Sarah Palin

"Betet für unsere Soldaten und Soldatinnen, die alles tun, was richtig ist für dieses Land. Unsere nationalen Führer haben sie auf eine Aufgabe geschickt, die von Gott ist. Also, wir müssen für die Pläne beten und dass sie Gottes Pläne sind."

"Sie mag Antworten geben, aber sie versteht die Fragen nicht!"

"I would choose life."

"Yes. I would like to see Alaska's infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now — while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist."

"Teach both. You know, don't be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both. And you know, I say this too as the daughter of a science teacher. Growing up with being so privileged and blessed to be given a lot of information on, on both sides of the subject — creationism and evolution. It's been a healthy foundation for me. But don't be afraid of information and let kids debate both sides."

"(Hillary Clinton) does herself a disservice to even mention it, really. … When I hear a statement like that coming from a woman candidate with any kind of perceived whine about that excess criticism, or maybe a sharper microscope put on her, I think, "Man, that doesn't do us any good, women in politics, or women in general, trying to progress this country.""

"My son Track...he's gonna be deployed in September to Iraq. Pray... for this country, that our leaders... are sending U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan."

"[The Alaska Constitution is] my bible in governing. I try to keep it so simple by reading the thing and believing in it and living it. It's providential. Some of the crafters of the Constitution are still alive. They're my mentors, my advisers. I get to meet with these folks and ask, "What did you mean by this?" And it makes so much sense."

"He's cool. He's a good guy. He's a good guy, he's so independent. He's independent of like, the party machine. I'm like, "Right on, so am I.""

"Oh, you are so spot on. I absolutely agree with you."

"We must win, because Ohio, the far-left wing of the Democrat Party, not mainstream Democrat ideology, the values, the planks in the platform of the Democrat Party. It's the far-left wing of the party is getting ready to take over the entire federal government."

"And a writer observed, "We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity," and I know just the kind of people that writer had in mind when he praised Harry Truman."

"I love those hockey moms. You know, they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick."

"While I was at it, I got rid of a few things in the governor's office that I didn't believe our citizens should have to pay for. That luxury jet was over-the-top. I put it on eBay."

"I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities."

"Well, I'm not a member of the permanent political establishment. And — I've learned quickly these past few days that if you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone. But — now here's a little news flash. Here's a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion. I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country."

"Americans expect us to go to Washington for the right reason and not just to mingle with the right people. Politics isn't just a game of clashing parties and competing interests. The right reason is to challenge the status quo, to serve the common good, and to leave this nation better than we found it. No one expects us all to agree on everything, but we are expected to govern with integrity, and goodwill, and clear convictions, and a servant's heart."

"I told the Congress "thanks, but no thanks" on that Bridge to Nowhere."

": Why isn't it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families, who are struggling with healthcare, housing, gas and groceries, allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?Sarah Palin: That's why I say, I, like every American I'm speaking with, we're ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the tax payers looking to bail out, but ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping tho— uh, oh, it's got to be all about job creation too, shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So healthcare reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as— competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that."

"What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see who's more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and who’s actually done it."

"Katie Couric: You've cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as part of your foreign-policy experience. What did you mean by that?Sarah Palin: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land boundary that we have with Canada. It—it's funny that a comment like that was kind of made to—chara[cterized]—I don't know. You know, reporters—Couric: Mocked?Palin: Yeah, mocked, I guess that's the word, yeah.Couric: Explain to me why that enhances your foreign policy credentials.Palin: Well, it certainly does because our—our next-door neighbors are foreign countries, there in the state that I am the executive of. And there in Russia—Couric: Have you ever been involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?Palin: We have trade missions back and forth. We—we do. It's very important when you consider even national-security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where—where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to—to our state."

"Couric: And when it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?Palin: I've read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.Couric: What, specifically?Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.Couric: Can you name a few?Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn't a foreign country, where it's kind of suggested, "Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?" Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America."

"My response to her: I guess it was kind of flippant; but I was sort of taken aback, like the suggestion was "You're way up there in a faraway place in Alaska. Do you know that there are publications in the rest of the world that are read by many?" And I was taken aback by that because—I don't know—the suggestion just was a little bit of [suggesting that] perhaps we're not in tune with the rest of the world."

"Simply waiting for low-carbon-emitting renewable capacity to be large enough will mean that it will be too late to meet the mitigation goals for reducing [carbon dioxide] that will be required under most credible climate-change models."

"This is Reagan country, and perhaps it was destiny that the man who went to California's Eureka College would become so woven within and interlinked to the Golden State."

"I think my problem is that I do have the fire in my belly. I am so adamantly supportive of the good traditional things about America and our free enterprise system, and I want to make sure that America is put back on the right track, and we only do that by defeating Obama in 2012. I have that fire in my belly. It’s a matter for me a couple of practical, pragmatic decisions that have to be made. One is, with a large family, understanding the huge amount of scrutiny and the sacrifices that have to be made on my children's part, in order to see their mama run for president! But yeah, the fire in the belly, it's there! That's kind of my problem! It's such a roaring fire in my belly to preserve and restore all that’s good about America, that I struggle with that every single day."

"You know what, I didn't mess up about Paul Revere. Here's what Paul Revere did, he warned the Americans that the British were coming, the British were coming, and they were going to try to take our arms away and we gotta make sure that we were protecting ourselves and shoring up all our ammunitions and our firearms so that they couldn't take them, but remember that the British had already been there, many soldiers, for seven years in that area. And part of Paul Revere's ride — and it wasn’t just one ride — he was a courier, he was a messenger. Part of his ride was to warn the British that we're already there. That, hey, you're not going to succeed. You're not going to take American arms. You are not going to beat our own well-armed persons, individual, private militia that we have. He did warn the British. And in a shout-out, gotcha type of question that was asked of me, I answered candidly, and I know my American history."

"He's, I guess you could say, with all due respect, the flavor of the week because [[Herman Cain|Herb Cain [sic]]] is the one up there who doesn’t look like he's part of that permanent political class. Herb Cain — he came from a working-class family. He's had to make it on his own all these years. We respect that."

"I'm sure if we open up the dictionary, we could prove that with semantics that are various, we can prove that there is a definition of slavery that absolutely fits the bill there, when I'm talking about a bankrupt country that will owe somebody something down the line if we don't change things that is, we will be shackled."

"Mr. President, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. and all who commit to ending any racial divide, no more playing the race card."

"A ship in a harbor is safe, but that is not what a ship is built for."

"A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made."

"Charlie Gibson: What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?Sarah Palin: They're our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska."

"Yeah, what I did was wrong."

"Our opponent...is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."

"We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation. This is where we find the kindness and the goodness and the courage of everyday Americans."

"Senator Obama said that he wants to spread the wealth and he wants government to take your money and decide how to best to redistribute it according to his priorities. Joe suggested that sounded a little bit like socialism. Whatever you call it, I call it bad medicine for an ailing economy and it's what Barack Obama will do to those who want to create jobs."

"That's a great question, Brandon, and a vice-president has a really great job because not only are they there to support the president's agenda, they're there like the team member, the teammate to the president. But also, they're in charge of the United States Senate, so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom. And it's a great job and I look forward to having that job."

"[Tax] dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good — things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not."

": You can't let Tina go out there with that woman. She goes against everything we stand for. I mean, good Lord, Lorne, they call her... what's that name they call her? Cari... Cari... What do they call her again, Tina?Sarah Palin: That'd be Caribou Barbie."

"...I know at the end of the day putting this in God’s hands, the right thing for America will be done, at the end of the day on Nov. 4."

"Don't let me miss the open door. Show me where the open door is and even if it's cracked up a little bit, maybe I'll just plow right on through that and maybe prematurely plow through it, but don't let me miss an open door. And if there is an open door in '12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I'll plow through that door."

"Let me go back quickly to a comfortable analogy for me and that's sports. Basketball! And I use it because you are naïve if you don't see a full court press from the national level picking away right now. A... good point guard here's what she does: she drives through a full court press pro...tecting the ball, keeping her head... up because she needs to keep her eye on the basket and she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can win *gasp* and that is what I'm doing - keeping our eye on the ball that represents sound priorities remember they include energy independence and smaller government *gasp* and national security and freedom and I know when it's time to pass the ball... for victory."

"While we recognize the occurrence of these natural, cyclical environmental trends, we can't say with assurance that man's activities cause weather changes. We can say, however, that any potential benefits of proposed emissions reduction policies are far outweighed by their economic costs."

"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care."

"But I didn't believe in the theory that human beings – thinking, loving beings – originated from fish that sprouted legs and crawled out of the sea. Or that human beings began as single-celled organisms that developed into monkeys who eventually swung down from trees; I believed we came about through a random process, but were created by God."

"Canada needs to dismantle its public health-care system and allow private enterprise to get involved and turn a profit."

"Thank goodness for social networking sites like this and new media sites which have allowed us to get around the "lamestream" media and present the facts."

"It's wonderful to be part of a place that so values fair and balanced news."

"The Administration says then, there are no downsides or upsides to treating terrorists like civilian criminal defendants.But a lot of us would beg to differ. For example, there are questions we would've liked this foreign terrorist to answer before he lawyered up and invoked our US constitutional right to remain silence. Our US constitutional rights. Our rights that you, sir [addressing veteran in audience], fought and were willing to die for to protect in our Constitution. The rights that my son, as an infantryman in the United States Army, is willing to die for. The protections provided — thanks to you, sir! — we're gonna bestow them on a terrorist who hates our Constitution?! And tries to destroy our Constitution and our country. This makes no sense because we have a choice in how we're going to deal with a terrorist — we don't have to go down that road.There are questions that we would have liked answered before he lawyered up, like, "Where exactly were you trained and by whom? You—you're braggin' about all these other terrorists just like you — uh, who are they? When and where will they try to strike next?" The events surrounding the Christmas Day plot reflect the kind of thinking that led to September 11th. That threat — the threat, then, as the U.S.S. Cole was attacked, our embassies were attacked, it was treated like an international crime spree, not like an act of war. We're seeing that mindset again settle into Washington. That scares me, for my children and for your children. Treating this like a mere law enforcement matter places our country at grave risk. Because that's not how radical Islamic extremists are looking at this. They know we're at war. And to win that war, we need a commander-in-chief, not a perfesser of law standing at the lectern!"

"Now, this was all part of that hope and change and transparency, and now a year later I gotta ask those supporters of all that: "How's that hopey-changey stuff workin' out for ya?""

"Lest anyone try to convince you that God should be separated from the state, our founding fathers, they were believers. And George Washington, he saw faith in God as basic to life."

"I think we should just kind of keep this clean, keep it simple, go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant — they're quite clear — that we would create law based on the God of the Bible and the Ten Commandments."

"Let me ask you, do you love your freedom that you have here in America? Well, so do I."

"There is no way I'm not going to love a state when you enter your borders and you look up at your state flag and you see emblazoned on that a mama grizzly."

"Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn't it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate."

"Pat Gray: How would you handle a situation like the one that just developed in North Korea?Sarah Palin: Well, North Korea, this is stemming from a greater problem, when we're all sitting around asking, "Oh no, what are we going to do" and we're not having a lot of faith that the White House is going to come out with a strong enough policy to sanction what it is that North Korea's gonna do. So this speaks to a bigger picture that certainly scares me in terms of our national security policy. But obviously, we've got to stand with our North Korean allies. We're bound to by treaty. We're also bound to by—Steve Burguiere: South Korean.Palin: Yes, and we're also bound by prudence to stand with our South Korean allies, yes."

"Assange is not a 'journalist,' any more than the 'editor' of al Qaeda's new English-language magazine Inspire is a 'journalist'...Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders?...Did we use all the cyber tools at our disposal to permanently dismantle WikiLeaks?"

"Inexplicable: I recently won in court to stop my book "America by Heart" from being leaked,but US Govt can't stop Wikileaks' treasonous act?"

": And Governor, last night, there was a lot of talk about the "Sputnik moment" that the President talked about, um... Do you agree with him? Do you f— And is this our moment?"

"Sarah Palin: That was another one of those WTF moments, when he so often repeated the "Sputnik moment" that he would aspire Americans to celebrate, and he needs to remember that, uh, what happened back then with the former Communist USSR and their victory in that, uh, er, race, to space. Yeah, they won but they also incurred so much debt at the time that it, it resulted in the inevitable collapse of the Soviet Union. So I listen to that "Sputnik moment", uh, talk over and over again and I think no, we don't need one of those."

"Nobody has promised life was going to be fair. In politics, it really isn't fair. There's scrutiny, double standards and all that. Again, when it affects me personally, I'm dealing with it in a different way that others who want to bring more light to it and demand that Bill Maher apologize or that NOW defend me for something that was said. By the way, I need NOW's defense like a fish needs a bicycle. I don't want them to defend me."

"I haven't heard the president say that we are at war, and that's why I too am not knowing, do we use this, the term "intervention"? Do we use "war"? Do we use "squirmish"? What is it?"

"When Piper laid the wreath at George Washington's tomb this afternoon, I wished that every American school student could be here to see and feel the spirit of our nation's first father. Even Piper was able to grasp the significance of being in the presence of our first President — who had such diverse interests — when she told me later "how hard he must have worked to keep that farm going!""

"He who warned, uh, the— the British that they weren't going to be takin' away our arms, uh, by ringin' those bells and um makin' sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that, uh, we were going to be secure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed."

"Well, if I were in charge, they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists."

"Jesus would fight for our Second Amendment."

"Shoot, even the Lord said to take up arms and defend yourself and protect the innocent."

"Don’t believe me? Look it up – Luke 22:36. Proof that Jesus is a proponent of carrying."

"You ready for peace through strength and that Reagan-ous posture that would tell any enemy, "Uh uh, we’re America, so we win, you lose!""

"A little tiny bit of brutality, in the grand scheme of things really is not that big of a deal, but you guys will appreciate it because you’re from Iowa!"

"He's as much a scientist as I am"

"Foundational to our exceptional nation’s sacred private property rights, a business must have freedom to locate where it wishes. In a free market, if a business makes a mistake (including a marketing mistake that perhaps Carrier executives made), threatening to move elsewhere claiming efficiency’s sake, then the market’s invisible hand punishes. Thankfully, that same hand rewards, based on good business decisions. But this time-tested truth assumes we’re operating on a level playing field. When government steps in arbitrarily with individual subsidies, favoring one business over others, it sets inconsistent, unfair, illogical precedent. Meanwhile, the invisible hand that best orchestrates a free people’s free enterprise system gets amputated. Then, special interests creep in and manipulate markets. Republicans oppose this, remember? Instead, we support competition on a level playing field, remember? Because we know special interest is one big fail."

"Politicians picking and choosing recipients of is railed against by fiscal conservatives, for it’s a hallmark of corruption. And socialism."

"Reaganites learned it is POLICY change that changes economic trajectory. Reagan’s successes were built on establishing a fiscal framework that invigorated our entire economy, revitalized growth and investment while decreasing spending, tax rates, over-reaching regulations, unemployment, and favoritism via individual subsidies. We need Reaganites in the new Administration. However well meaning, burdensome federal government imposition is never the solution. Never. Not in our homes, not in our schools, not in churches, not in businesses."

"Political intrusion using a stick or carrot to bribe or force one individual business to do what politicians insist, versus establishing policy incentivizing our ENTIRE ethical economic engine to roar back to life, isn’t the answer."

"It’ll be over my dead body that I’ll have to get a shot, I will not do that. I won’t do it, and they better not touch my kids either."

"I think if enough of us rise up and say, ‘No, enough is enough,’ there are more of us than there are of them."

"So Sambo beat the bitch!"

"I can see Russia from my house."

"I hired Sarah Palin because she was hot and got ratings."

"I have a person that I want to win obviously, and I don't think that's a mystery. On the other hand, if he doesn't win, if the other guy wins – if the guy who's running with Bible Spice wins – [applause] if John McBush and Bible Spice win, we have to find a way to come together as a country, because we can't let it be the way it’s been the last 8 years where there's been this acrimony and this bitterness."

"What's happening to Sarah Palin right now is like the worst college exam cram period ever."

"She’s an instinctively effective candidate. And with a compelling story."

"She's been thrust in the spotlight with very little national preparation and I think, all things considered, you saw a very composed and effective debater."

"We should all come to her defense and say that Sarah Palin is a fucking retard. [laughs from his audience] Get it? You see, it's satire!"

"Hey, Sarah Palin, hows that hatey, killy, reloady, crosshairsy thing working out for ya?"

"Gov. Palin supports an 'all of the above' energy approach, with first-hand experience advocating it. She has a strong record of working to cut wasteful spending. She is firmly dedicated to promoting strong families and protecting the most vulnerable in society."

"It's like a really bad Disney movie, The Hockey Mom. "Oh, I'm just a hockey mom from Alaska", and she's president. She's facing down Vladimir Putin and using the folksy stuff she learned at the hockey rink. It's absurd."

"Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman. The Republican Party’s cynical calculation that because she has a womb and makes lots and lots of babies (and drives them to school! wow!) she speaks for the women of America, and will capture their hearts and their votes, has driven thousands of real women to take to their computers in outrage. She does not speak for women; she has no sympathy for the problems of other women, particularly working-class women."

"Sarah Palin rummages online frantically erasing her rabble-rousing Tweets like a Stalinist trimming non-persons out of photos."

"When I learned of Sarah Palin hunting wolves from a helicopter, my sensibilities were tested, but after this film, I was prepared to call in more helicopters."

"In Alaska, Gov. Palin challenged a corrupt system and passed a landmark ethics reform bill. Unlike some Governors who have let spending get out control, Governor Palin has actually used her veto pen and cut budgetary spending. And she has fought hard against wasteful spending, helping to thwart senseless government projects. Sarah Palin is a governor with a record of achieving results for Alaska.""

"The Palin choice looks cynical. The wires are showing."

"I think she has pretty thoroughly — and probably irretrievably — proven that she is not up to the job of being president of the United States."

"She talked about Reagan with great affection. But then she also talked about Lady Thatcher, and I think it's interesting for a number of our friends who assume that, if you come from Wasilla, you can't be very sophisticated. She was pretty vividly aware of who Margaret Thatcher was, and it made an impact on her as a young woman, watching and growing up in high school and college."

"She got her start as a PTA activist and 'hockey mom' who took on the corrupt Alaskan political machine. Unlike Obama, who played ball with the notorious Chicago machine, Palin took dead aim at the bosses of her own party."

"She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president? Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"

"She wouldn't have articulated one coherent policy and people would just be fawning all over her. Tony [Knowles] and I looked at each other and it was, like, this isn't about policy or Alaska issues, this is about people's most basic instincts: 'I like you, and you make me feel good.'"

"She doesn't have any foreign policy credentials. [...] I think it's a stretch to, in any way, to say that she's got the experience to be President of the United States."

"It might be worth asking Governor Palin for a tally of the other favorites from her reading list."

"I found her quite a capable woman. She asked the right questions on Afghanistan."

"She really brought out some ire, fear, something personal...It was almost a visceral reaction that she represented something anathema against Jewish values, something very deep in their identity."

"There is nothing said about Palin that wasn't said about Ronald Reagan. Grade B movie Star. Amiable dunce. And it really hurt, didn't it?"

"I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America."

"I've found just the right partner to help me shake up Washington, Gov. Sarah Palin of the great state of Alaska. ... She has an executive experience and a real record of accomplishment. She's tackled tough problems, like energy independence and corruption. She's balanced a budget, cut taxes, and she's taken on the special interests. She's reached across the aisle and asked Republicans, Democrats, and independents to serve in her administration. She's the wonderful mother of five children. She's -- she's helped run a small business. She's worked with her hands and knows -- and knows what it's like to worry about mortgage payments, and health care, and the cost of gasoline and groceries. She knows where she comes from, and she knows who she works for. She stands up for what's right, and she doesn't let anyone tell her to sit down."

"Sarah Palin is now the guy who hangs out in the high school parking lot showing off his car, five years after he graduated."

"She's got a show on The Learning Channel. That's like me having a show on the Christian Broadcasting Network."

"You know what's the worst thing about it? The greatest [thing about] McCain is no cynicism — and it is cynical."

"In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool. She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn't say what she read because she didn't read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity... In another age it might not have been terrible, but here and now it was actually rather horrifying."

"Most qualified? No. I think they went for the — excuse me — political bullshit about narratives... Every time the Republicans do that — because that's not where they live, and it's not what they're good at — they blow it."

"It's arguable that membership in the self-esteem generation harmed [Sarah Palin]. For 30 years the self-esteem movement told the young they're perfect in every way. It's yielding something new in history: an entire generation with no proper sense of inadequacy."

"In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It's no good, not for conservatism and not for the country."

"How dare Palin not embrace abortion as the ultimate civilized ideal of modern culture? How tacky that she speaks in a vivacious regional accent indistinguishable from that of Western Canada! How risible that she graduated from the University of Idaho and not one of those plush, pampered commodes of received opinion whose graduates, in their rush to believe the worst about her, have demonstrated that, when it comes to sifting evidence, they don't know their asses from their elbows."

"Liberal Democrats are going to wake up from their sadomasochistic, anti-Palin orgy with a very big hangover. The evil genie released during this sorry episode will not so easily go back into its bottle. A shocking level of irrational emotionalism and at times infantile rage was exposed at the heart of current Democratic ideology — contradicting Democratic core principles of compassion, tolerance and independent thought. One would have to look back to the Eisenhower 1950s for parallels to this grotesque lock-step parade of bourgeois provincialism, shallow groupthink and blind prejudice."

"I like Sarah Palin, and I’ve heartily enjoyed her arrival on the national stage. As a career classroom teacher, I can see how smart she is — and quite frankly, I think the people who don’t see it are the stupid ones, wrapped in the fuzzy mummy-gauze of their own worn-out partisan dogma. So she doesn’t speak the King’s English — big whoop! … I stand on what I said (as a staunch pro-choice advocate) in my last two columns — that Palin as a pro-life wife, mother and ambitious professional represents the next big shift in feminism. Pro-life women will save feminism by expanding it, particularly into the more traditional Third World."

"Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League."

"Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted."

"In one blockbuster of a speech, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin resurrected my Dad’s indomitable spirit and sent it soaring above the convention center, shooting shock waves through the cynical media’s assigned spaces and electrifying the huge audience with the kind of inspiring rhetoric we haven’t heard since my Dad left the scene."

"No two people on this planet seem less concerned with criticism, more content with themselves, or more oblivious to the obscenity of the words they speak."

"As a general matter, the left's favorite three lines of attack are (1) you're stupid; (2) you're mean; (3) you're corrupt. Sarah Palin is supposedly stupid; Mitt Romney is supposedly mean; Dick Cheney is supposedly corrupt. Take away those lines of attack and watch the discomfort set in."

"In the space of only five years, both the foreign policy and the economic policy elite of the United States, the most powerful state on earth, had suffered humiliating failure. And, as if to compound the process of delegitimatization, in August 2008 American democracy made a mockery of itself too. As the world faced a financial crisis of global proportions, the Republicans chose as John McCain’s vice presidential running mate the patently unqualified governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, whose childlike perception of international affairs made her the laughingstock of the world. And the worst of it was that a large part of the American electorate didn’t get the joke. They loved Palin. After years of talk about overthrowing Arab dictators, global opinion was beginning to wonder whose regime it was that was changing. As Bush the younger left the stage, the post–cold war order that his father had crafted was crumbling all around him."

"In the same way I resent her co-opting a feminist message in order to achieve a retrograde goal, I resent her pandering to the insecurities of American Jews"

"People are learning that she pandered to us by saying, 'I'm for this' … and then when she found it was politically advantageous for her nationally, abruptly she starts using the very term that she said was insulting."

"Life is full of gambles that are unavoidable. This surely was an avoidable gamble."

"A look at Palin’s 20 months in power, along with interviews with people who worked with her, shows her to be a serious executive, a governor who picked important things to do and got them done — and who didn’t just stumble into an 80 percent job-approval rating."

"I made a prediction when I talked to her yesterday. I said "People who get hold of this—like AP or any of the state-controlled media—they're going to focus on … the soap opera aspects of your book and they're going to ignore what is truly one of the most substantive policy books I've read."