Tuesday, May 24, 2011

This should put the political cat among the partisan pigeons!


I can't help chuckling with wicked anticipation at the thought of the hissy-fits about to erupt on both the Left and the Right of American politics. Yes, it's "Sarah Palin - The Movie"!

Shortly after Republicans swept last November to a historic victory in which Sarah Palin was credited with playing a central role, the former Alaska governor pulled aside her close aide, Rebecca Mansour, to discuss a hush-hush assignment: Reach out to conservative filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon with a request. Ask him if he would make a series of videos extolling Palin's governorship and laying to rest lingering questions about her controversial decision to resign from office with a year-and-a-half left in her first term. It was this abdication, Palin knew, that had made her damaged goods in the eyes of some Republicans who once were eager to get behind her potential 2012 presidential campaign.

The response was more positive than Palin could have hoped for. He'd make a feature-length movie, Bannon told Mansour, and he insisted upon taking complete control and financing it himself -- to the tune of $1 million.

The fruits of that initial conversation are now complete. ... When it premieres in Iowa next month, the film is poised to serve as a galvanizing prelude to Palin's prospective presidential campaign -- an unconventional reintroduction to the nation that she and her political team have spent months eagerly anticipating, even as Beltway Republicans have largely concluded that she won't run.

Bannon, a former naval officer and ex-Goldman Sachs banker, sees his documentary as the first step in Palin's effort to rebuild her image in the eyes of voters who may have soured on her, yet might reconsider if old caricatures begin to fade. The film will also appeal to staunch Palin supporters who have long celebrated her biting rhetoric and conservative populism yet know little about her record in Alaska and have perhaps written her off as presidential material.

"This film is a call to action for a campaign like 1976: Reagan vs. the establishment," Bannon told RealClearPolitics. "Let's have a good old-fashioned brouhaha."

. . .

Although Palin is not interviewed directly, the film features on-camera interviews and commentaries from 10 Alaskans who played different roles in her political rise, as well as six Lower 48 denizens who defend her in more visceral terms, including prominent conservative firebrands Mark Levin, Andrew Breitbart and Tammy Bruce.

Divided into three acts, the film makes the case that despite the now cliched label, Palin was indeed a maverick who confronted the powerful forces lined up against her to achieve wide-ranging success in a short period of time. The second part of the film's message is just as clear, if more subjective: that Sarah Palin is the only conservative leader who can both build on the legacy of the Reagan Revolution and bring the ideals of the tea party movement to the Oval Office.

Rife with religious metaphor and unmistakable allusions to Palin as a Joan of Arc-like figure, "The Undefeated" echoes Palin's "Going Rogue" in its tidy division of the world between the heroes who are on her side and the villains who seek to thwart her at every turn.

To convey Bannon's view of the pathology behind Palin-hatred, the film begins with a fast-paced sequence of clips showing some of the prominent celebrities who have used sexist, derogatory and generally vicious language to describe her.

Rosie O'Donnell, Matt Damon, Bill Maher, David Letterman, and Howard Stern all have brief cameos before comedian Louis C.K. goes off on a particularly ugly anti-Palin riff.

"I hate her more than anybody," C.K. says at the end of his tirade, the rest of which is unfit to print here.

Bannon intends to release two versions of the film. An unrated edition will contain some obscene anti-Palin language and imagery, while the other is targeted to a general audience and will seek a PG-13 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America.

. . .

The film's coda is introduced with an on-screen caption that reads, "From here, I can see November." It is here that Mark Levin alludes to Ronald Reagan as a Palin-like insurgent who was also once distrusted by the GOP establishment.

. . .

If she does decide to run, "The Undefeated" will be the key element to her initial coming-out party. The film's impending release -- and the frenzied media attention that it is sure to generate -- will serve as a vivid wake-up call that despite the many obstacles in front of her, Palin's entry into the race would turn the campaign on its head in an instant, just as it did in 2008.

As she mulls her decision in the coming weeks, the other Republican candidates in the field will be left to prepare for a hibernating grizzly who appears poised to rise up once again.


There's more at the link.

I think this is great! I don't know whether or not Ms. Palin has what it takes to be President; but I'm quite sure she has what it takes to shred 'politics as usual', and make all sorts of waves during the 2012 Presidential campaign. That can only be good for this country!

Peter

5 comments:

STxRynn said...

AMEN!!!

Sic 'em Sarah!!

Anonymous said...

Well now, I'm intrigued.

Jim

Unknown said...

I don't think she's even slightly qualified, and I'm certainly leery of the folks who will ride her coattails, but I do hope she gets into it; she WILL shake things up. We need that more than anything!

trailbee said...

She will set the entire campaign on its collective ear. Go, Sarah!

Wraith said...

Well, it depends on your definition of "what it takes to be President."

If your definition includes lies, pandering, underhandedness, inexperience and insider politicking, then Mrs. Palin should just stay off the campaign trail.

If your definition includes a love of America, a commitment to her founding principles, honesty, courage and drive, then your vote in 2012 is obvious...Sarah Palin.

Unlike the current disgrace to America, she has a long and unblemished record that proves her worth(and, for some bizarre reason, has not chosen to hire swarms of lawyers to conceal it). She's been more thoroughly vetted than any candidate in history--the same media that completely ignored any questions about BHO, did everything but give Sarah a colonoscopy(and I'm not too sure they weren't considering it!). They found nothing.

People, you can make up your own minds. There are a couple of other great candidates out there, most notably Herman Cain. I'm just urging you to check into Gov. Palin on your own, for yourself. You might be surprised at what you discover.