Mark Sanford admits affair, Jerry Taylor needs a hug

Mark Sanford admitted today to having an affair with woman from Argentina he's known for eight years as a "dear friend."

The odd events surrounding this admission, and the lies and coverups associated with it have completely and utterly destroyed his chances of running for president in 2012. Handled differently, this could have been a blip on the radar or a minor speed bump.

First there was the report that he was missing and not answering phones or emails. Then there was his wife saying that she didn't know where he was but wasn't concerned. Then his staff said he was hiking in the Appalachian Mountains because he wanted to take a break from the "tough" legislative session that just ended. Then the FBI spotted him in the Atlanta airport boarding a flight to Buenos Aires.

No governor should disappear like that for a week and without anyone able to contact him. No governor should express that a simple legislative session was so tough that he needed to disappear for a week. What would happen if he were president and an enemy threatened war? Would he head to the beach for a week to think about it? So, this was so much more than an affair announcement. Today's announcement was the culmination of some very odd and disturbing events.

This is a huge, huge story for the GOP and our nominee for 2012. There was a large contingent hanging their hats on Sanford. He had a phenomenal fiscal conservative record in South Carolina. He has an engaging personality and could have had mass appeal as a nominee. He embraced the far right and didn't show RINO tendencies. I thought he could be a good VP pick for Palin, his only fallback being that he (nor Palin) didn't have a strong foreign policy record.

I think our friend Jerry Taylor needs a hug today. During my email exchange with him in February, he said that Mark Sanford was his "hero." Poor, poor Jerry Taylor - he always used Sanford as the example for how Palin should be - who will he have to do that now?

OT - Jerry Taylor is annoying

Jerry Taylor has been an antagonistic pesky little troll on The Corner. Today's post really put me over the edge. He told readers not to look at the web ads featured on The Corner's own site - specifically the web ads for Pickens Plan. In his usual condescending, holier-than-thou, better-than-you tone, he said anyone who supports Pickens Plan is drinking kool-aid and needs to seek help.

Wow - way to cut down readers and not foster a discourse on energy policy. Good for you, Jerry Taylor. His post completely undermines the purpose of The Corner, which is to highlight and debate policy issues.

Ignore Those Pickens Ads [Jerry Taylor]

I notice that T. Boone Pickens has sprung for a bunch of ads today at NRO which inveigh upon you all to "Tell Congress You Support the Pickens Plan."

Please don't.

For the short version of the case against Pickens's particular brand of corporate welfare, go here and here. For longer discussions of the issues in play, go here regarding oil imports and national security), here (regarding renewable energy and wind power), and here (regarding what both theory and practice has to say about the alleged problems identified by Pickens and the solutions he proposes for the same).

I know that some conservatives have dipped their cup in Pickens's punch-bowl of policy Kool-Aid. To those of you who have, I have a suggestion — seek analytical help.
04/01 11:25 AM Share

If you remember, he used the same tactic on his hit piece on Sarah Palin, and he's done it numerous times since then on other subjects. On the off chance that his collegues question him - he turns up the aggression even more. He's not a good debator at all.

He has issues with Pickens Plan. I would love to hear them without finger pointing. My guess from reading his bio at CATO is that he's been paid lots of money from Big Oil to write case studies saying "Big Oil is great!" If you look at his bio you'll see the gems he's written. It's probably why he hates Palin so much, because she's doesn't bow down to Big Oil and does what's best for the consumer.

From his tone, he comes off as kind of an extreme Libertarian who doesn't like government involvement in anything - or he's some sort of anarchist who loves chaos and no structure. That would explain telling people not to look at ads for his own site that Pickens Plan paid lots of money for - ads that allow him to use The Corner as a platform. I can't really tell what Jerry Taylor stands for because he just cuts people down all the time without any substantial argument on his part. All I know is I'm sick of him and he's no friend to Republicans or anybody. How he got a gig at CATO is beyond me.

My email exchange with Jerry Taylor

As I posted last week, I emailed Jerry Taylor regarding his Palin smear post on the Corner. He actually responded very quickly, and from there we had a nice little email exchange. I won't post his emails but I'll summarize them.

He actually had real, valid reasons why he doesn't like Palin, and listed them at length for me - which I found refreshing. I found it refreshing because his post on the Corner was like a drive-by hit piece with no purpose except to tarnish Palin's image. In a way, I was glad that he had some reasoning behind his hit.

I told him that I wished he would have put those reasons in his post; it would have made his post credible and opened the floor to a civilized discussion or debate on Palin's validity as the Republican 2012 nominee. Instead, he decided to tear her down with no apparent reason and readers got enraged. I also said that posting a very anti-Republican piece on a Republican news blog was harmful to readers and would cause many to stop reading NRO.

He seems consumed with dislike for Palin so much that he still doesn't see anything wrong with the fundamental aspect of posting an un-researched hit piece about her on the Corner. He can't see past his dislike to actually think about the harm it could do to the Party, and the inherent hypocrisy in criticizing MSM for being un-researched and biased one day, and to do the same thing yourself the next day on your own news site.

I appreciated his responses and he seems like a nice person. But Jerry Taylor is no fan of Palin and if he's still writing for NR in the coming years, we'll have to watch him and take his posts with a grain of salt. We also need to keep an eye on NRO if they still keep guys like him and other RINOs on staff.

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.

National Review - No Support for Palin

Palin bashing, with a dose of elitism thrown in, too. Sounds like a CNN or MSNBC feature on Palin. But wait, this is NRO. Yesterday's late afternoon post by Jerry Taylor at The Corner is classic liberal bashing of Palin. It really sickens me that on NRO, where they're supposed to be supporting conservative Republican politicians, and furthering the Republican agenda, they are attempting to divide Republicans against each other over Palin. They fell for MSM's tactic perfectly. It was always MSM's goal to portray Palin as polarizing and divisive, even though she received mass support from true Republicans and conservatives.

I'm not familiar with Jerry Taylor, but I would like to question his intelligence with this post. He asks what she's done to deserve praise from the Right. Has he been asleep for the past six months? He even quotes an NY Times article. As an aside, why does he say Merle Haggard isn't "cultural?" Doesn't Merle Haggard embody his own type of culture?

I'm going to respond to his question "what has she accomplished?" later.

To their credit, no one at NRO responded to his post - although the day's not yet over. It's not like NRO to openly ridicule Republicans like this (they've done it subtly). I can't remember seeing them do that to anyone, so this surprising to me. I hope this doesn't become part of their standard procedure when it comes to Palin.

Are we ready to divide ourselves again with hard line Republican vs. RINO? I thought we were done with that.

Sarah Palin — The Great Conservative Hope? [Jerry Taylor]

Ramesh, I'm sure you've shown your cards somewhere on this matter, so at the risk of asking an ignorant question, do you think our lady up north is worth conservative embrace? Your post hints that you might. If so, what exactly has she done as governor to warrant this affection? As far as I know, her main accomplishments up there are two-fold. First, she taxed and regulated the oil companies out of virtually all remaining marginal plays in Alaska and then crowed endlessly on the campaign trail about how she faced-down the "special interests." Then, she signed into law a stunning array of renewable energy subsidies that would be the envy of any blue-stater.

Sure, she delivers a great speech (not sure if she can write one though). 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?