Shades of Reagan: Sarah and the Leakers
The trashing of Sarah Palin continues. Some of the shots have been downright ugly, such as the “Retarded Republican Babies for Sarah Palin†t-shirts. Equally notable, however, is the odd one-two punch of liberal journalists and moderate Republican leakers pounding Palin as a right-wing extremist and dummy. This tandem is responsible for some of the phony smears, including ridiculous claims that Palin doesn’t know Africa is a continent, or that she refused to appear with “pro-choicers†like Senator John Sununu (Sununu is pro-life).
These smears place Sarah Palin in good company. My mind races back to what Ronald Reagan endured: the same kind of leaks, by the same kind of moderate Republicans, to the same kind of liberal journalists, and with the same kind of allegations. Reagan, too, was portrayed as a Midwest dolt, a conservative zealot, a rube from a backwoods college in “fly-over†country.
After recently reading a remarkably unfair Newsweek hit on Sarah Palin, I thought of a piece in Time magazine in December 1986, titled “How Reagan Stays Out of Touch,†by reporter Richard Stengel—a product of a leak by one of the “pragmatists†in the Reagan White House. Stengel wrote this on the dawdling old fool in the Oval Office:
[Reagan's] briefing with his senior staff, which mainly concerns his daily schedule, lasts only about 30 minutes, and Reagan usually remains quiet, except for his trademark bantering. It is followed by a briefing from his National Security Council staff that is usually even shorter. When National Security Council staffers prepare Reagan for a full-fledged meeting of the NSC, the president typically does not ask any questions about the topic at hand; instead he inquires, “What do I have to say?â€â€¦
Reagan’s reading is not heavy…. Old friends and cronies have access to a special private White House post office box number and they can send him clippings that they think might strike his fancy. That box number is the source of many of Reagan’s familiar “factoids,†snippets clipped from obscure publications.
Reagan is not notably curious. His aides say he rarely calls them with a question and that he knows in only a vague way what they actually do. He does not sit down with his advisers to hammer out policy decisions. He is happiest when his aides form a consensus, something they try awfully hard to do….
[Reagan] can work only if he is supported by a competent and active staff. During his first term, Chief of Staff James Baker protected Reagan from his woollier notions and helped put many of his ideals into practice.
The article added that when a suffering, heroic James Baker tried to save the Reagan administration by reshuffling the Cabinet, the “typically detached Reagan look[ed] on like a bemused bystander.†The president was confused.
This story was a leak by a moderate Republican, a Reagan aide, trying to impress liberal journalists by embarrassing his president.
Conservatives nostalgic for Reagan have forgotten the problem their favorite president faced with leaks. Judge Bill Clark was brought into the White House in January 1982 in part to try to stem what Reagan called “a virtual hemorrhage of leaks,†which had become “a problem of major proportions,†particularly in foreign and defense policy.
It got so bad that Clark today confirms that he and Reagan actually considered employing a polygraph for White House staff. In response, the leakers were furious, and began leaking stories about the nefarious effort by Reagan and Clark to halt the leaks. The Washington Post and New York Times ran almost comical stories on the alleged fascistic attempts to halt the leaking, stories which themselves were the products of the very same leakers. It was nuts!
Not surprisingly, the leakers also sought to take out Clark, to which they devoted unrelenting attention until Clark resigned in late 1983. Like Sarah Palin, and like Reagan, Bill Clark was a committed across-the-board conservative, socially, economically, religiously—a pariah to the moderates.
Once the Reagan presidency finished in 1989, these Republican leakers followed George H. W. Bush into his administration, where they extended the same treatment to Vice President Dan Quayle, another principled conservative, who they disliked from the outset of the presidential campaign.
Worse, once these moderates failed to reelect Bush, they blamed Quayle for dragging down the ticket. This was a harbinger of the John McCain defeat, where the moderates tried to pin the loss of the moderate McCain on the conservative Palin.
There’s a lesson here for Sarah Palin going forward. The collaborators who ridiculed Dan Quayle, who undermined Bill Clark, failed in one crucial respect: they didn’t ruin Ronald Reagan.
Sarah Palin cites Reagan as her political “inspiration.†She said on the campaign trail that she thinks of Reagan “every day.†Well, Reagan was a model in handling this kind of criticism. (See, “Hating Palin: Words of Wisdom from Reagan.†)
Other than the leaks that jeopardized national security, which rightly upset him, Reagan took the insults in stride. When he read anecdotes about how he snoozed through NSC meetings and spent afternoons watching reruns of “Bedtime for Bonzoâ€â€”and was generally incapable of functioning without his “brilliant†moderate Republican handlers—he laughed.
Ronald Reagan was secure and at peace, accepting the world, and human nature, for what it is. For Sarah Palin to survive, she needs to do the same.
Paul Kengor is author of The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism (HarperPerennial, 2007) and professor of political science at Grove City College. His latest book is The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan’s Top Hand (Ignatius Press, 2007).
| More from Dr. Paul Kengor
Stumble It!
December 5th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Paul, you can’t be serious. Is there any question as to why so many citizens and voters are not only opposed to Sarah Palin ( in any political office ) but are also outspoken as to their reasons ? Haven’t you seen the recent surveys that show that some 80 percent of the “Hillary Women” who were upset at the media and prepared to vote for McCain switched to Obama after they heard Palin speak at the RNC ? She came across as ignorant, bigoted and venomous, the respondents said. If you didn’t see it that way, I assume you’re also a one issue member of the lunatic fringe that can only see pro choice as the opponent and could care less about improving the economy and our national security. You can side with Hannity all you want, but because the electorate wants more than you, you’re looking at 2025 as the year of the next GOP president–after Hillary’s second term. Palin is an insult to reasonable people.
December 6th, 2008 at 2:11 am
Thanks “Daivie”. We need you leftist trolls to keep us “informed”. Though you might want to lose the vitriol if you want anyone to believe you’re not a nut.
December 6th, 2008 at 3:47 am
Okay, I’ll say it in a dignified manner. ” Approximately 80 percent of the “Hillary Women” who were ready to vote for McCain, even after he picked Palin, switched to Obama after they heard Palin’s speech at the Convention. I’ll add that while many Republicans are trying to blame McCain for the loss in order to keep Palin up front as a possible candidate in 2012, pollsters are convinced it was Palin–not McCain–who cost the GOP the election as she spoke incoherently and offered no solutions to our domestic and international problems. The “experience” issue was a non-starter, as voters knew she strong armed her way to insignificant political victories in a lightly populated state, and has held public office for a short period of time. Her so called popularity, which is waning radidly by the way, was due to her “spreading the wealth” from oil revenues among the citizenry. With oil approaching $30 a barrel, she has no solutions for economic stability in Alaska. Now that the senate seat is out of reach and there are no more campaigns or conventions to attend, she’ll disappear from public view, and Jindal, Huckabee and even Romney will take over the spotlight.
December 6th, 2008 at 4:44 am
That 80% of any given group of democrats was prepared to vote for McCain is simply another way of saying that Republicans were planning to stay home in droves.
The last thing the Republican party needs is yet another Democrat Lite candidate RINO. If it’s not Sarah Palin who leads the Republicans out of the wilderness, it’s going to have to be someone who is unquestionably a conservative because Democrats have real Democrats they can vote for and Republicans are getting bored by being served up one RINO after another.
December 6th, 2008 at 5:08 am
The fact that Sarah Palin didn’t abort her son Trig is the primary reason so many nutcase feminists are hell-bent on destroying her public image. (Not all democrats are guilty) What she lacks in her ability to articulate her thoughts and ideas is more than compensated for by her moral character, which is impossible for people who don’t have any moral character to comprehend.
This is the reason she is loathed so much by a relatively small group of feminist hate-mongers claiming that people opposed to this type of butchery are “extremistsâ€.
http://www.priestsforlife.org/resources/abortionimages/abort29.jpg
Also, check out this video to get a better understanding of the typical Obama voter. If Palin is so ignorant, it’s really surprising she didn’t get more of these votes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm1KOBMg1Y8
December 6th, 2008 at 6:02 am
Speaking of RINO, I remember some time ago that Dean Martin, on his variety show, was making jokes about Nixon, said he favored Humphrey, but ended voting for Nixon anyway. I’m curious : Did that make him a DINO ?
Anyway, on your issue, there’s more to being a good Republican than spending so much energy on opposing pro choice and gay marriage. The moderates aren’t going to go there, so to win, the conservatives are going to have to move toward the middle. Hysterical Hannity can turn purple spewing the so called values of the right wing. But by pushing that agenda, he’ll end up in the loser’s column every time.
December 6th, 2008 at 7:11 am
Daivie makes a solid point: Republicans need a credible leader with populist roots. Palin is simply not up to the job.
Huckabee walks the walk, talks the talk. Slick, even, in a used-car dealer sort of way.
Romney? Mr. Charisma. A smart guy, and harmless enough, but he reminds me of a real estate agent: placid, reptilian and a bit dull.
On the core social issues of abortion and gay marriage, I don’t think principled conservatives will accept a “moderate” at the helm.
The Republican party will have to chase its tail for a while longer, and wait for the inevitable excesses of resurgent Democrats.
Conservatives just need to be patient, and give liberals all the rope they need to hang themselves.
December 6th, 2008 at 7:59 am
I agree Mike.
But there’s no excuse for nutcase feminists to keep jumping up and down on Palin’s political carcass.
Every time they rear their ugly heads calling people who oppose abortion extremists, we need to display the pictures of mutilated babies, to show who the real extremists are.
Palin will probably never be President, but she deserves it more than Obama.
The Presidency is above Obama’s pay grade and always will be above anyone’s pay grade that supports abortion. People forget that there’s only been one pro-abortion President before Obama, and that degenerate disgraced the office forever, with his criminal sexual conduct.
It’s disturbing to me how the one true Republican who ran for President is completely ignored by so many people. The one guy who never voted for a tax increase in his life, is pro-life, and wants to drastically reduce the size of government, who would eliminate the matching federal dollars for the collection of so-called child support,(among countless other federal programs including VAWA) gets no mention at all.
December 6th, 2008 at 9:28 am
Daivie said,
Anyway, on your issue, there’s more to being a good Republican than spending so much energy on opposing pro choice and gay marriage. The moderates aren’t going to go there, so to win, the conservatives are going to have to move toward the middle.
Are you one of McCain’s advisers? You don’t get much more “moderate” than John McCain, and look where that got us.
Conservatives win by being conservative. Period. Ronald Reagan didn’t win 49 states by being “moderate” (i.e. wishy-washy). He won by having core principles, and standing by them. Sarah Palin has this too. Just because her interviews with kicky Katie and comb-over were edited to make her look stupid doesn’t mean she is. Nor does it mean she’s unpopular. Saxby Chambliss seemed to think she could help him, and she certainly seems to have done just that.
As for “gay marriage”, did you not see the results? It lost wherever it was on the ballot. So-called moderates must have been some of those voters, doncha’ think Pancho?
And as for abortion, a majority of Americans are pro-life. Whenever and wherever it’s on the ballot, pro-life causes win. That’s why leftists don’t want it voted on – ever. They try to keep it bottled up in the courts, where the constitution apparently doesn’t apply.
Nothing would make the American left happier than Republicans thinking they need to be more “moderate”. And I have no doubt you and yours will keep harping on just that. And me and mine will keep calling you on it. And we have something you guys don’t have – moral core beliefs. The only time we have knee-jerk reactions is when the doctor taps us with a little hammer.
Deal with it.
December 6th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Yeah, but moral core beliefs are no fun.
December 7th, 2008 at 1:18 am
Oh, I get it. You play for the other team. Goodbye.
December 7th, 2008 at 5:01 am
I just wanted to add …
It’s too bad that we place so much value on the superficial aspects of the people we vote into office. Too much attention is paid to the outward appearance and personality of a person, and not nearly enough is paid to substance of character.
This is excusable for an elderly person with little cognitive ability who votes for a candidate based on his dashing appearance, or because it’s the first woman, or first black, or first Mormon, but that’s a poor excuse if you’re thinking about what’s best for our country.
Most “conservatives†like to criticize Hollywood actors for being involved in politics as if they weren’t capable of forming an opinion. Yet, most so-called “conservatives†are every bit as influenced by “personality†as any Hollywood actor.
It’s been said that Thomas Jefferson was the silent member of congress. He lacked the ability to articulate his ideas in the presence of others, but we all know how gifted he was. I’m sure Katie Couric could have made him look like a fool too, but the really sad part is that most people in today’s world, conservative and liberal, would believe it.
If you look strictly at the issues, Ron Paul is the only Republican who ran for office. Yet the Katie Courics of the world convinced everyone he isn’t the right man for the job. Ron Paul is the only candidate who predicted this economic meltdown and was criticized to no end because of it. He also happens to have the right solutions to the problem but is being ignored by greedy politicians and the brainwashed public.
“I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
-Thomas Jefferson