Gov. Nikki Haley could have drowned in the many wet-kisses that she received from establishment leaders after her prime-time, post-State of The Union rebuke of free-speaking Americans.

The rebuke that won those kisses was aimed at the many, many Americans who are angry about the Washington-directed, downward direction of their own homeland, and so it was applauded by the few Americans who make their living in Washington D.C.

She got so many smooches from the bipartisan establishment that her own voters revolted, so she quickly backpedalled, telling Fox News that “I consider[Donald Trump] a friend… I’m against [Sen. Marco Rubio’s] Gang of Eight bill.”

Haley got the praise because she smeared Donald Trump and his pro-American immigration-and-labor policy as bigoted, irrational animus towards foreigners. “During anxious times, it can be tempting to follow the siren call of the angriest voices. We must resist that temptation,” she said.

The praise came warmer and wetter than in Hollywood’s Oscars night.

“I have a lot of admiration for the governor,” responded President Barack Obama’s top aide, Denis McDonough. “Her willingness to stand up and speak out against [Trump] took some courage.”

“She was willing to do something a lot of other leading Republicans have been unwilling to do, which is to actually articulate a commitment for American values that some leading Republican presidential candidates are speaking out against,” responded Obama’s press secretary, Josh Earnest.

In her speech, Haley also urged Americans to just shut-up and listen to Washington, not to their neighbors or to populist politicians. “When the sound is quieter, you can actually hear what someone else is saying… that can make a world of difference,” she said.

Via Twitter, establishment Republicans lavished their praise on Haley, including Jeb Bush, whose 2016 platform calls for a much greater annual inflow of lower-wage, foreign white-collar guest-workers to take jobs sought by voting-age American graduates:

Before the speech, House Speaker Paul Ryan touted Haley, who had already provided a copy of her speech to Ryan’s staff. “I’m really excited about this,” Ryan said on CNN. 

Ryan’s praise was echoed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who was a co-author of the $1.1 trillion omnibus 2016 funding bill that funded all of Obama’s immigration and refugee policies — and also allowed companies to bring in roughly 90,000 foreign workers just in 2016 to take the place of blue-collar Americans.

She also got a big wet kiss from South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who jump-started the 2013 amnesty push by making a November 2012 alliance with New York’s Sen. Chuck Schumer.

Graham’s support for Haley was expected, if only because Haley subtly signaled her support for the long-held dream by Beltway business-donors and by ambitious progressives for an open-borders “any willing worker” law. If ever enacted, that law would allow companies to hire foreigners from anywhere in the world whenever Americans ask for a raise. That would be a disaster for blue-collar and white-collar Americans.

Haley showed her support for the wage-cutting plan by insisting in her speech that “No one who is willing to work hard, abide by our laws, and love our traditions should ever feel unwelcome in this country… [although] that does not mean we just flat out open our borders” to illegals or terrorists.

That support for endless use of cheap, welfare-aided foreign workers was backed by echoing statements by GOP politicians, including House Speaker Paul Ryan.

“Governor Haley did a great job with the speech. She had the pen and didn’t need much input from anyone,” said Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck, told the Washington Post.

Ryan and McConnell reviewed the text of Haley’s speech before her delivery, but there was no coordination to use the setting to attack Trump, their aides said…

Tim Pearson, Haley’s political adviser, said the governor told Ryan she would deliver the response only if he agreed to let her say whatever she wanted to say.

“There was nothing in the speech that she didn’t want in there, and there was nothing that she wanted in the speech that didn’t get in there,” Pearson said. “It was all hers.”

Unsurprisingly, Haley also won the hearts of many establishment figures on both the progressive and Wall Street sides of the D.C.’s corporatist elite.

“She hit it out of the park, said Eric Erickson, a GOP pundit and now a radio host in Georgia. “It was one of the best responses to a State of the Union address ever and the absolute best since Barack Obama’s election… Last night in South Carolina, Nikki Haley became the only logical choice for Vice Presidential nominee of the GOP.”

Dean Obeidallah, a converted Muslim last seen hosting a fund-raiser for an jihad-boosting Islamic group, the Council on Islamic-American Relations, also praised Haley.

The CAIR group is so closely entwined with Islamists and with jihadis that court documents and news reports show that at least five of its people — either board members, employees or former employees — have been jailed or repatriated to the United States for various financial and terror-related offenses.

Far-left writer Michael Tomasky trilled for Haley. She “obviously did do a fine job last night, and she’d be as plausible a vice-presidential choice as a lot of people,” he wrote.

“The Republican designated to reply to [Obama], South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, effectively joined hands with a man [Obama] she otherwise criticized,” liberal columnist E.J. Dionne wrote in the Washington Post. “For one moment, at least, Obama had realized his dream: A part of red America came together with his blue America to share responsibility for the nation’s frustrations.”

“In a season of bigotry, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has served up a tonic,” claimed the Washington Post’s editorial board. “Ms. Haley, like the president, never mentioned Donald Trump’s name. But in her case, as in Mr. Obama’s, it was perfectly clear that Mr. Trump and his noxious brand of nativism were principal targets,” the Post harrumphed.

Frank Luntz, the word-hunter-in-chief for establishment clients, sang her praises.

Far-left writer John Nichols at the far-left magazine, The Nation, contributed his phlegmatic thoughts.

Al Cardenas, a Bush ally and a fervent advocate for greater immigration, joined the chorus with a quote in the Washington Post. “You can’t begin to imagine how many moods were lifted as a result of listening to her remarks… People went, ‘Yeah, that’s who we are.’ It was uplifting, it was timely, and it was very well delivered,” he said.

Maybe, but the next day, Haley tried to escape the establishment’s embrace, with a rush of excuses.

I was talking about a lot of people, certainly Mr. Trump was one of them, but you know, what we learned last year in Charleston was, we went through a lot of challenges, but the way we got through the Walter Scott issue, the way we got through the Mother Emanuel issue, the way we got through the 1,000 year flood was by listening to each other, by making sure that we heard what everyone needed, and then getting there… I talked about Marco Rubio. You know, I’m against his Gang of Eight bill. He is not for amnesty, but I was against his Gang of Eight bill. Governor Bush, he supported Common Core, certainly didn’t pass it, but supported it. All those things you bring up because you’re never going to agree with everyone. And you’re not going to agree on all things. But what we want to do is say, look, let’s talk about the issues that matter, and at the end who’s that right person that can step up on most of the issues that we can all agree on?

But the establishment got what they wanted from Gov Nikki Haley.