My email to Jerry Taylor

Here's the email I sent to Jerry Taylor regarding his smear post at the Corner. His email address is here.

Mr. Taylor,

I'm sure I'm not the first person to email you about your post on the Corner yesterday regarding Sarah Palin.

I would expect a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute to do research before posting such an inflammatory statement about Sarah Palin.

Of course Palin has earned her affection and love from the Right because of her proven fiscal conservative record and history (I copied some helpful links below). Your post was inflammatory, childish and did nothing to contribute to the political discourse. It reminded me of a temper tantrum. Mr. Ponnuru's post that you responded to came out of nowhere and it wouldn't surprise me if you planned this little "hit and run" together. Mr. Ponnuru has a history of bringing negative Palin stories from the MSM to the Corner.

Your last sentence - "But has she done anything to warrant this love she gets from some quarters on the Right besides her demonstrable ability to play the Merle Haggard card against the cultural Left?" So are you saying that Republicans only care about tearing down the liberal elite? Do you think that we might have some educated opinions about how our country should be governed and Palin represents those philosophies with her proven record (and that we might be "elite" too)? The "Merle Haggard Right" and the "Cultural Left" are simply campaign rhetoric. As you may know, both sides engage in campaign rhetoric. As voters, we must look past the rhetoric and to actual candidates' performance to make our decisions.

I didn't know who you were before your post, but I certainly know who you are now. Was that your tactic - to piggyback off of Palin's fame to make a name for yourself? I wouldn't think someone as accomplished as your biography shows would do that, but I can't explain another reason why you post something like that on a Republican news blog. Perhaps you can give me a better explanation?

I understand if you don't like Palin, many don't. But to write negative posts without research, and to engage in the same tactics as the Left - to essentially say that anyone who supports her is a brainwashed rube - is not doing anything to further the conservative Republican movement, and further divides us. Our Party is currently in a crisis and we should not be divided. We should be supporting all conservative Republicans (not just Palin) who embody our goals and ideas.

Since you did not do research, I copied below some articles and facts supporting the fact that Palin is a fiscal conservative:

Palin further reduces spending as budget gap grows - February 3, 2009

Quotes from her State of the State Address - January 23, 2009

"At a time when other state legislatures are staring at multi-billion-dollar deficits, and when our federal government proposes a deficit in excess of a trillion dollars this year alone, we have all the cautionary examples we need in the virtues of living within our means. With less revenue, we have an obligation to spend less money."

"Two years ago at this podium, I urged spending restraint. I asked that billions of surplus funds be deposited in state savings. This struck me as a simple precaution against, as I described it, massive single-year cuts down the road, if and when we faced tougher times. You legislators agreed, so we can now meet our challenge in a stronger position."

Palin the Fiscal Conservative Reformer - November 14, 2008 Highlights below:

July 1st, 2007 - Massive line item vetoes (lopping almost a quarter-billion dollars off of a $1.8 billion capital budget).

Dec. 11th, 2007 - Palin's proposed budget slashes earmark requests, and dramatically slows growth of government.

March 23rd, 2008 – More vetoes in the "supplemental budget". Palin also demands that legislators explain their pork projects to her personally before she signs off on any of them. This issue was particularly hilarious because the budget was for "emergency spending" and it included (among other things) the construction of batting cages and gun ranges.

May 24th, 2008 – Second consecutive year of huge line-item vetoes in the state's capital budget (over a quarter-billion dollars this time, 10% of the total capital budget):

Thank you for your time.