Justin Fenner at Styleite needs to buy a clue or two about how women who like Sarah Palin think and act, and about Palin herself.

In a post late Friday afternoon, he asked, “Why Isn’t Sarah Palin Selling More Clothes?” (bolds are mine):

Regardless of what you think about Sarah Palin’s politics, it’s a little difficult to get around the fact that the woman is, at this point, an institution unto herself. She’s written a New York Times Bestseller, her reality show on TLC sometimes gets good ratings, and hardly a day goes by when she doesn’t generate a handful of headlines across multiple mediums. Like it or not, the woman has fans.

So why isn’t she inspiring the same kind of apparel sales as, say, Michelle Obama or Kate Middleton?

We refuse to believe that the answer to that question is that conservative women just don’t like fashion.

… Similarly, it’s not like Palin downplays the importance of her appearance. The $150,000 of RNC money she spent on her campaign wardrobe in 2008 got more press coverage than everything Michelle Obama has worn in the past three months combined. Those outfits couldn’t have gotten more press coverage if the designers themselves had frantically called around to Vogue and T Magazine to let them know Palin would appear bedecked in their garments. And if you find something about her politics objectionable, you can’t really say her penchant for smart suits and clean lines is a bad thing.

Maybe this dedication to appearance is a habit from her days as a beauty queen, but for all the attention her looks have gotten, isn’t it a wonder that the women who admire her didn’t flock to Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue (the stores from which her campaign looks were culled) to buy the same kinds of bracelet sleeve cardigans and blazers she wore into the ground? Shouldn’t the red windbreaker she wore on the cover of Going Rogue have spawned the sale of a million North Face jackets?

For a woman as patently dedicated to fashion as Palin, it’s a big surprise the industry — and her rabid fans — haven’t responded in kind. Even though her book sales are slipping, she’s proved she can sell product as well as she sells herself. So why not clothes?

Fenner is right, at least in terms of female Palin admirers I’ve met, when he eliminates the possibility “that conservative women just don’t like fashion.” But he gets perilously close to implying that he will be proven wrong if they don’t eventually run out and buy the stuff the former Alaska governor wears.

What Fenner totally doesn’t get is that Palin’s popularity has nothing to do with what she wears and everything to do with who she is: a rugged, independent individual, wife, and mom with strong political convictions and a track record. Similarly, he doesn’t understand that Palin has legions of admirers — not “rabid fans” — who would be expected to have similar independent temperaments. These are the last people who would run out and buy something just because “Sarah’s wearing it.”

As to the $150,000 spent on clothing during the campaign, my recall is that she was told by John McCain’s presidential campaign operatives that she needed to spend the money, and that she had little choice in the matter. The spending involved was leaked by supposedly outraged McCain staffers, many of whom “just so happened” to have previously worked with Mitt Romney’s unsuccessful GOP primary campaign. During the week before Election Day 2008, The Prowler at American Spectator laid out what the wardrobe leak and other sniping about Palin was really all about:

ROMNEY ANTI-PALIN

Former Mitt Romney presidential campaign staffers, some of whom are currently working for Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin’s bid for the White House, have been involved in spreading anti-Palin spin to reporters, seeking to diminish her standing after the election. “Sarah Palin is a lightweight, she won’t be the first, not even the third, person people will think of when it comes to 2012,” says one former Romney aide, now working for McCain-Palin. “The only serious candidate ready to challenge to lead the Republican Party is Mitt Romney. He’s in charge on November 5th.”

… Should McCain-Palin not win next week, Romney is expected to mount another presidential run, though it isn’t clear that he has handled himself particularly well since losing the nomination.

… Some former Romney aides were behind the recent leaks to media, including CNN, that Governor Sarah Palin was a “diva” and was going off message intentionally.

An AmSpec commenter noted that “Palin’s wardrobe is being returned to the RNC after the election, where it’ll be auctioned for charity.”

But getting back to Justin Fenner’s question at Mediaite: Besides the Obama economy, which is causing everyone to watch their personal spending carefully, the reason that her largely conservative admirers aren’t running to the stores to buy what she wears is that they’re not a bunch of sheep.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Not that he legitimately deserves our pity, but imagine the difficulty of being Ben Feller at the Associated Press yesterday.

You’ve just attended a suddenly announced joint press conference with President Barack Obama and former president Bill Clinton to announce the latter’s support for the former’s tax- and spending-related legislative proposals worked out with Republicans. You witness the astonishing spectacle of the current Commander In Chief leaving his own presser to be with his wife at a Christmas party, followed by the former CIC acting as if he never left, holding forth on all kinds of things beyond the presser’s original intention.

How do you frame this positively while the rest of the nation — left, far left, and right — gasps in utter amazement?

An excerpt, which only begins to reveal the depth of Feller’s feckless fawning, shows us how (especially over the top phrasing is bolded):

Bill’s Back: Clinton commands stage at White House

No comment? No way. You don’t stop Bill Clinton when he’s back at the White House with something to say.

… What had the West Wing buzzing was the scene itself: Clinton in his element, like he had never left. And almost like he wasn’t going to leave this time.

For one remarkable half hour, Clinton turned a seemingly slow Friday afternoon into his stage.

He tutored in loving detail about economic theory and nuclear disarmament. He was short on time, yet somehow found some for just one more question. He bit on his lip and spread his arms as he spoke and did all those other familiar gestures.

In a town of scripted rollouts and talking points, the way this event unfolded was refreshingly and remarkably impromptu.

… Obama introduced Clinton lightly as “the other guy” and recalled how Clinton has overseen heady economic times. Obama warned that he wouldn’t be staying long – another White House Christmas party was waiting, as was his wife, Michelle.

And so it became clear pretty quickly that this was Clinton’s show.

… “I feel awkward being here, and now you’re going to leave me all by myself,” Clinton said from the stage of the White House briefing room.

… “I have a general rule,” Clinton said, “which is that whatever he asked me about my advice, and whatever I say should become public only if he decides to make it public.” Obama didn’t provide that permission, saying: “I’ve been keeping the First Lady waiting for about half an hour, so I’m going to take off.”

The reader’s only clue that something might be amiss is Feller’s quote of Clinton “feel(ing) awkward” about being left alone to face the press — by the President of the United States, in the White House itself, at a briefing about his (the President’s) desired legislation.

There’s not even the slightest inkling of the intensely negative reactions to Obama’s walk-out from sites all over the political map, all of which appeared well before the story’s 9:19 p.m. time stamp (HT Ed Driscoll at Pajamas Media):

• On the left, at Mediaite — “one of the worst PR moves in the entirety of the administration. … I mean, letting a former president explain your tax bill while you head to a Christmas party? A Christmas party?”
• On the far left, at Time — “Count this among the greatest miscalculations of President Obama’s career: ‘I’m going to let him speak very briefly.’”
• On the right, at numerous sites, including Doug Powers at Michelle Malkin’s site (“Clinton Takes Charge; Obama Takes a Powder”) — “A bigger mistake hasn’t been made since Eddie Fisher agreed to let Elizabeth Taylor share a makeup trailer with Richard Burton …”

No-no-no, not in AP la-la land. It was a “remarkable half hour” full of “loving detail” that was “remarkably impromptu” (a Thesaurus apparently wasn’t available on such short notice).

It should also never be forgotten that Mr. Clinton, the ARIFPOTUS (that would be “Accused Rapist and Impeached Former President of the United States” for those of us who refuse to forget his full, sordid history) would never be in the generally favorable position in which he finds himself without the nine years of relentless defense the AP and so many other establishment media outlets played from the 1992 presidential primaries all the way to his outrageous presidential pardons in January 2001.

Feller’s failures are sadly important, as subscribing AP outlets will largely rely on his narrative in relaying yesterday’s news. His pathetic reporting exemplifies why characterizing the AP as the nation’s primary Democratic- and state-sympathetic media outlet is not at all over the top.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

From Vatican City:

Dec 8, 2010 / 12:43 pm

Pope Benedict said on today’s Feast of the Immaculate Conception that the day honoring Mary should give Christians “comfort” and remind them that God’s mercy “is more powerful than evil.”

On a cloudy morning in St. Peter’s Square, pilgrims came to pray the Angelus with the Pope and to hear his remarks on the significance of the Marian feast day.

Pope Benedict briefly spoke from his study window overlooking the square and recalled that the dogma of the Immaculate Conception – Mary being born without original sin – was proclaimed by Pope Pius IX in 1854. The teaching, he said, is “a source of inner light, of hope and comfort,” in the midst of life’s difficulties.

The reality of sin in the world, he explained, can be traced to disobedience to God’s will, adding that now evil has its root in the human heart, which is “sick and wounded,” and “unable to heal itself.”

But the life of Mary, Mother of Christ, shows us that tells us that God’s mercy is more powerful than evil and that grace is greater than sin, the Pope taught.

Go here for the rest of the story.

BizzyBlog suffered from an attack of some kind overnight which, though not visible to readers, prevented additional posting and site maintenance.

That problems seems to have been resolved, but posting will be light to non-existent for the rest of the day due to competing commitments.

It’s here.

It will go up here at BizzyBlog on Sunday morning (link won’t work until then) after the blackout expires.

From Nashville:

Reunion Shows Inspired by Appearance at CMA Music Festival
November 26, 2010

Naomi and Wynonna Judd, the five-time Grammy-winning mother-daughter duo who dominated the country music charts in the ’80s, are embarking on their Last Encore tour with the first show taking place Friday (Nov. 26) in Green Bay, Wis.

The duo, whose 14 No. 1 singles include “Mama He’s Crazy,” “Why Not Me,” “Grandpa (Tell Me ‘Bout the Good Old Days)” and “Have Mercy,” are again rocking with the rhythm of the road. In fact, what began as an 18-date tour has now been extended into 2011.

But this isn’t the first farewell tour for the Judds. In 1991, following Naomi’s shocking diagnosis with the life-threatening hepatitis C, the two traveled throughout the U.S. in what many thought may be their last tour. Now, nearly 20 years later, Naomi is a fully recovered “medical miracle,” as she likes to call herself, and a best-selling author. Wynonna, who has gone on to become a bona fide superstar in her own right, has topped the charts with hits like “I Saw the Light” and “No One Else on Earth.”

Now, with health and happiness on their sides, the two are ready to once again pound the pavement for another musical journey together.

“Music is the great unifier,” Naomi told CMT.com during a recent interview in Nashville. “People will say, ‘Music makes my hair stand up on end or I get a tingle down my spine.’ Well … that’s real.”

With her porcelain skin, pink dress and coordinating sparkling stilettos (the same ones she wore earlier this year on Oprah), she sat smiling alongside her daughter. Wy, dressed from head to toe in black, was striking with her vibrant red locks dangling down her back. Together, the sassy, yet tenderhearted, duo seemed to feed off each other as they finished one another’s sentences.

“You can go all day and be in a real negative place,” Wynonna said. “And then you can hear that song, and it just changes your whole physical, spiritual and mental ability to have faith almost.”

With all of their previous experience in the spotlight, the Judds are more than familiar with the powerful effects of music. In fact, one of the strongest motivations to return to the stage is a direct result of last year’s CMA Music Festival in Nashville. With 50,000 fans welcoming them onstage at LP Field, singing the words to every Judds song, the two were swept away by that magical June evening. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

In a 12:35 p.m. story at the Associated Press’s main site (pictured here, here, and here for future reference, fair use, and discussion purposes), reporter Jim Fitzgerald covers the conviction of White Plains Mayor Adam Bradley (“Suburban NY mayor convicted of attempted assault”).

At Paragraph 12, Fitzgerald writes:

Westchester District Attorney Janet DiFiore, also a Democrat, praised Fumiko Bradley’s “courage and credibility.” She said Adam Bradley’s position as mayor “demonstrates that we will support victims of domestic violence no matter who the abuser may be.”

There’s only one problem. No one has been specifically identified as a Democrat in the story up to that point, and it’s not at all clear who may or may not be a Democrat:

• It could of course be the convicted Bradley. His name or references to him appear roughly seven times up to that point. But in the first eleven paragraphs, Fitzgerald never refers to Adam Bradley’s political party.
• It could be Bradley’s wife Fumiko, the only person whose name appears in the preceding paragraph.
• It could also be “Acting state Supreme Court Justice Susan Capeci” (Paragraph 9) or Neal Comer, Fumiko Bradley’s divorce lawyer (Paragraph 8).

Fitzgerald finally gets around to tagging Adam Bradley as the Democrat he is in Paragraph 16, likely well past the point where many AP subscribers will cut the story short:

Bradley, 49, was in just his second month as mayor of White Plains, a major office and retail center 22 miles north of Manhattan, when he was arrested in February. The former state assemblyman, a Democrat, had been considered a politician on the rise.

My guess: Previous versions of the story had Bradley’s party identification noted earlier in the story, but then either got removed or a whole sentence or paragraph containing the party ID got demoted to near the story’s end. The just-excerpted paragraph looks like one that might have and might have appeared earlier. If so, it should have stayed there.

Oh, the games the AP plays.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

As QE2 continues, so does the rise in interest rates, first noted here several weeks ago. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

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In July at the Washington Examiner, I suggested that was a lot more to the Shirley Sherrod story than an employee supposedly wronged by her government boss at the Department of Agriculture.

At BigGovernment.com, Andrew Breitbart has opened up the floodgates on the underlying Pigford lawsuit scam. It’s every bit as bad as originally feared, and then some.

I think we know why Ms. Sherrod, after a brief period of posturing, has largely avoided public scrutiny.

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Globaloney just isn’t what it used to be.

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This explains why the tentative tax/unemployment comp deal will, for better or worse, probably get through.

The following capsulizes a compilation done by the ever-vigilant Doug Ross. It’s the best I’ve seen, so I hope he doesn’t mind my very heavy excerpting. The facts presented are not in meaningful dispute.

Iran is placing medium-range missiles on Venezuelan soil according to a November 25, 2010 report in Die Welt.

“The same report asserts that Venezuela will permit Iran to open a military facility staffed with Iranian missile officers and soldiers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Medium-range missiles launched from this base could reach cities in the United States; a likely first-strike scenario involves the detonation of EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) weapons over the continental U.S.”

Western intelligence services say that Iran obtained the sensitive missile guidance and avionics technologies from China, “which reportedly sold the Mullahs the Nasr-1, -2 and other missile technologies. Iran is now mass-producing these missiles.”

Iranian defector and former diplomat Mohammad Reza Heydari and others “report that North Korea has collaborated with Iran on the design of nuclear weapons, including warhead design techniques.”

North Korea “has become increasingly belligerent since it detonated a small fission weapon and demonstrated increasing expertise with missile guidance systems.”

“Where did North Korea get its nuclear- and missile-guidance technologies? Experts point to China, with scientists stating that, ‘[t]here is no possibility of North Korea achieving what nuclear capability it has without Chinese help.’”

But “how did Red China move so quickly to acquire sophisticated missile guidance and other avionic technologies?” Answer: “In 1998 (full timeline here), in an unprecedented repudiation of the wishes of numerous defense and intelligence officials, President William J. Clinton signed a waiver allowing a sophisticated Loral satellite to be launched into orbit by a Chinese rocket.”

Loral would later plead “no contest to a long list of U.S. national security violations, including the unauthorized transfer of missile guidance technology to the Chinese army.”

Loral Chairman Bernard L. Schwartz “was the largest single donor to the entire Democrat Party in 1997.”

Clinton repeatedly met with and entertained other Democrat contributors — several of whom turned out to be operatives of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Exactly what they got for their money remains unknown to the general public.

This is what they got, according to the still mostly classified Cox Report — “The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has stolen design information on the United States’ most advanced thermonuclear weapons.”

“In short, Clinton and the Democrats allowed sensitive technologies to escape to China. Later they rippled from China to rogue terror states like Iran and North Korea. Thus, thanks in large part to the wanton greed and criminality of the Democrat National Committee and Bill Clinton, subsequent generations of Americans will be needlessly exposed to the risk of rogue regimes gaining access to America’s most sensitive nuclear and missile guidance secrets. Evil is on the march–evil aided and abetted by the Clinton administration.”

Treason (“a violation of allegiance to one’s sovereign or to one’s state”) is the most important legacy of the Clinton administration. That fact is also not in meaningful dispute.

Let’s hope that future generations of Americans survive to learn this lesson.

We’ve seen what the Boy President did to us. There is little doubt that our current Punk President and his Gangster Government are capable of similar treachery in the name of political self-preservation. Vigilance is in order.

From San Diego County, California:

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2010 AT 8:22 P.M.

It was a scene straight out of the movies:

Oceanside CHP Officer Salvador Gutierrez braving intense flames and risking his own life to rescue a trapped motorist on fire in a burning vehicle.

For that act of courage, Gutierrez was awarded California’s Gold Medal of Valor on Tuesday.

“It’s definitely the one moment where I felt the best about myself,” said Gutierrez, a 20-year veteran of the force.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger presented the honor to Gutierrez and 37 others as part of his annual salute to state workers, from firefighters to road crews, for bravery.

These employees, Schwarzenegger praised, “have all demonstrated extraordinary courage and risked their safety, and even their lives, without hesitation to save another.”

Adam Ricketts of Carlsbad also received an honor, the Medal of Valor. He was part of a three-member Cal Fire helicopter crew battling hot spots during a rapidly growing brush fire in Riverside County in mid-September 2009.

During the firefight, they found an 84-year-old woman in her home surrounded by flames. The crew covered her with blankets to shield her from the fire and led her through blinding smoke to safety. Ricketts was traveling and did not attend the ceremony. He could not be reached for comment.

Gutierrez, who took the stage as his wife and parents watched, said it was “with a lot of joy” that he knew he had saved someone’s life. “I love the career I chose,” he added.

Gutierrez and his partner, Patrick Holt, were responding to an accident call in the early morning hours of Sept. 11, 2009, along Interstate 5 north of the Santa Margarita River bed near Camp Pendleton.

“The SUV was smoking,” Gutierrez recalled. While Holt dashed to the trunk of the cruiser for the fire extinguisher, Gutierrez noticed a man’s hand dangling from the driver’s door just as the vehicle became fully engulfed. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

We can thank so-called “progressives,” the architects of the welfare state going back to the New Deal, and the “free trade” uber alles crowd (really government-managed almost everywhere but here) for doing most of the heavy lifting through previous decades to make this happen, as well as the creators of the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy for applying the finishing touches:

Americans no longer think the U.S. economy is No. 1, a new Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll shows.

Let’s be clear: Much and probably even most international trade has been good for our economy, and the economies of other countries. But there’s no avoiding the fact that much of it hasn’t been good for us, and has benefited countries who in some cases not only don’t share our values, but are also still hostile to them — and us. That would include the country which has replaced us as “No. 1″ in Americans’ minds.

Sensible, Tea Party values conservatives badly need to figure out a non-statist-driven way to solve this.

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They commit figurative crimes against journalism everyday, but this is more serious:

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said The New York Times may have committed a crime by publishing classified documents provided by WikiLeaks, and called for the Justice Department to investigate.

FWIW, I think Lieberman is wrong, as the info was already out there, and the Times is merely acting as a copy distributor.

But in bringing up the issue, Lieberman, though he may not realize it, is tacitly asserting that there is a stronger case against the Times for what it did several years ago when it disclosed — despite pleas from the Bush administration — what had previously been “an effective law-enforcement tool against terror” in tracking terrorists’ financial activities.

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Let’s hope that the GOP House and the general public don’t, uh, let go of this issue.

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At the Hill’s Hillicon Valley blog:

… a proposal (was) made last week by FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, who in a speech suggested that broadcasters be subject to a new “public values test” every four years.

Gee, what might the “public values of the eponymously named wannabe broadcast cop Mr. Copps be?

Investors Business Daily has this guy perfectly pegged:

A Tyrant’s Thinking

A member of the Federal Communications Commission appears to want Washington in control of broadcast news. What a shame that people with such ideas are placed in positions of power.

… We’ve been frustrated, as well, by networks that keep framing the issue — by 6-to-1, according to the Media Research Council — as a debate about “tax cuts for the rich” rather than a simple continuation of current rates.

And we’re still dismayed by the media’s refusal to look into Barack Obama’s thin background during the 2008 presidential campaign, while digging up everything they could on Sarah Palin to portray her as an inexperienced ditz.

But there’s another difference between us and Copps: We’re not willing to use the police power of the state to force the outcome we prefer.

… According to the Hill newspaper, Copps would issue licenses only when broadcasters:

“Prove they have made a meaningful commitment to public affairs and news programming, prove they are committed to diversity programming, report more to the government about which shows they plan to air, require greater disclosure about who funds political ads and devote 25% of their prime-time coverage to local news.”

Who is Copps to make such demands? And why does a man who thinks like a tyrant hold such a high-ranking position in the U.S. government?

The answer to IBD’s question is that “a man who thinks like a tyrant” is in the Oval Office.

From Madrid:

Dec 6, 2010 / 06:02 pm

Spanish recording artist and reality show winner Miriam Fernandez was born with cerebral palsy and uses a walker to get from place to place. At the age of 20, she is using her talents to defend life and communicate a message of faith. “God doesn’t give us anything that we can’t handle,” she says.

Fernandez spoke with the Spanish daily, La Razon on Nov. 30 and revealed the source of her amazing strength. “In my life, I have gone through tough things, such as the deaths of my father and my brother. There were times when I asked God ‘why?’ But after all the times of darkness I have always seen a light, I always see that they serve some purpose, and that God doesn’t give us anything we can’t handle,” she said.

Two years after winning a Spanish reality show, Miriam was finally able to fulfill her life-long dream of recording a CD, “Bailando bajo la lluvia” (Dancing Under the Rain). “We all have gifts with which we can serve others,” she said. “On my CD I sing, ‘There is always something better on the horizon.’ There are times when I say, ‘God, I put this matter into your hands,’ and that gives me strength. God is there, and he doesn’t will evil for anyone. In our society and in our times we need to keep believing,” the singer stated.

Miriam is Catholic and is proud of the education she received in Catholic schools. She was raised in a large family that supported her in every sense. “The doctors said that I would not be able to walk at age 15, that I would only be able to crawl, but today I walk with the help of a walker,” she said. Fernandez offered thanks to her biological mother for defending her life.

Her mother ignored those who suggested she undergo an abortion, and instead put her daughter up for adoption. …

Go here for the rest of the story.