But Parker also picked apart the many problems with Palin's candidacy. "She doesn't know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin," Parker wrote. Her fumbling television interviews with Katie Couric, Charlie Gibson and Sean Hannity showed that she was "Clearly Out Of Her League." She "repeats words, filling space with deadwood." And most polemically, "if BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself."
Those criticisms, paired with the assertion that the McCain campaign would be better off if it could replace Palin, made national headlines, and left many conservative observers apoplectic. A couple months later, when Red State's Erick Erickson announced that he was starting a "leper colony" for conservatives who criticized Palin, he mentioned that Parker was one of the names on the list he was keeping of folks to shun. A lot of people have since forgotten about that list.
But it's the first thing I thought of when I saw Erickson's latest:
For the past year, Palin fans have become an online fixture with more
venom and insanity than the most rabid Ron Paul fan. They have not
evangelized on behalf of Sarah Palin trying to lead people to Sarah
Palin, they have freaked a lot of us out.
I am at the point of fearing that should Palin not get in the race
we're going to have a Hale Bopp moment with many of her most ardent
supporters. These people have become too emotionally invested in one
person to discuss that person rationally or even to address serious
policy concerns... To not bow at the throne of Sarah you get disowned. You get attacked.
You have people drum up stories attacking your credibility.
Here's Leon Wolf, also writing at Red State:
I have given up trying to convince Sarah Palin's supporters that I am
not and have never been an enemy of Sarah Palin; no matter how mild of a
criticism I offer of her and no matter how liberally sprinkled with
praise, her remaining followers will be convinced that I have always
been part of a "GOP Establishment" conspiracy to tear Palin down,
despite the fact that I have never lived or worked in DC, or worked for a
sitting member of Congress, or any national or state party committee.
As the kids say these days, "it is whatever"; long-time readers of this
blog will know that if Sarah Palin has lost me (and she has), then she
is doing it wrong.
He adds:
The spectacular mismanagement of Sarah Palin's fame and political clout
has turned what could have been a decades-long career as an influencer
of Republican politics into a train wreck that has gone on for so long
that even the macabre has become blase and disinteresting. With only a
touch more finesse, Palin could have re-emerged periodically again and
again; sadly, instead, this seems destined to be her only go-round,
which she is milking for every cent it is worth, until the point where
almost everyone wishes she would just go away.
Here's Ann Coulter, also speaking in the last couple of days:
She's just "The One" to a certain segment of right wingers. And the
tiniest criticism of her -- I think many of your viewers may not know
this. No conservative on TV will criticize Palin, because they don't
want to deal with the hate mail. You know, you say her voice is a few
octaves too high or perhaps Michele Bachmann's speaking voice is more
modulated, and you will be inundated with enraged e-mails and letters...
You know, we used to all love Sarah Palin, conservatives like me, for
her enemies. I'm starting to dislike her because of her fans. And she
does get things wrong. She wouldn't have to. I think she's bright, but
she doesn't -- her good points do not seem to be in the direction of
running for president. Just like Newt Gingrich, you just go ahead and
run so we can get this over with.
Palin is taking heat at Ace of Spades too.