{"id":1311,"date":"2009-11-17T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-17T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/11\/17\/sarah-palin-and-the-rwic-revisited\/"},"modified":"2009-11-17T07:30:00","modified_gmt":"2009-11-17T11:30:00","slug":"sarah-palin-and-the-rwic-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/11\/17\/sarah-palin-and-the-rwic-revisited\/","title":{"rendered":"Sarah Palin and the RWIC revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bob Schieffer’s review of Sarah Palin’s new book<\/a> is perhaps the most damning yet: It is, he’s convinced, just not serious:<\/p>\n

“I think she’s going to sell a lot of books,” the ABC news icon said. “I think she’ll be a great attraction as an amusement…but I can’t imagine she has much future in politics.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Palin’s peculiar odyssey is a good reason to drag out my conviction that the RWIC — the Right-Wing Industrial Complex — is helping to destroy the Republican Party.<\/p>\n

Put simply, it’s far more lucrative and rewarding to be an ideologue or a pundit than a public servant. <\/p>\n

Toe the line and there are book deals, TV appearances, lecture circuits, think-tank gigs and consulting jobs.<\/p>\n

But conservatives who stray from orthodoxy are essentially banished from the RWIC. In an era when government jobs for Republicans are scarce, that can be a fate worse than death. <\/p>\n

So rather than make the kind of messy, complex decisions required by government service, Palin quit her day job as government of Alaska. <\/p>\n

She chose purity over pragmatism. She chose the ka-ching of the book deal over the drudgery of helping a state navigate a devastating recession.<\/p>\n

And for Palin it’s paying off big-time.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, many of the conservatives with the highest name recognition have made similar choices. <\/p>\n

Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, is so happy as a talk-show host<\/a> that he’s ambivalent about running for president.<\/p>\n

(Huckabee is also out on the road currently hawking a new Christmas book…)<\/p>\n

The other dominant conservative voices — Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh — began their careers as entertainers and radio jocks, not politicians.<\/p>\n

They have no interest in dirtying their hands with the actual business of running a democracy.<\/p>\n

And the Republicans who actually get down in the trenches and try to make the government better? <\/p>\n

You know, people like Charlie Crist, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dede Scozzafava, Lindsey Graham, John McCain…<\/p>\n

They’re vilified. Banished from the RWIC. Fundraising dries up. The doors to the lecture circuit close. <\/p>\n

Even poor Newt Gingrich — an architect of the RWIC — was forced to apologize and humble himself after sticking to his endorsement of Scozzafava in NY-23.<\/p>\n

After all, you can’t anger your customers. There are books and newsletters and DVDs to be sold. (Go here for Newt’s “Civil War bundle”.<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bob Schieffer’s review of Sarah Palin’s new book is perhaps the most damning yet: It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1311"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1311\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}