Palin firing back at critics not a good idea, say ex-aide and expert

Washington, Nov.13 : Some aides of Alaska Governor and Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, and experts have said that her decision to repeatedly firing back at critics is not a good idea, and warned that it could rebound on her politically.

"She wants to rehabilitate her image and get everyone to love her again. If I were advising her, I'd say, say it once and then stop. You protest too much. You start to look a little foolish," the Washington Post quoted Larry Persily, a former Palin aide, as saying.

Dan Schnur, who runs the University of Southern California's Institute of Politics, said that the challenge is simple: "Feed the media beast or it's going to feed on you."

"In a remarkably short period of time, Sarah Palin has become the most polarizing American politician since, well, Hillary Clinton. Some people will watch her and roll their eyes, but those aren't the people who vote in Republican presidential primaries," he added. For a vice-presidential nominee who never held a news conference, Palin is on a television blitz. Media organizations, stoking the buzz that she might make a White House run in 2012, can't get enough of the woman who was both hailed as a moose-hunting maverick and blamed for John McCain's defeat.

According to the paper, Palin is clearly in need of some image rehab. Her stumbling interview with CBS's Katie Couric, mocked by Tina Fey on "Saturday Night Live," sent her stock tumbling, and by Election Day, polls showed that a majority of Americans felt she was unqualified to be vice president.

Palin now insists that she wasn't muzzled and that, despite evidence to the contrary, there was no tension between her and the McCain team.

Palin has already held forth from her Wasilla kitchen, and yesterday, she spoke again about her travails and what needs to be done to give the Republican party a boost at a gathering of Republican governors in Miami.

She appeared far more relaxed than she did during the campaign. Drawing on her considerable reserves of charm, she is using the media to complain about unfair media coverage.

ANI