It’s the sort of thing that gives the heebie-jeebies to anyone fearful of The Crazy getting crazier and more powerful: the Koch-financed Americans for Prosperity’s big annual clambake for the right-wing New Media types, featuring keynote speaker Sarah Palin and what amounts to a giant Requium Mass for Andrew Breitbart. Here’s a snippets from Kenneth Vogel’s preview of the creepy event:
The conservative blogosphere has yet to move past the death of patron saint Andrew Breitbart, but it will get a major jolt this month from an equally provocative hero: Sarah Palin.
The former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee has committed to delivering the keynote address at Right Online, the annual gathering of conservative bloggers and online activists organized by the Koch-backed non-profit group Americans for Prosperity Foundation.
This year’s meeting is focused on higher-level tactics and strategies than past year’s editions of Right Online, which sometimes had the feel of a crash course on blogging 101. The Vegas conference features training on video exposes to be conducted by guerrilla video journalist James O’Keefe, a session on polling featuring conservative’s favorite pollster Scott Rasmussen and a session moderated by columnist Michelle Malkin entitled “How to Use Facebook & Twitter to Win,” which will include instruction on using social media to drive narratives.
Palin, of course, is considered a “pioneer” of right-wing social media because she’s been able to put tossed-off communications up on Facebook–everything from her infamous “death panel” smear of ObamaCare to her easy-breezy-don’t-leave-your-armchair candidate endorsements–and get big results from her hordes of followers as well as the MSM.
There’s no question Palin’s been effective using Facebook, but the Vogel piece and some of the quotes from her fans in the wingnutosphere make it sound like she’s some sort of technological genius. If she is, then so is Kim Kardashian with her four million Twitter followers, or whatever the number is. Any celebrity with a large and credulous audience can have a big impact via social media. For Palin, it mainly means she doesn’t have to bother with documenting her many wild assertions, or take any potentially hostile questions.
But in any event, attendees of Right Online will get to view their favorite pol get all hagiographical about their favorite “guerilla” operative, while La Pasionara of the Permafrost pads her bank account with an undisclosed quanity of Koch lucre:
Palin will introduce the premieres of two Breitbart-related movies at Right Online. “Hating Breitbart” is a documentary two years in the making that chronicles Breitbart’s rise, the controversies he helped spur, and his impact on conservative and mainstream media alike. “Occupy Unmasked,” which features interviews with Breitbart, is billed as an exposé of the Occupy Wall Street protests that “will rock the crazed Left to the core,” according to David Bossie, president of the conservative group Citizens United, which produced the movie.
Americans for Prosperity wouldn’t comment on how much it’s paying Palin to speak. But she commands speaking fees ranging into the low six-figures. And in 2010, AFP spent $253,000 on honoraria, including a $128,000 payment to the speakers’ bureau that represents Palin, with whom AFP had contracted to speak at its Defending the American Dream Summit in Clarkston, Mich., in May 2010.
It all sounds like a hot Saturday night in Hell to me, but I’m sure they’ll have a grand old time plotting their Vettings and nourishing their many grievances.
