David Corn and Republican "Close" to Romney Say Palin Just Does Not Understand Politics...

David Corn, one of America’s greatest writers, has finally decided that Governor Palin has had it far too easy a over the last few months. Formerly Washington editor of “The Nation” (the “flagship of the left”) and now with “Mother Jones Magazine" the courageous Corn, who once astonished the world by calling President George W Bush a liar, believes it is time to shame a sycophantic and cowed media into showing up the Governor for what she really is.

Corn’s trademark style is to use in depth research to determine the cold hard facts of any situation. Not for him the un-named source or reliance on second or third hand hearsay. In his hard hitting Politics Daily article on the former Governor of Alaska he went straight to that best known figure in the Republican establishment, Mr G.O.P. Consultant. Not wanting to beat about the bush Corn asked the million dollar question right away.

Who advises Sarah Palin? His answer: No one. Really? I asked. Yes, he said, really.

Corn was astonished. All those hundreds of Republican consultants in Washington, architects of the massive GOP victories in 2006 and 2008, and the Governor was not using any of them? For him that explained the whole problem.

Palin's actions keep defying rational explanation.
....
Even if Palin's pullout had been a reasonable decision, it seemed as if she had not consulted anyone with PR or political sense on how best to handle the controversial move.

Since then, her performance as a politician with a chance of snagging the GOP presidential nomination has been -- to be polite -- unsteady.

Notice, by the way, how, in writing this piece, Corn is also giving us a masterclass in his approach to journalism. You don’t waste shoe leather trying to check out the facts. You find a person who will give you the answer you want then you use his response as the hook upon which you will hang the rest of your article. Old Kim Yong-nam would be very impressed!

David Corn pinpointed how the Governor, because she hasn’t got those seasoned, experienced and election winning GOP consultants behind her, has been floundering on the internet. Take Twitter, for instance. Corn is a master of that media and has a massive following (4,500) eagerly awaiting his every tweet. Yet she just about managed to get about 150,000 and then simply stopped. Not that her tweets were particularly impressive, mainly girly stuff with a smattering of quotes from Aristotle, Paine and Jefferson.

Corn didn’t say much about the quotes but I would imagine that he finds the idea of the Governor reading Aristotle quite laughable – it’s obvious that someone else was doing the “intellectual” tweets, probably while she was experimenting with a new lipstick......except, of course, he has actually proved that she has nobody to advise her.......mmmm, Mr Corn, better move on quickly before anyone else notices that....

With no experts to guide her the Governor has been reduced to using Facebook to communicate with her handful of followers. She tried to spread some garbled word salad about President Obama’s healthcare proposals (franchised out to Pelosi/Reid) by making up a scare story.

[I]nsisting that the Obama health care plan would create "death panels" for seniors -- before declaring that, thanks to her, there would be no "death panels" in the plan.

Fortunately that had little or no impact – except perhaps on Camille Paglia:

When I first saw that phrase, headlined on the Drudge Report, I burst out laughing. It seemed so over the top! But on reflection, I realized that Palin's shrewdly timed metaphor spoke directly to the electorate's unease with the prospect of shadowy, unelected government figures controlling our lives

But Paglia must either be not very bright or a rightwing fruitcake or probably both (she certainly cannot hold a candle to David Corn).

Then, of course, there’s the book – Corn cannot help laughing at the very notion of her writing a book. Being a world famous author himself he knows in his bones what the book is going to be like even though, of course, he hasn’t read it.

Will Palin use her books to score revenge points? (Levi Johnston, this means you!) Will she dish dirt on inside Republican politics? Will she have anything original to say about policy matters? ("My quick-and-easy five-step plan for winning the war in Afghanistan.")

Naturally he shares the moment with yet another of his solid, reliable 24 carat sources.

A few days ago, a GOPer close to Mitt Romney, another potential contender for the 2012 Republican nomination, was laughing as we talked about Palin's book, due out next month. He was tittering especially about its title, "Going Rogue." That phrase was used by John McCain's aides toward the end of the 2008 election to describe Palin's off-message behavior on the campaign trail. "What voter wants a rogue president?" this Mitt-friendly Republican said to me...

Now Corn is obviously no Republican but he does recognise a political giant when he sees one because he points out that Mitt Romney also has a book hitting the shelves.

Romney has finished a book of his own on weighty policy matters that will come out next year. Its title: "No Apology: The Case of American Greatness."

Notice that phrase – not mooseburger recipes, not makeup hints but WEIGHTY POLICY MATTERS. It’s not out until early next year but has been available for a few weeks for pre-order on Amazon and has already reached #153,600 in the Amazon rankings – amazing...

Actually Corn is really being cruel to be kind – he has the Governors best interests at heart.

If all she cares about is notoriety and cash, she's doing just fine. But if she is serious about presidential politics, she will have to find better help.

But what about the Hong Kong speech – wasn’t that an attempt to get serious? Corn would have to sadly disagree.

recently in Hong Kong she delivered what's been described as a "rambling" address to a group of businesspeople

Here, once again, we see David’s forensic journalistic skills at work. Ignore this and this – just home in on a Time Magazine hack who gives one quote from one attendee...

What I find puzzling is that someone can write such a shoddy and poorly researched piece of so called journalism and get paid for it. It’s almost at the level of the puerile anti-Palin rantings of Geoffrey Dunn at the Huffington Post. But then the article is only the most recent in a long line of hit pieces usually penned by Washington hacks predicting the Governors political demise because she doesn’t conform to the conventions of political conduct as laid down by the Beltway pundits.

Here’s a tip for David Corn – why not break the mould and research – yes, that’s RESEARCH, as in using shoe leather – for a piece on why the lady remains a key political figure by defying the accepted conventions of political conduct. After all, David, that shouldn’t be too big a task for the man who got involved with Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame....