Brutally Honest

"Well, check this out, buddy — you're fired!"

That from Sarah Palin as she responds to learning that one of the Secret Service members embroiled in the Colombian scandal had been assigned to her protection during the Presidential campaign:

A Secret Service supervisor who retired in the midst of the Colombia prostitution scandal made light on his Facebook page of his work protecting former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the Washington Post reported Thursday evening.

David Randall Chaney posted photos of himself on the social media site, including one that shows him behind Palin during the 2008 campaign, including the comment, "I was really checking her out, if you know what I mean?" the report stated.

The Post also identified Greg Stokes, an assistant special agent in charge of the K9 division, as the agent who was listed as "removal for cause." The process requires a 30-day notice, an opportunity to respond and the right to be represented by private legal counsel.

Lawrence Berger the lawyer who is serving as legal counsel for the two men tells NBC News, "nobody has been separated from the agency involuntarily." According to Berger, Stokes is, "going to vigorously defend himself in the administrative process that is available." Berger said he couldn't comment on why Chaney was employing counsel. Berger also made a point of saying that whoever is leaking the names from inside the Secret Service is probably breaking the law.

Both Chaney and Stokes worked at the Secret Service for nearly two decades, the Post noted.

In an interview with Fox News Thursday, Palin said the joke is on Chaney.

"Well, check this out, buddy — you're fired!" Palin said.

Chaney and Stokes were among 11 Secret Service agents and 10 U.S. military personnel who allegedly took as many as 21 women back to their beachfront hotel just before President Barack Obama arrived for the Summit of the Americas last weekend. They were discovered when one woman complained about money, resulting in the local police getting involved.

She who laughs last...

"Game on"

Not sure what to make of Sarah Palin's latest steps into the limelight:

When news broke that Katie Couric will be filling in for Robin Roberts next week on ABC's "Good Morning America," the country yawned.  Or, at least we did, until we learned that NBC plans to pit "The Rogue Warrior" against "The Perky One": Sarah Palin will be guest-hosting "Today" this Tuesday.

NBC's decision to seat the former Alaska Governor-turned-multimedia star in their anchor chair should prove to be a fruitful one. Since coming onto the national scene in 2008, Palin has become one of the most charismatic figures in conservative America and will likely bring "Today" an entirely different demographic of viewers.

"I see this as a good opportunity to bring an independent, common-sense conservative perspective to NBC. We’re 'going rogue' and infiltrating some turf for a day,” Palin told Breitbart News.

Palin and Couric will be squaring off, in a sense, for the first time since their controversial interview on the 2008 campaign trail.

When Breitbart News asked for a comment about the fact that she will be competing with Couric, Gov. Palin responded simply: "Game on."

It'll be interesting to see the ratings on each show that night.

Dear Barack Obama...

by Leslie.

I like Bristol Palin:

You don’t know my telephone number, but I hope your staff is busy trying to find it. Ever since you called Sandra Fluke after Rush Limbaugh called her a slut, I figured I might be next.

Palin rouses 'em at CPAC

The Note:

The most resounding speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference came not from a presidential candidate, or an elected official — but from Sarah Palin.

The screams and cheers that filled the spacious ballroom in which Palin spoke Saturday felt at times like they belonged at a Justin Bieber concert. A dozen times the conservatives at the conference leaped to their feet to applaud Palin, as she threw them line after line about beating President Obama and reclaiming “traditional values.”

“The president says small Americans, small-town Americans — we bitterly cling to our religion and our guns,” Palin said, referring to a comment Obama made in the last election, as the audience rose and cheered. “You say, I say, we say — keep your change. We’ll keep our God. We’ll keep our guns.”

For the first time at the three-day conference known as CPAC in Washington, protesters disrupted a speech. But the response from Palin’s loyal supporters was fierce. As protesters chanted at her from the back of the room at the Marriott, a man in the back row leaped over his chair, ran toward them and screamed, “Get the hell out of here, you asshole!”

The protesters were kicked out as others in the room began chanting “USA! USA!” followed quickly by “Sarah! Sarah!”

“See, you just won,” Palin ad-libbed to more cheers.

The GOP’s 2008 vice presidential nominee didn’t endorse a candidate for president, and she said that the drawn-out primary process can benefit the party — as long as Republicans don’t turn on each other.

“In America, we believe that competition strengthens us,” she said. “Competition relates to victory in 2012. We must stay true to our principles. I believe that the competition has got to keep going. But let’s make sure that the competition brings out the best in our party.

“We know that the far left and their media allies can’t beat us on the issues, so instead they’ll distort our records,” she added. “Let’s not do the job for them, OK, Republicans? OK, independents?”

Here's the video where she out mic' checks the mic' checkers:

Crossposted at Wizbang.

“I call them ‘dumb arses’”

Sarah Palin, in case you weren't aware, isn't fond of the mainstream media:

In an appearance on Sean Hannity’s Thursday radio show, Palin likened the pending interview to her experience with author Joe McGinniss, who staked out her Alaska home while writing a book. But according to Palin, with Gingrich the media “overplayed their hand.”

“The American public could really care less about being Joe McGinniss’d, not when there are real issues,” Palin said. “Newt Gingrich’s ex-wife is getting ready to reveal all, again — she has already done that, it seems, like a few times.”

“The liberal media,” she added, “and some of that GOP holier-than-thou machine overplayed their hand this time.” 

...

“I call them ‘dumb arses,’” she said. “They think by trotting out this old Gingrich divorce interview — that’s old news and it does feature this disgruntled ex- that claimed that it would destroy a campaign. All this does is, Sean, is incentivize conservatives and independents who are so sick of the politics of personal destruction because it’s played so selectively by the media.”

“Their target in this case, Newt,” Palin added, “is now going to soar even more because we know the game now and we just won’t put up with it. So you know, good call media. Way to go to covertly hype this, even with Gingrich opponents. For being so brilliant, they sure are dumb.”

Newt Gingrich isn't putting up with it either:

I'll admit to wishing that it was someone with less baggage than Newt who could and would take the fight to a media so blatantly biased against conservative thought but I'll also admit that Newt seems to be the best equipped at this time to do so. Battle on Newt.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Sarah Palin endorses Newt

Kinda sorta:

Sarah Palin on Tuesday urged South Carolina voters to support Newt Gingrich in their GOP presidential primary, offering the closest thing to an endorsement the former Alaska governor may come before this weekend's contest.

“If I had to vote in South Carolina, in order to keep this thing going, I’d vote for Newt and I would want this to continue,” Palin said during a FOX News interview Tuesday night.

Her support for the former House speaker, however, was somewhat qualified. Palin said she believed it would be best for the primary campaign to continue, so as to continue to add scrutiny to candidates and forge their strength as an eventual nominee against President Obama.

“More debates, more vetting of candidates because we know the mistake made in our country four years ago was having a candidate that was not vetted, to the degree that he should have been,” Palin explained. “I want to see that taking place this time because America is on this precipice — it’s that important. We need this process to continue."

“We think its a pretty darn clear call to arms,” Gingrich campaign spokesman R.C. Hammond told NBC News shortly after Palin made these comments this evening.

...

If you consolidate the three conservative candidates, we clearly would have a huge margin over Romney, and the challenge for me is to convince conservatives to come home and have a single candidate on Saturday,” Gingrich told a crowd in Florence, S.C. today.

Palin offered words of flattery for Gingrich beyond her support this weekend, crowning him the winner of a Monday night debate. Her husband, Todd Palin, has formally endorsed Gingrich for president.

"Newt Gingrich is a true leader, which he has proven not only since the beginning of his campaign, but throughout his career,” Todd Palin said in a written statement sent out by the Gingrich campaign on Jan. 9.

Gingrich seems to be singing the same song as Ms. Palin, suggesting strongly that a Romney win in SC pretty much seals the deal:

Newt Gingrich came clean Tuesday afternoon, admitting that if he can't win this state's primary on Saturday, he probably can't win the Republican nomination at all.

"If I don't win the primary Saturday, we will probably nominate a moderate," the former House speaker said, referring to Mitt Romney. "And the odds are fairly high he will lose to Obama."

There's a part of me that thinks the longer this primary season goes on, the higher the odds that Obama wins in November.

I hope I'm wrong and that Ms. Palin is right.

For the sake of the country.

Anyone but Obama...

... may now include Sarah Palin... you know this is causing some gnashing of teeth:

Look out President Barack Obama. Even Sarah Palin's gaining on you.

A new McClatchy-Marist poll finds that Obama looks increasingly vulnerable in next year's election, with a majority of voters believing he'll lose to any Republican, a solid plurality saying they'll definitely vote against him and most potential Republican challengers gaining on him.

Even in potential matchups where he leads, Obama in most cases has lost ground to the Republican.

The biggest gain came for Palin, the former Alaska governor who hasn't yet announced whether she'll jump into the fast-changing race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

After trailing Obama by more than 20 percentage points in polls all year, the new national survey, taken Sept. 13-14, found Palin trailing the president by just 5 points, 49-44 percent. The key reason: She now leads Obama among independents, a sharp turnaround.

You can almost hear the veins popping in necks across the country this morning as the Palin haters stroke out over this news.

The spewing begins in 3, 2, 1...

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Todd Palin addresses the smears, the innuendo, the latest falsehoods about his wife

It's a wonder the guy hasn't punched somebody out yet:

Sarah Palin's husband jumped to her defense Thursday after an upcoming book claimed the Republican politician snorted cocaine off an oil drum and had a premarital fling with an African-American basketball star.

"The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin" by Joe McGinniss -- who moved in next to Palin's home in Alaska last year as part of his research -- comes out Tuesday, as the Tea Party darling ponders whether to formally seek the Republican presidential nomination.

"This is a man who has been relentlessly stalking my family to the point of moving in right next door to us to harass us and spy on us to satisfy his creepy obsession with my wife," husband Todd Palin said.

"His book is full of disgusting lies, innuendo, and smears," he added in a statement carried by several US news media and political blogs.

"Even the New York Times called this book 'dated, petty,' and that it 'chases caustic, unsubstantiated gossip.'"

McGinniss is slimy... but do you think that'll stop the press from granting the man interviews purposed in pumping his book?

Not just no, but hell no.  There's a conservative woman out there that needs trashing and destroying and by God, they're going to do their damndest to getting that job done.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

"How outrageously wrong this unapologetic Jim Hoffa is"

Sarah Palin reacts to recent events... and in my view, connects:

So, now these union bosses are desperately trying to cast the grassroots Tea Party Movement as being “against the workingman.” How outrageously wrong this unapologetic Jim Hoffa is, for the people’s movement is the real movement for working class men and women. It’s rooted in real solidarity, and not special interests and corporate kickbacks. It represents the needed reform that will empower workers and job creators. We stand with the little guy against the corruption and influence peddling of those who collude to grease the wheels of government power.

This collusion is at the heart of Obama’s economic vision for America. In practice it is socialism for the very rich and the very poor, but a brutal form of capitalism for the rest of us. It is socialism for the very poor who are reduced to a degrading perpetual dependence on a near-bankrupt centralized government to provide their every need, while at the same time robbing them of that which brings fulfillment and success – the life-affirming pride that comes from taking responsibility for your own destiny and building a better life through self-initiative and work ethic. And Obama’s vision is socialism via crony capitalism for the very rich who continue to get bailouts, debt-ridden “stimulus” funds, and special favors that allow them to waive off or help draft the burdensome regulations that act as a boot on the neck to small business owners who don’t have the same friends in high places. And where does this collusion leave working class Americans and the small business owners who create 70% of the jobs in this country? Out in the cold. It’s you and your children who are left paying for the cronyism of Obama and our permanent political class in DC.

Ask yourself if the folks you heard demonize concerned, independent Americans yesterday really speak for the working class when they’re all too happy to burden your families with the bill to bail out the President’s friends on Wall Street.

We should not forget that for all his lofty rhetoric, President Obama is a Chicago politician. Graft, cronyism, and quid pro quo are the well-known methods of an infamous Chicago political machine, of which Barack Obama emerged. This corruption isn’t just the result of a few bad apples. It’s the nature of a skewed system that’s typical of one not allowing a level playing field. If one desires opportunity for all, then the only solution is sudden and relentless reform. I know of what I speak. I too served in public office in a state that had a corruption problem. The difference is that I fought the corrupt political machine. Barack Obama used the machine in his state to advance. He never challenged it. And he’s evidently brought the same Chicago “pay-to-play” practices to the White House.

Read the whole thing... contrast her words with any words from this President... for sincerity, for passion, for genuineness...

Obama falls way short.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Sarah Palin: "If we were real domestic terrorists, President Obama would want to pal around with us wouldn't he?"

Ya gotta admit, that's pretty funny... especially if you compare it to Biden's latest attempt at humor:

“When I went up, she said, ‘Joe,” Biden recalled of his meeting with Giffords. “I said, ‘Now we’re both members of the Cracked Head Club.’ You know, I had two craniotomies. For real. They literally took the top of my head off. Twice. Now, the wags in Delaware, when the second operation occurred, wrote and said, ‘Well, it’s because they couldn’t find a brain the first time!’”

I suspect they're still looking...

Crossposted at Wizbang.