HOUSTON — Sarah Palin said Friday that the elite media would never let a Republican president get away with what Barack Obama has done in his push for new gun laws. 
 
 The former Alaska governor recalled that the national press “tore apart” George W. Bush for using “fleeting images” from Sept. 11, 2001, during his 2004 reelection campaign. 
 
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 At the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting, Palin slammed Obama for flying the grieving parents of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Air Force One and then “making them backdrops” at rallies. 
 
 (PHOTOS: NRA annual meeting) 
 
 “That same media is now the reliable poodle-skirted cheerleader for the president that writes the book on exploiting tragedy,” she said, wearing a T-shirt that said “women hunt.” 
 
 Palin insisted that all Americans felt “despair, sadness and absolute anger” when they saw what happened in Connecticut. She said everyone should care more about those getting gunned down every single day on the streets of places like Chicago and New York City, but that shouldn’t guide public policy. 
 
 “Now, emotion is a good and a necessary thing. But we have politicians exploiting emotion for their own agenda,” she said. “We have well-meaning Americans who are desperate to respond.” 
 
 Palin, a longtime NRA member, pleased the crowd by noting that her son Trigg’s nickname is “Trigger” and that her nephew’s middle name is Remington. She was rewarded with a standing ovation after describing the 4.5 million members of the group as her “brothers and sisters.” 
 
 NRA chief lobbyist Chris Cox praised Palin for criticizing a police chief who would not give out conceal-and-carry permits during her first run for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. 
 
 “We’re fighting the good fight,” Palin said near the end of a 12-minute speech. “The Washington establishment sneers at you, and you don’t give up. The lamestream media just plain doesn’t get you, and you don’t give up. You don’t retreat.” 
 
 Palin took a shot at New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, always a bogeyman at these gatherings. At her last big public event – the Conservative Political Action Conference in March – she sipped a Big Gulp from the podium to mock his ban on the sale of the large sodas. She told the NRA crowd that Bloomberg may next try to ban public displays of tobacco products. 
 
 Then she pulled out a container of snuff. 
 
 “I tell ya, don’t make me do it,” she joked. “It’s funny because [my husband] Todd’s been looking for this all morning.” ||||| She urged Congressional Republicans to oppose raising the nation’s debt ceiling, declaring, “It doesn’t necessarily have to result in a government shutdown.” Even if it did, she added, “Let it be for a week or two.” 
 
 She conceded that a successful presidential bid could not be built through a digital campaign alone, saying that Facebook and other forms of social media could not reach enough voters. Asked if she would be the first Twitter president, she blanched and adopted a self-mocking tone. “What a slogan: I tweet more than you tweet.” 
 
 She said it was unwise for Republicans to keep doubts alive about the authenticity of President Obama’s birth certificate and citizenship, saying: “It’s distracting. It gets annoying. Let’s stick with what really matters.” 
 
 And she called for the full repeal of the new health care law, revisiting the catchphrase that caused so much controversy during debate of the bill: “When I talk about death panels, death panels was in quotation marks.” 
 
 Such lines are standard political fare, and Republicans may not give them a second thought on television. But on the front lines of a campaign — whether in an Iowa living room or a New Hampshire diner — voters often consider things with a different ear. 
 
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 “What people are desiring to see is no more status quo — not necessarily just seeing more players in these political machines, who are sort of preordained and get to be the ones who get nominated and go forth,” Ms. Palin said. “People are ready for our governmental establishment to kind of shake it up.” 
 
 Ms. Palin’s afternoon appearance at the ballroom of the Crest Hollow Country Club, the site of numerous wedding receptions and bar mitzvahs, offered an atmosphere much like she would face if she decided to run for president. Despite her best-selling books, reality television show and hours of televised interviews, Ms. Palin is not yet a fully formed political figure, and her approval ratings could change — for better or worse — as a candidate. 
 
 The audience, which included many Democrats, responded with repeated applause. But there were also uncomfortable silences. She held up a Reader’s Digest from February 1964, the month of her birth, which she used to make a point about reducing the deficit. 
 
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 “We don’t have to reinvent any wheels here to get the economy back on the right track,” Ms. Palin said. “The solution in here to fix the problem, you know what it is? You invest in a five-cent stamp and you write your congressman and you tell him, ‘You’re going to get fired.’ Five cents back in the day! Nothing’s changed. It’s the same principles that can be applied.” 
 
 Robert Zimmerman, who represents New York on the Democratic National Committee, was in the audience and met with Ms. Palin at a reception before her talk. He said he was surprised by the Reader’s Digest anecdote. 
 
 “She’s really an Atlantic City lounge act for the right wing,” Mr. Zimmerman said. Still, he said, Democrats should not to dismiss her potential, saying, “Suburbs have the largest swing voters in the country, which concerns me.” 
 
 The Long Island Association, which bills itself as the state’s largest business group, invited Ms. Palin to speak about a month ago. She was paid for her appearance, but organizers declined to disclose details of the arrangement. It was originally intended to be private, officials said, but Ms. Palin asked that it be opened to the media. 
 
 “I was actually surprised she got as much applause as she did,” said Mr. Law, who asked Ms. Palin questions for 64 minutes. After escorting her to her car, he said: “She told me she loved the format. She probably will do more of it because she did pretty well.”
– Sarah Palin returned to the national spotlight at CPAC today to roundly criticize President Obama and fire potshots at the Republican establishment, NBC News reports. In her first major appearance since Fox News, Palin slammed Obama time and again: "Mr. President, we admit it, you won—now step away from the teleprompter, and do your job!" she said. She also dinged him on his golfing, his canceling of White House tours, and his proposal to broaden background checks for gun buyers. "Dandy idea, Mr. President—should've started with yours!" Her talk received the most raucous and frequent ovations of the entire conference, the Guardian reports. She saved some of her folksy (or is it kitschy?) ire for the GOP, calling on the party to embrace a populist vision: "Now is the time to furlough the consultants, and tune out the pollsters, send the focus groups home, and toss the political scripts," she said. And she speared new conservative super PACs designed to weed out more conservative candidates for more electable ones. Her talk had humor, too: She sipped a Big Gulp in a clear jab at New York's anti-soda campaign, and tossed off a line regarding her Christmas gift for husband Todd: "He's got the rifle, I've got the rack." (Business Insider runs down the most "awesome" lines of Palin's speech.)