Tea Party Movement

"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."

"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."

"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."