Sunday
Nov092008
The Inside Story of the Palin Nomination: Follow-up
Sunday, November 9, 2008 at 12:21
Just before the election, Enduring America passed on some inside information about John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his Vice-Presidential nominee. Apparently, it was a last-minute choice when McCain advisors blocked the selection of Joe Lieberman. The somewhat bizarre twist was that Palin came to attention in part because of Republican Party activists, notably those behind the aggressive foreign policy of the Bush years, who met her while on cruises in the Alaskan fjords.
Well, well: looks like we were on the mark. The investigative journalist Jane Mayer has now laid out more of the story on Democracy Now!.
There's an additional postscript that Mayer doesn't note. Apparently Randy Scheunemann, one of McCain's foreign policy advisors, was fired from the campaign. The allegation is that he was leaking information to Palin about some of the opposition to her amongst other McCain staffers.
Significance? Scheunemann is a long-time foreign policy pal of the activists --- loosely, sometimes inaccurate known as "neo-conservatives" --- who were gung-ho for the Iraq War. Indeed, Scheunemann was at the head of the Committee to Liberate Iraq, formed in 2002. Before that, he had been part of the Project for a New American Century, signing their letter on 20 September 2001 to President Bush calling for swift action against terrorism, including regime change in Iraq.
Scheunemann has thus been in the same circles and shared the same outlook as William Kristol. Far from coincidentially --- at least in my book --- it is Kristol who has been Palin's biggest public cheerleader via his columns at the New York Times. And it is Kristol who was the channel for Palin's charge that McCain wasn't being negative enough on Obama, for example, bringing out the Illinois Senator's connections with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
The Real Story Behind How McCain Chose Sarah Palin
Amy Goodman: No matter who wins the White House November 4th, a group of prominent conservatives are planning to meet the next day in Virginia to discuss the way forward for the movement. And regardless of the outcome, Governor Sarah Palin will be high on the agenda. The New York Times reports if John McCain loses the election, Palin could emerge as a standard bearer for the conservative movement and a potential presidential candidate in 2012, albeit one who will need to address her considerable political damage.
Most Americans had never heard of Sarah Palin when McCain first announced her as his running mate back in August. Her national debut came at the Republican Party's convention in St. Paul, where she sought to cast herself as an antidote to the elitist culture inside the Beltway.
Gov. Sarah Palin: I'm not a member of the permanent political establishment, and I've learned quickly these last 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.
AG: Governor Palin's sudden rise to prominence, however, owes more to members of the Washington elite than her rhetoric suggests. That's according to an article in The New Yorker magazine by investigative reporter Jane Mayer. It's called "The Insiders: How John McCain Came to Pick Sarah Palin." Jane Mayer now joins us in Washington, D.C.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Jane.
Jane Mayer: Hi, thanks. Good to be with you.
AG: It's good to have you with us. Why don't you tell us the story of the cruises to Alaska?
JM: The cruises. Well, Juneau, Alaska turns out to be a major stop for cruise ships that come through Alaska, and there are political cruises, in particular, that are run by the conservative political magazines that stop there. And so, when Sarah Palin was elected governor, she learned that a number of those Washington insider elite members of the media would be trooping through Juneau. And despite the rhetoric that she's got that is about, you know, sort of deriding them and saying she doesn't, you know, seek their approval, in fact, she invited most of them to lunch and to other receptions that she threw. She even brought some up on a helicopter ride to go see a couple sites in Alaska.
So, she was courting some of those Washington insiders. In particular, they were the pundits that work for the Weekly Standard magazine, which is Rupert Murdoch's conservative political magazine, and the National Review, the old conservative magazine founded by William F. Buckley. So she made a great impression on some of these pundits when they came through. They enjoyed their lunches and receptions and went back and wrote fabulous stories about her, and this was one of the things that really got the ball rolling for her.
More on Democracy Now!
Well, well: looks like we were on the mark. The investigative journalist Jane Mayer has now laid out more of the story on Democracy Now!.
There's an additional postscript that Mayer doesn't note. Apparently Randy Scheunemann, one of McCain's foreign policy advisors, was fired from the campaign. The allegation is that he was leaking information to Palin about some of the opposition to her amongst other McCain staffers.
Significance? Scheunemann is a long-time foreign policy pal of the activists --- loosely, sometimes inaccurate known as "neo-conservatives" --- who were gung-ho for the Iraq War. Indeed, Scheunemann was at the head of the Committee to Liberate Iraq, formed in 2002. Before that, he had been part of the Project for a New American Century, signing their letter on 20 September 2001 to President Bush calling for swift action against terrorism, including regime change in Iraq.
Scheunemann has thus been in the same circles and shared the same outlook as William Kristol. Far from coincidentially --- at least in my book --- it is Kristol who has been Palin's biggest public cheerleader via his columns at the New York Times. And it is Kristol who was the channel for Palin's charge that McCain wasn't being negative enough on Obama, for example, bringing out the Illinois Senator's connections with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
The Real Story Behind How McCain Chose Sarah Palin
Amy Goodman: No matter who wins the White House November 4th, a group of prominent conservatives are planning to meet the next day in Virginia to discuss the way forward for the movement. And regardless of the outcome, Governor Sarah Palin will be high on the agenda. The New York Times reports if John McCain loses the election, Palin could emerge as a standard bearer for the conservative movement and a potential presidential candidate in 2012, albeit one who will need to address her considerable political damage.
Most Americans had never heard of Sarah Palin when McCain first announced her as his running mate back in August. Her national debut came at the Republican Party's convention in St. Paul, where she sought to cast herself as an antidote to the elitist culture inside the Beltway.
Gov. Sarah Palin: I'm not a member of the permanent political establishment, and I've learned quickly these last 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.
AG: Governor Palin's sudden rise to prominence, however, owes more to members of the Washington elite than her rhetoric suggests. That's according to an article in The New Yorker magazine by investigative reporter Jane Mayer. It's called "The Insiders: How John McCain Came to Pick Sarah Palin." Jane Mayer now joins us in Washington, D.C.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Jane.
Jane Mayer: Hi, thanks. Good to be with you.
AG: It's good to have you with us. Why don't you tell us the story of the cruises to Alaska?
JM: The cruises. Well, Juneau, Alaska turns out to be a major stop for cruise ships that come through Alaska, and there are political cruises, in particular, that are run by the conservative political magazines that stop there. And so, when Sarah Palin was elected governor, she learned that a number of those Washington insider elite members of the media would be trooping through Juneau. And despite the rhetoric that she's got that is about, you know, sort of deriding them and saying she doesn't, you know, seek their approval, in fact, she invited most of them to lunch and to other receptions that she threw. She even brought some up on a helicopter ride to go see a couple sites in Alaska.
So, she was courting some of those Washington insiders. In particular, they were the pundits that work for the Weekly Standard magazine, which is Rupert Murdoch's conservative political magazine, and the National Review, the old conservative magazine founded by William F. Buckley. So she made a great impression on some of these pundits when they came through. They enjoyed their lunches and receptions and went back and wrote fabulous stories about her, and this was one of the things that really got the ball rolling for her.
More on Democracy Now!