Punching Up Vs. Punching Down

There's a reason why boxers say you should always punch up to the next higher weight class and never punch down. By taking on fighters in a higher weight class, you enhance your own reputation. When you take on fighters in a lower weight class, you elevate them to your level and inevitably diminish your own reputation in the process.

So it makes perfect sense that Sarah Palin would take on Barack Obama in her keynote speech at the Tea Party Nation confab in Nashville. What makes absolutely ZERO sense is why Obama would respond.

Today, Robert Gibbs showed up for his daily presser with a nonsensical grocery list scribbled on his hand in a juvenile attempt to mock Palin's crib notes from Saturday night. While that might be giggle-worthy to the frat boys currently running the White House so long as they're outside the view of the public, taking it out in the full view of the public shows a public already anxious over their jobs, their homes and the direction their country is taking that you're simply not taking your job seriously.

(And you also open yourself up to even greater ridicule than you directed at Palin. Smart. Real smart.)

Aside from making it obvious just how much attention that Obama is paying to Palin despite his many protestations to the contrary, it actually necessitates that even greater media attention be paid to the next appearance that Palin makes. After all, if the President is going to respond to what she said the night before, then the media needs to be there with her to find out what she said in the first place.

Like it or not, Obama has raised Palin to his equal. While he is forced, at least in some measure, to respond to the events of the day; she can pick her spots to speak or not speak. It's a fight that he simply can't win.

He can't realistically go on the offensive against a private citizen without risking a backlash. He's like a boxer with his hands tied to his sides while his opponent freely delivers jabs and body blows without fear of reprisal. So why would a supposedly brilliant president and well-run White House operation make such a serious strategic mistake?

It's because "The Chicago Boyz" are still playing small ball because it's the only game they know. They still haven't grasped the magnitude of the office yet, and perhaps they never will.

They could easily have dismissed Palin as an also-ran and her message as one already refused by the American people, and to a large degree much of the wind could have and would have gone out of her sails.

But they can't help themselves, and they - along with their media lackeys - hang on her every move. Their very attention magnifies the impact of her every pronouncement, thereby creating a de facto Shadow Presidency for Palin with their thin-skinned and churlish responses.

More than a year after Obama thought he had delivered a TKO to her political career, he's doing his very best to help her put his presidency on the ropes. And they still think that Palin is the dumb one?

What TEA Partiers and Sarah Palin Have In Common

Republicans were sensing momentum earlier in the summer, but events of
the August recess -- specifically, the town hall meetings in which
opponents of the Democratic health care reform plan have turned out in
force -- have changed their view. "This month has opened our eyes,"
says one plugged-in House aide. "We're seeing real people who are fired
up who weren't engaged before -- the first time we've had a popular
movement that could really benefit us electorally."

That's the take this morning from Republican House members talking about their prospects in the upcoming 2010 elections. Both Democratic and Republican insiders are talking about the effect of the TEA Party movement, and there's widespread agreement that it's generally bad news for congressional Democrats.

"I think what's going to happen is Obama's going to be fine, and the
Democrats in Congress are going to get their asses kicked in 2010,"
says one Democratic strategist who prefers not to be named.

It's only the middle of August and the TEA Party movement is already making itself felt deep inside the halls of Congress. That's why you're seeing people like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi ratcheting up their rhetoric against the grassroots who are spontaneously rising up across the country. They're genuinely scared. (They're whistling past the graveyard with regard to the potential impact on Obama, but that's a discussion for another day.)

In mid-term elections, the president's party generally loses seats in Congress as there is generally some pushback against the agenda of an incoming president - no matter what his party is. But this year has been exceptional in that conservatives have taken to the streets, a virtually unheard of phenomenon, early and loudly within months of him taking office. Reid and Pelosi may publicly be dismissing TEA Partiers as "rent-a-mobs" carrying swastikas who only show up at the behest of insurance companies, but privately they understand its true grassroots nature.

This is the second time in less than a year that genuine grassroots enthusiasm from the other side of the aisle has thrown Democrats for a loop, and they are returning to the only thing they really understand: demonizing the opposition. The first instance was the vice presidential nomination of Sarah Palin, and I don't think I need to remind anyone how the Left continues to hound her even today. The fire she lit under the conservative base briefly pushed McCain over Obama in the polls and struck fear into the hearts of Democrats. So they responded with the most vicious smearing of a politician in recent memory, with the active assistance of the mainstream media which has since admitted that they took sides against her.

Even in the last few days, Palin has had an impact on the ObamaCare discussion by forcing the Senate to drop the end-of-life counseling from its version. A recent headline proclaimed that "Sarah Palin Defines the Health Care Debate." When was the last time that the vice presidential candidate on a losing ticket was able to make her voice heard a year later with nothing more than writing a few paragraphs on her Facebook account?

TEA Partiers should look forward to more hate-filled diatribes to be directed their way from both Democratic officeholders and the mainstream media. Like Palin, they will be dismissed as stupid and ill-informed. They will be accused of being tools of nefarious corporate interests and hating poor people. Can you remember an effective opponent of Leftist ideology who they didn't say these exact same things about? There hasn't been an original thought in the Leftist playbook for decades: they go after all their opponents the same way.

But TEA Partiers should take every sling and arrow which is thrown at them with pride. They should recognize that the greater the insults being hurled at them, the closer they are to the mark. There's another saying from the bomber corps that TEA Partiers should keep in mind:

You only take flak when you're over the target.

Sarah Palin, TEA Parties, Democrats, Leftists, 2010 Elections, Congress, Nancy Pelosi