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While discussing the success of Sarah Palin's book Mike Murphy echoes David Brooks with his statement that "the noisiest parts of kind of the conservative media machine have far less influence than the mainstream media machine that covers the Republican world thinks they do". Murphy needs to tell that to those sour-grapes Palin voters hitting those tea bag protests across the country. I also wonder if he thinks there's a difference between the "conservative media machine" and Fox News?

Rachel Maddow rightly points out they're not going to be able to dismiss Palin that easily and need to answer for the brand of conservatism that has elevated her to the position she has in the party, 2012 nominee or not.

MURPHY: No, she will sell a lot. I'm, I'm going to buy it. I'm going to wait for it to get spell-checked, but then I'm going to buy it.

GREGORY: Right. And she's number--I should point out, I mean, number one on the best-seller list for Amazon.

MURPHY: Yeah. No, no, look, she has a constituency. She'll never be the nominee, I totally agree with David. I agree with Steve Schmidt, it would be actually a disaster if she was the nominee. I do wish my friend Steve felt that a year ago when a lot of people were asking John McCain to put her on the ticket. But the truth is--and I'm going to agree with David here, too--the noisiest parts of kind of the conservative media machine have far less influence than the mainstream media machine that covers the Republican world thinks they do. These radio guys can't deliver a pizza, let alone a nomination. And you can case study that out in the last election. So I--the question is whether or not our party will learn, when we have a pretty good midterm victory due to Obama's mistakes this time, that turning up the volume is not the reason that we're going to do well, I believe, in the midterms. And the fact is to get all the way, there are a lot of things we have to do to modernize conservatism to be successful.

MADDOW: I, I do think that there's a little bit of reckoning that needs to happen on the right for Sarah Palin's success. I mean, she was the vice presidential nominee, she is going to sell a kazillion books and she is the biggest brand name in Republican politics still right now. And she's chose--the person who's writing her book, her last--the last person who she co-authored a book with was called "Donkey Cons" and it was co-authored with a guy who's widely believed to be and I believe him to be a white supremacist. So she's chosen Lynn Vincent, who's written a book with a white supremacist, to write her book, and she's the biggest name in Republican politics.

MURPHY: Oh, but, Rachel...

MADDOW: And you can dismiss her and say she's not going to be the nominee, but I do think the right needs to sort of answer for what's happened to conservatism.

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From State of the Union, Mary Matalin is asked to respond to Steve Schmidt's comment that Sarah Palin getting the 2012 presidential nomination the GOP could have a "catastrophic election result". I think Matalin knows full well Schmidt is right and doesn't want to admit that this nightmare McCain has inflicted on us would be a disaster for them if she is nominated.

KING: All right. Quick raw politics, before we run out of time. I was asked to moderate a panel the other day at an Atlantic magazine, with the first draft of history conference, they called it. And your old friend, Steve Schmitt was there. He ran the McCain campaign. He worked for Vice President Cheney back in the Bush days.

And I asked him about Sarah Palin's book. As you know, it's -- "Going Rogue" is the title of her book. It's coming out pretty soon. It's already a best-seller, even though you can't buy it yet. And I said, you know, "Steve, how are you going to play out in that book?" Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KING: When we do the index read, the Washington read, and we look up Steve Schmitt, what are we going to find in the book about Steve Schmitt?

STEVE SCHMITT, FORMER MCCAIN CAMPAIGN MANAGER: I think it may say that I was anti-rogue in the -- in the running of the campaign.

I think that she has talents, but, you know, my honest view is that she would not be a winning candidate for the Republican Party in 2012, and in fact, were she to be the nominee, we could have a catastrophic election result.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Do you agree with that, Mary?

MATALIN: All right. Steve, the Bullet, is a man of many talents, and he -- no one would ever call him the anti-rogue. He is a rogue.

This focus on Sarah Palin is one of these beltway obsessions.

KING: But is he right? Is he right?

MATALIN: Well, she's not going to -- we don't even know if she's running. Focusing on 2012.

Here's what Sarah Palin has become: an iconic expression for people, particularly maligned moms, who feel like they're not listened to, who feel like they're attacked when they express themselves. No one is -- including Steve, who's a friend of both of ours, that she has been pilloried beyond anything that is acceptable in politics.

But to focus on 2012 is irrelevant to what she represents today, which will have an impact on the midterms, which is she's dissed for being an expressive and conservative woman.

CARVILLE: Well, disclosure here. Sergeant Schmitt, who outranks Corporal Carville but not General Jones, came and -- came to Tulane and talked to my students about many of these things. And I would say his comments were slightly more reserved to you than they were in the classroom.

But there's a reason that Sarah Palin is getting all this attention. She's got a book coming out, which is selling, by the way, to be fair to Sarah Palin, it's selling like crazy. She keeps interjecting herself in the national dialogue. She gives a speech in Hong Kong. And yes, people -- and there are a lot of people out there that frankly think that she's -- to put it mildly, not up to the job.

(image courtesy of bjkeefe)

The right is collectively imploding over Sarah Palin's resignation, and as with any sort of passing there comes a period of grieving. Two major stages in that process are denial and anger, and the always-classy Erick Erickson of RedState is already showing signs of both:

1. Sarah Palin resigned, I think, to spare her family from more attacks. I don’t think it is a coincidence that Sarah Palin is doing this just days after a very nasty Vanity Fair article where folks like Nicolle Wallace and, according to Bill Kristol, McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt (though I’m told Schmidt is not involved), savaged her.

2. Unfortunately, by resigning, I think the left and national media will be emboldened to ritualistically engage in the metaphorical gang raping of conservative politicians, particularly those who are female and have children. They’ll decide savaging Palin’s family drove her from office, so the sky’s the limit on the next conservative with kids.

Finally, Erickson goes flat out delusional, comparing Palin's resignation to Obi Wan Kenobi taking one for the team and sacrificing it all to fight the dark side:

4. I’ve had this running thought all day, perhaps because I was watching it on TV in HD for the first time, that this is kind of like Ben Kenobi letting Darth Vader strike him down. Palin is not going to run in 2012, but by doing this she can now become Barack Obama’s worst nightmare, and help rebuild the opposition to Obama. How? Because were she to remain a 2012 contender, she’d keep having stories by anonymous McCain campaign staffers and other 2012 contenders going after her and her family. Take that ambition off the table and it neutralizes a lot of that. So she can focus on candidates and ideas without an ulterior motive focused on 2012.
Read on...

Really? Erick, you know this wasn't about her children. She used them as political props all through the '08 campaign and continued to do it till the bitter end. And in the end, it was her ineptitude and ethical shortcomings that did her in. Perhaps the enduring lesson from this tragic political tale with be that going forward, politicians of all stripes should think twice about exploiting their children for political gain.

Is there an indictment coming for Palin? That remains to be seen, but one thing seems certain -- Sarah Palin is now toxic. She walked away from the people of her state when the going got tough and has shed any remaining crumbs of credibility she may have had left.

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My first week on the job here at Crooks and Liars, I went on CNN Newsroom with Rick Sanchez to talk about an investigative piece co-written with Max Blumenthal about Sarah Palin's longtime dalliances with Alaska's far-right elements, particularly the secessionist Alaska Independence Party.

At the time, the McCain campaign blew us off publicly. And unfortunately, none of our colleagues in other media settings picked up on the story and asked further questions about the issues it raised -- particularly at a time when the McCain campaign was busy accusing Barack Obama of "palling around" with "terrorists" and extremists.

Now, it turns out that my short appearance on TV threw Sarah Palin into a tizzy and provoked a quarrel with Steve Schmidt of the McCain campaign. This from a CBS story by Scott Conroy and Shushannah Walshe:

Internal campaign e-mails exchanged three weeks before Election Day offer a rare look at just how frustrated then Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin had become with the manner in which top McCain campaign aides were handling her candidacy. The e-mails, obtained exclusively, also highlight the power struggle and thinly veiled acrimony that pervaded the relationship between Palin and the campaign's chief strategist, Steve Schmidt.

The episode in question began when an investigative report published on the left-leaning Web site Salon.com raised questions about Palin's relationship with members of the Alaska Independence Party (AIP) when she was mayor of Wasilla. The AIP's platform calls for a vote giving Alaskans the option to secede from the United States. It had already been widely known that Todd Palin was a registered member of the AIP from 1995 to 2002 and that Governor Palin had taped a recorded greeting at the party's 2008 convention.

On the morning of Oct. 15, Palin was aboard her campaign jet and en route to New Hampshire when she happened to catch a disparaging CNN segment that touted the Salon.com story, complete with a provocative graphic at the bottom of the screen reading, "THE PALINS AND THE FRINGE."

While shaking hands after a rally later that afternoon, someone on the rope line shouted a remark at Palin about the AIP.

The comment set her off. She worried that the campaign was not sufficiently mitigating the issue of her alleged connection to the party, which despite a platform that harkens more to the Civil War than the 21st century, continued to play a serious role in Alaska politics.

Palin blasted out an e-mail with the subject line "Todd" to Schmidt, campaign manager Rick Davis and senior advisor Nicolle Wallace, copying her husband on the message (all of the e-mails are reprinted below as written).

"Pls get in front of that ridiculous issue that's cropped up all day today - two reporters, a protestor's sign, and many shout-outs all claiming Todd's involvement in an anti-American political party," Palin wrote. "It's bull, and I don't want to have to keep reacting to it ... Pls have statement given on this so it's put to bed."

Schmidt hit "reply to all" less than five minutes after Palin's e-mail was sent. "Ignore it," he wrote. "He was a member of the aip? My understanding is yes. That is part of their platform. Do not engage the protestors. If a reporter asks say it is ridiculous. Todd loves america."

This clear cut response from the campaign's top dog carried an air of finality, but it did not satisfy Palin. She responded with another e-mail, adding five more names to the "cc" box, all of whom traveled on her campaign plane. They included her senior political adviser Tucker Eskew, senior aide Jason Recher, the lone traveling aide from her Alaska office Kris Perry, press secretary Tracey Schmitt and personal assistant Bexie Nobles.

Palin's insertion of the five additional staffers in the e-mail chain was an apparent attempt to rally her own troops in the face of a decision from the commanding general with which she disagreed. Her inclusion of her personal assistant was particularly telling about her quest for affirmation and support in numbers, since the young staffer was not in a position to have any input on campaign strategy.

"That's not part of their platform and he was only a 'member' bc independent alaskans too often check that 'Alaska Independent' box on voter registrations thinking it just means non partisan," Palin wrote. "He caught his error when changing our address and checked the right box. I still want it fixed."

Now, the problem with this response is that it's just factually false. Palin's connections with the AIP ran much, much deeper than Todd's paper affiliation. As we explained in the Salon story:

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Stealers Wheel - Stuck In The Middle With You

If it's Sunday, it's Republican spin day on the news shows. Holy deity of your choice, is this a gruesome line-up or what? Almost like we didn't have an election in November. On what Planet Bizarro do we live that Liz Cheney and former McCain campaign advisor Steve Schmidt have anything constructive to add to the national dialogue? Could someone tell the people at This Week that it might be nice to not have to look at these losers over and over? And could we get any less balance to discuss President Obama's commencement address at Notre Dame University than have the Notre Dame Professor of Theology and a Notre Dame Right-to-Life student on FoxNews Sunday and State of the Union respectively? Nevermind that David Gregory's ratings are in the toilet, the main event: DNC chair Tim Kaine vs. RNC chair Michael Steele on Meet the Press. Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right...

ABC's "This Week" - Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Jim Webb, D-Va.; Republican strategist Liz Cheney, daughter to former Vice President Dick Cheney; Steve Schmidt, adviser to John McCain for the 2008 presidential election.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union; Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, Democratic National Committee chairman; Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Savannah Guthrie, Howard Fineman, Andrew Sullivan, Michele Norris. Topics: Why has Dick Cheney become so vocal against President Obama's policies? In the Supreme Court pick, is it more important for President Obama to make [sic]. Meter Questions: Has Dick Cheney influenced President Obama's national security policy decisions? YES: 4 NO: 8; Can Obama keep Pakistan's government in power? YES: 2 No: 10

CNN's "State of the Union" - White House Budget Director Peter Orszag; Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio; Emily Toates, student at Notre Dame and member of "Right to Life" group.

CNN's "Reliable Sources" - Hollywood edition with Mariel Hemingway and Barry Levinson.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - An exclusive interview with former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. If Pakistan and Afghanistan are the biggest global stories of the moment (and they are), the man who can shed the most light on them is surely Pervez Musharraf - the man who resigned from power in Pakistan just nine months ago

"Fox News Sunday" - Rev. Richard McBrien, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame; Rev. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life; Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Sigh. So what's catching your eye this morning?

Yes, it's true: the Republican Party is leaderless except for Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney which hasn't worked out very well as new polling shows that Americans are turning away from the GOP in droves.

The new Washington Post/ABC news poll has all sorts of intriguing numbers in it but when you are looking for clues as to where the two parties stand politically there is only one number to remember: 21.

That's the percent of people in the Post/ABC survey who identified themselves as Republicans, down from 25 percent in a late March poll and at the lowest ebb in this poll since the fall of 1983(!).

In that same poll, 35 percent self-identified as Democrats and 38 percent called them Independents.

These numbers come on the heels of Steve Schmidt, former campaign manager for Arizona Sen. John McCain's presidential bid, declaring the Republican party a "shrinking entity" last week -- citing the decline of GOP numbers in the west, northeast and mountain west as evidence.

I spit up my coffee when I heard one of those Republican strategists tell a host on MSNBC that the GOP was getting ready to embrace civil unions for gays. Yeah, right. The religious right would immediately leave the GOP if that happens. And they are the largest bloc of voters they have at this point.

Download | play    Download | play   (h/t Heather)

We've shown before that since his naming as Tim Russert's interim replacement how completely one-sided Tom Brokaw has been in terms of Republican framing.   But this truly takes the cake.  After letting McCain spokesman (and Official WATB) Steve Schmidt let loose with a bunch of lies (more on that later) against Obama that campaign manager David Axelrod easily shows for the crap it is, Tom Brokaw in the interest of fairness cites an NBC/WSJ poll that says that more Americans think McCain is "best equipped" to be Commander in Chief.

AXELROD: What has happened is, as Sen. Obama predicted from the beginning, that we got distracted in Iraq and now Osama bin Laden, who is the person who attacked the United States, killed 3,000 American citizens is now resurgent. He is stronger and that is the result of the misbegotten decisions of John McCain and he stubbornly wants to continue, even as the Iraqis won't take responsibility, sitting on $79 billion of their own surplus, while we spend $10 billion a month. It doesn't make sense. We can't take more of the same, Steve.

BROKAW: In fairness to everybody here, I'm just going to end on one note and that is that we continue to poll on who is best equipped to be Commander in Chief, John McCain continues to lead in that category, despite the criticism from Barack Obama by a factor of 53 to 42 percent in our latest NBC/WSJ poll.

See, here's the problem, Tom.  I have the latest NBC/WSJ poll (.pdf) taken September 19-22.  Guess what?  THOSE NUMBERS AREN'T IN THERE.  Pulled out of thin air, or an orifice of your choice.  In fact, in the MSNBC.com political coverage of this poll, the headline read: Obama Up 2 in NBC/WSJ Poll.  So where exactly are these numbers, Tom?  If you go to Gallup, the lead is even stronger (50 to 42%), which is pretty close to the numbers you attributed to McCain.

So Tom Brokaw -- in the interest of fairness to whom exactly, I'm unclear, since he is deliberately MISinforming the public -- tries to mitigate Axelrod's deft defense of Obama's judgment by lying and saying that most people believe McCain is still better equipped to be Commander in Chief. You can leave a comment at the Meet The Press Comment Form on Brokaw's campaigning on behalf of McCain.

And by the way, Schmidt's assertion that McCain called for Rumsfeld's resignation?  Big fat, stinking lie.  From the Obama campaign: 

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  John McCain is nothing like George W. Bush. He just has the same people running his campaign. Nothing wrong with that.

Politico:

Steve Schmidt is taking over the day-to-day operation of John McCain’s campaign, according to multiple campaign sources.

McCain sources say Schmidt, who ran Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's reelection campaign and was a top communications aide in Bush-Cheney '04, will coordinate the campaign's daily pro-McCain and anti-Obama message but also will have an increased role in shaping most every facet of the organization including scheduling, policy, coalitions and surrogates.

So McSame moves from a lobbyist with Charlie Black to one of Dick Cheney's team--from K Street to Dirty Tricks.  Nice move.  Remember, this isn't the first major shakeup of the McCain campaign team. We'll just have to wait and see how this plays out for him.