The Underground Conservative

The Anointed One takes an unwarranted cheap shot at former First Lady Nancy Reagan by alleging she held seances while Ronald Reagan was president.

Later, He was forced to call the former First Lady and apologize.

Obama was asked at his press conference today if he’d spoken to all the “living” presidents.

“I have spoken to all of them who are living,” he responded. “I didn’t want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about doing any séances.”

He was apparently confusing stories about Reagan’s consulting with an astrologer with those about other First Ladies — from Mary Todd Lincoln to Hillary Clinton — who tried to make contact with figures from the past.

Actually, the story about Nancy Reagan using an astrologer was something mentioned by Donald Regan, Treasury Secretary in the Reagan administration, an allegation which brought an angry reaction by the President denying its accuracy. It’s never been verified. The allegation about Hillary Clinton having seances and talking to the ghost of Eleanor Roosevelt was first raised Bob Woodward’s book The Choice. Again, although there was a lot of laughter directed at Mrs. Clinton (much like Mrs. Reagan), in Hillary’s defense, the allegation was never confirmed or verified. It was just a report.

Both stories seem to be just more D.C. urban legends.

Didn’t take too long for the sleazemeisters in the blueblood, countryclubber Rockefeller Bush Wing of the Republican Party to take aim at Sarah Palin in the process of Quaylization of the Sarahcuda. For those of you who graduated from Racine Unified, that means to turn Sarah Palin into a female version of  Dan Quayle.

By the way, I lost respect for former President George H. W. Bush for allowing people in his inner circle to undermine Quayle and to not step up to the defense of his own running mate and eventual vice president when he was under attack.

Right now, John McCain is becoming less and less honorable for not speaking up in Sarah Palin’s defense against anonymous smears being made by his own former staffers. Anonymous, as in unverifiable gossip and cowardly attacks.

What types of anonymous leaks? Well, for starters, insiders are claiming that Palin didn’t know that Africa was a continent but thought it was a country. And, that Palin was unable to identify the countries involved in NAFTA.

What’s worse is that normally reputable journalists such as Carl Cameron and Shepard Smith of Fox News participated in the smear by broadcasting the anonymous information without even thinking so much as to question why anyone would release information without any verification or attribution.

Says Ace of Spades:

It does not occur to either man to question these anonymous, and quite absurd, claims.

Or to wonder if perhaps these aides are of the Buckley/Parker sort, or if they perhaps have in mind a candidate they prefer in 2012…

Thus even Fox News begins the campaign to irradiate Palin to toxic levels for 2012.

That’s right. The lefties’ favorite target, Fox News, participated in the smearing of Palin. Fair and balanced? Not this time.

Ace adds this story:

Here’s a story these staffers tell: Sent to collect Palin from a hotel, she greeted them, straight from the shower (running late, I guess ) dressed (scandal!) only in a bathrobe (presumably a very thick hotel bathrobe).

These staffers called that “uncommon” — Cameron delighted in the word to give it the sound of “whorish, unprofessional.”

Heh, assholes? She had to open the door and had just gotten out of the shower. Did you want her to use her magical powers of telekinesis to open the door for you?

This apparent scandalous reaction to a woman just out of the shower not making them wait outside but letting them into the suite wearing a bathrobe… well. Okay.

I want names.

So do I. Sounds like Cameron and Smith share political ideologies with the Rockefeller Bush Wing of the GOP. Either that, or they are auditioning for Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood as gossipmongers.

Erick Erickson at Red State names two names that he has confirmed: Nicholle Wallace and Steve Schmidt. Erickson is calling it Operation Leper: to turn the likes of Kathleen Parker, Peggy Noonan, George Will and every political consultant out to destroy and smear Sarah Palin into political lepers.

Count me in.

Michelle Malkin adds:

At least all the Hollywood and Manhattan Palin-haters were willing to sign their names and put their faces on their attacks.

Let’s assume the rumor-mongers are telling the truth for a moment. Who does it damn more: Sarah Palin or McCain and his vetters who green-lighted her for the vice presidential nomination? Don’t need an Ivy League degree to figure that one out.

Newsweek evens goes after Palin using anonymous sources claiming the so-called spending spree for clothes was even bigger than first reported and included buying items for her husband and children.

Newsweek has also learned that Palin’s shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain’s top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent “tens of thousands” more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

A Palin aide said: “Governor Palin was not directing staffers to put anything on their personal credit cards, and anything that staffers put on their credit cards has been reimbursed, like an expense. Nasty and false accusations following a defeat say more about the person who made them than they do about Governor Palin.”

Wasilla hillbillies … what a collection of elitist snobs. Judge Smails, call your office. Some people just don’t belong.

Sounds like another inside hitjob performed by people either intent on promotion another candidate — Mitt Romney, call your office — or intent on destroying a conservative with solid credentials who is actuall able to rally the base and get people to turn out in droves. Almost Reaganesque. God forbid these blueblood countryclubbers have to go through another Reagan and have to actually deal with real blue-collar Americans, once known as Reagan Democrats.

Allahpundit has video of the Fox News attacks here and here.

I don’t believe any of this. Especially the NAFTA and Africa tales. Those sound as if they were invented to help in the Quaylization process. Think of it as an newer version of “potatoe.” It’s like how the McCain campaign allowed the line used by Tina Fey in her impersonation of Palin about being able to see Russia from her house and that making her a foreign policy expert, never mind that Palin never said any such thing. But the McCain campaign never refuted it and allowed it to be attached to Palin. Wonder if that was a decision made by Wallace and Schmist. Me thinks so.

By the way, imagine the level of wipeout if Palin had not been on the ticket. According to pollster Scott Rasmussen, 69 percent of Republican voters felt Palin had a positive effect on the GOP ticket. Only 20 percent — those blueblood countryclubbers — felt she had a negative effect.

Update: from Greta Van Susteren’s blog, Gretawaire, via Josh Painter at RedState, Steve Schmidt says the towel story about Palin is untrue. Schmidt refuses to address the rest of the lies released in the same mode as someone passing an SBD. Smells about the same, too.