Sarah Palin Advises Christine O’Donnell To Go Rogue From Her Own Campaign, Reveals Clandestine Calls In 2008

The GOP civil war continued on Fox News prime time Wednesday night (9/15/10) as Sarah Palin threw some jabs at Karl Rove for not supporting Delaware’s Palin-blessed, Republican Senate primary winner, Christine O’Donnell. Palin, obviously feeling like a queen maker who had just unseated King Rove, went on to offer O’Donnell advice to ignore her handlers and “speak to the American people… through Fox News.” Then, recounting the bad old days of the 2008 campaign, Palin said to O’Reilly, “Remember I used to have to sneak in my phone calls to you?” O’Reilly did not point out that while the 2008 campaign may have been a boon for Palin, personally, Palin going rogue did nothing to help McCain actually get elected.

Palin began by talking tough. “It wouldn’t be prudent of me… to get into a tussle with Karl Rove… but what the heck, let’s go ahead and do it.” Of course, Palin makes a habit of attacking people and institutions when she doesn’t have to face them.

Palin continued, “Some of these good old boys – and I have nothing against Karl Rove personally, you know he’s the (she made quotation marks in the air with her hands) expert but Bill, some of these folks, they are saying that people like Christine O’Donnell and others, Tea Party Americans, can’t win because they don’t want them to win. Because they know that a Christine O’Donnell, a Joe Miller from Alaska and gubernatorial races like Susana Martinez and Nikki Haley – these folks are gonna shake it up and they are going to do what is right for America, not necessarily what is right for a political party machine.”

Palin completely rejected Rove’s argument, made via O’Reilly, that O’Donnell is unelectable. “Some of those in the hierarchy of the political machine… they are very much into control and titles and egos and everything else. I’m not saying that, again, about, personally, Karl Rove, but I think that that’s just inherently in the nature of the hierarchy of a political machine.”

Palin also insisted that O’Donnell is not extreme but “just wants a smaller, smarter government.”

Then Palin broke out her advice for candidate O’Donnell. After O’Reilly complained that O’Donnell’s “people” had turned down his invitation for her to come on his show (she later appeared on Hannity), Palin said, “She’s going to have to learn very quickly to dismiss what some of her handlers want. Remember what happened to me in the VP? Remember I used to have to sneak in my phone calls to you?”

O’Reilly said he remembered getting calls from her late at night, thinking it was a prank.

“(O’Donnell’s) going to have to learn that,” said newly minted “strategist” Palin. “Yeah, very quickly. She’s going to have to dismiss that. Go with her gut. Get out there, speak to the American people. Speak through Fox News and let the independents who are tuning into you, let them know what it is that she stands for.”

Video at the link (I dare you to watch it, Cato!)

So, Palin wants O’Donnell to be herself… and ignore handlers.

Obviously Palin thinks O’Donnell can handle herself… um, oh wait…