprise. They can fire someone for wearing the wrong color tie that day – that’s their prerogative and I’ve been on both sides of the hiring and firing.”
Extra Bonus Quote of the Day
“There’s millions of Americans out there, qualified, ready, willing and able…I really don’t think it’s me being asked, but as I say, if I were asked, I’d do it.”
— Sarah Palin, in an interview with Extra, on whether she would run for vice president again.
Extra Bonus Quote of the Day
“Well, it takes a team to win, so it takes a team to lose. I was part of a team that came in second outta two. So, yes, yeah, I mean, semantics, okay, words matter. You either win or you lose. We lost. That makes you not a winner. At that time.”
— Sarah Palin, quoted by CBS News, when asked if she was to blame for John McCain’s defeat in the 2008 presidential election.
GOP Dysfunction Began with Sarah Palin
William Daley: “You can choose from a litany of insurrections, government shutdowns and other self-inflicted wounds. But this year’s carnival-like GOP presidential primary makes one event, in retrospect, stand out as a crucial turning point on the road to upheaval: the 2008 embrace of then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be a heartbeat from the presidency.”
“Once McCain put Palin on the ticket, Republican ‘grown-ups,’ who presumably knew better, had to bite their tongues. But after the election, when they were free to speak their minds, they either remained quiet or abetted the dumbing-down of the party. They stood by as Donald Trump and others noisily pushed claims that Obama was born in Kenya. And they gladly rode the tea party tiger to sweeping victories in 2010 and 2014.”
“Now that tiger is devouring the GOP establishment.”
Palin Says Obama Lives in a Fantasy World
Sarah Palin blasted President Obama for living in a fantasy world on the Iran nuclear deal, the Daily Mail reports.
Said Palin: “Only in an Orwellian Obama world full of sprinkly fairy dust blown from atop a unicorn as he’s peeking through a really pretty pink kaleidoscope would he ever see victory or safety of America or Israel in this treaty.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“I think I’d rather have a President who is tough and puts America first than can win a game of Trivial Pursuit. I don’t think the public gives a flying flip who, today, is a specific leader of a specific region because that leader will change of course.”
— Sarah Palin, quoted by TPM, defending Donald Trump’s inability to name certain foreign leaders.
Sarah Palin Will Interview Donald Trump
Sarah Palin announced on Facebook that she will be interviewing Donald Trump at 10 p.m. ET tonight on the One America News Network.
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
More about Taegan Goddard →