Palin

On weekday mornings, I'll post the most controversial, shocking and (of course) ridiculous stories for your reading pleasure. That way, when you walk into work, you'll be the master of witty conversation. • Well, I guess it's nice to have a dream:  Palin tells Newsweek, "I can win. " ( Newsweek )  • Treating her like the frontrunner: Pawlenty lashes out at Bachmann. ( Mediaite )  • It keeps getting worse:  News of the World ¿ ¿ tried to hack 9/11 victims' phones.

In stepping down last week as a speaker at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine commencement, Dr. Ben Carson again took on the role of media/culture critic and martyr to "political correctness. " "Someday in the future, it is my hope and prayer that the emphasis on political correctness will decrease and we will start emphasizing rational discussion of differences so we can actually resolve problems and chart a course that is inclusive of everyone," he wrote to Hopkins Medicine Dean and CEO Dr. Paul B. Rothman.

Claiming "I know my American history," Sarah Palin on Sunday defended her claim that Paul Revere's ride was intended to warn the British they weren't going to take American arms.  At a stop in New England on her bus tour of the United States, Palin made the following statement about Paul Revere's historic ride:  “He who warned the British that they weren't going to be taking away our arms by ringing those bells and by making sure...

President Barack Obama wants to invest an initial $110 billion in a study of the human brain that could have benefits as great as those achieved by the Human Genome Project. Maybe the first study should be done on the one-track minds of tea party Republicans who will undoubtedly oppose funding for the study because their brains are fixated on the single idea that government can do nothing right. After that, researchers could move on to figuring out Sarah Palin's brain. Perhaps they could answer this question: How can a person with so little knowledge and so little interest in acquiring knowledge imagine she has what it takes to be president of the United States?

WASHINGTON - Across Shannon McGinley's hometown of Bedford, N.H., this fall, women were talking about politics. At school gatherings and Bible study groups, women who had never followed political affairs suddenly were talking about a woman like them - a conservative mother trying to balance family and career. It started when the Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, selected Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for his running mate. Now, more than a month since the political spotlight has turned away from the failed GOP ticket, some of those whom Palin attracted to the political arena are seeking ways to keep a conversation going.

ABC anchorman Charles Gibson held his steely focus and kept Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin off balance through the final two parts of their highly anticipated three-part interview. In a Thursday conversation shown on Nightline, he pressed her about a shift in her position on global warning. Tonight on ABC World News, he vigorously quizzed her on a change in her stand on earmarks and a pork barrel project known as "The Bridge to Nowhere." Typical of the kinds of tough statements of context that preceded Gibson's questions: "But you turned against it [the bridge]

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is in the news again, comparing her rough treatment by the news media with the "kid gloves" treatment of Senate hopeful Caroline Kennedy and suggesting that a kind of class prejudice explains the difference. I am not sure what passes for kid gloves in Alaska, but the thinness of Kennedy's resume has been noted repeatedly, and there is a YouTube mash-up of her using the verbal crutch "you know" 46 times in a five-minute interview. No experience and garbles the language.

NEW YORK - Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska met her first foreign head of state yesterday as she crisscrossed New York City receiving foreign policy tutorials in advance of her vice presidential debate next week with Sen. Joe Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Palin - who scheduled a series of meetings with world leaders who were in town for the U.N. General Assembly - sat down first with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, who told her of the need for more troops in his country and bonded with her over his baby son, Mirwais.

Sarah Palin, unfiltered, more than held her own on the national debate stage last night. She was folksy and charming and delivered her lines, even the stock ones, with conviction and brio. On style and charm and connecting with viewers at home, the newcomer seemed to have it all over Joe Biden, the veteran pol who dared to be boring at the outset and took quite a while to warm up. Palin locked into the camera lens from the start and never let go, wriggling her nose to take the edge off her sharpest lines.

Sarah Palin chose a slow news day before a holiday to shake up the political world, saying she will step down as governor of Alaska but leaving open the question of her political future. "We've got to put first things first. I love my job, and I love Alaska. I am doing what's best for Alaska," Palin said Friday at a televised news conference in her hometown of Wasilla. Palin said she hoped people would not be disappointed by the decision, which she said she had contemplated for some time.

Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson will speak at a prominent conservative political rally next month, alongside the likes of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan, the American Conservative Union said Wednesday. Carson "represents the optimism and hope of the future of the conservative moment," union Chairman Al Cardenas said in a statement announcing Carson's invitation. Carson will be among more than two dozen speakers at the 40th annual Conservative Political Action Conference, to be held March 14-16 at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Prince George's County.

The joint appearance by President Obama and Hillary Clinton on “60 Minutes” wasn't about the Democratic nomination in 2016, as some analysts have insisted this weekend. Watching the actual interview Sunday night, I am certain it was about something both much more immediate and long lasting. It was President Obama using TV - and the folks at "60 Minutes" happily allowing themselves to be used - to write the first draft of history on Clinton's performance as secretary of state.

Call it another pitiful ending for Sarah Palin. In what looks like a Friday afternoon leak-dump, RealClearPolitics first reported that Fox News had not renewed Palin's contract to be an analyst. That report was based on an unnamed source. Brian Stelter, of the New York Times, later confirmed it on Twitter. And so ends most of what's left of Palin's fling with fame since 2008, when she was named the GOP vice presidential candidate in a craven act John McCain should never be able to fully live down.

I agree with your reader from Cockeysville that op-ed contributor Charlotte Allen's piece on Sarah Palin's 2016 presidential prospects was hilarious ("Palin for president? Very funny," Nov. 28). It was almost as funny as the list of President Obama's qualifications to be commander in chief. Missed that list? Yeah, I didn't see it either. Probably because he has no qualifications to run this country. David Haubner, Parkville

I notice how positive articles about Sarah Palin seem to really get her critics stirring ("Palin for president? Very funny," Nov. 28). Not only does the comments section seem to be overwhelmed, but letters to the editor surface as well. As a Palin supporter who hopes she runs - and wins - in 2016, let me respond to the usual snark that surfaces. She's not qualified. Compared to whom? Barack Obama was a junior senator from Illinois before running for president. In Alaska, Ms. Palin accomplished everything she set out to do in two-thirds of the time.

In regard to Charlotte Allen's commentary in support of Sarah Palin in the 2016 presidential election, even the Republicans aren't that stupid ("For president in 2016: Guess who?" Nov. 26). Governor Palin won't even get the nomination. Ed Brandt, Timonium

WASHINGTON - On the eve of the vice-presidential debate, a new poll shows that most Americans regard Sarah Palin as unqualified to take over as president should it become necessary. The finding is a sharp reversal from earlier polling that showed she was considered qualified, and points to the heightened stakes for Palin in her faceoff with Delaware Sen. Joe Biden this evening. "If Palin does well, her performance will go a long way to rehabilitating her image," said John J. Pitney Jr., a Claremont McKenna College political scientist.

ST. PAUL, MINN. - A self-assured Sarah Palin passed a huge test this week by skillfully executing the biggest speech of her career. Now comes another question: What's next? Palin won high marks from both parties for her delivery of an address that attracted a record-breaking audience for a vice presidential nominee and buttressed her worth as the first woman on a Republican ticket. But the role she will play as the campaign enters its most critical phase remains uncertain. Poll numbers released in the days ahead will show how well Palin has been received by a voting public that split, largely along party lines, over the content of the message she delivered Wednesday.

I'd like to thank The Sun for the wonderful satire on Sarah Palin's presidential prospects ("For president in 2016: Guess who?" Nov. 26). Some readers may have mistakenly assumed that op-ed contributor Charlotte Allen was seriously suggesting that the stunningly unqualified Ms. Palin would make a plausible presidential candidate in 2016. But the author's sly tongue-in-cheek and wink of the eye were everywhere evident to discerning readers. For example, the list of Ms. Palin's "qualifications" for the presidency included: (a)

The Republican Party has been doing a lot of hand-wringing and finger-pointing since the presidential election. Half the conservative columnists and bloggers say the GOP lost because it overemphasized social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. The other half says the party didn't emphasize them enough. And everyone denounces Project ORCA, the campaign's attempt to turn out voters via technology. But I've got a suggestion for cutting short the GOP angst: Sarah Palin for president in 2016.