From the lips of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, rivaling any lipstick-wearing pitbull, consider yourself warned:

“Don’t let the media define who these candidates [GOP presidential field] are. Let us, as constituents, as voters, as potential candidates, we need to do our homework.”

These were Palin’s words to FOX’s Sean Hannity on Wednesday.

She’s right.

Obviously, the mainstream media is out to turn the GOP faithful against every potential rival to President Obama. This week, it’s Gingrich. Next week, who will it be? Will be Romney, Pawlenty, Bachman, Cain, or Ron Paul until there’s no one left?

This is the media strategy of destruction and implosion as candidates, schooled and unschooled in Alinsky-style media tactics, press their own self-destruct button. The voters are merely the subject of the media manipulation.

In other words, Palin says: Don’t be fooled.

It must have been 2008 election déjà vu for Palin as she bore witness to the traps former House Speaker Newt Gingrich fell in his failed duels with the mainstream pro-Obama media this week:

# 1. The Glitter.

Newt was mocked by the mainstream media with 2,000 stories and counting after a gay activist attacked him with a “glitter bomb” on Wednesday at a Minnesota book signing. Giggling and giddy ABC anchors Rick Klein and Karen Travers interviewed Newt’s attacker on Wednesday, egging him on and branding him the “Glitter bandit.”

“And here’s guessing that Newt Gingrich is going to be picking glitter out of his hair for at least a couple of weeks,” yuk-yukked Klein. “At least,” tittered Travers.

“It’s pretty funny,” remarked the assailant.

“Is there anything else in the works?” asked Klein, officially sanctioning and encouraging battery against GOP candidates. “Are there other politicians you are planning on targeting – the Governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty – obviously, you are based in Minnesota – with glitter at some point as well?”

Hmmm … targeting, eh? Wasn’t that word outlawed by the left-wing media in the aftermath of the Arizona massacre? Apparently not.

“Well, we will see what happens,” said the battery suspect. “I did use only two of the three bags of glitter I bought.”

GOP candidates, beware: The media has officially sanctioned criminal acts of battery against candidates it disagrees with. What’s next? Rice pellets? Spit balls? Water balloons? Do conservative have the same right against Democrat Governors, White House advisors, or ABC anchors?

If so, please let me know.

#2. The Glamor.

News broke that Gingrich supposedly has a $500,000 unpaid bill to Tiffany & Co. For a guy who is supposed to have the answer to fixing America’s debt crisis, he didn’t need this story. Gingrich has refused to answer questions about the six-figure tab, which was revealed in a financial disclosure filed in the mid-2000s.

Careful GOP candidates: you aren’t allowed to spend and you aren’t allowed to have debt.

Tax cheats, however, are perfectly acceptable. If they are good enough for the Obama Administration – i.e. Tim Geithner – they are good enough for the mainstream media.

#3. The Racist.

Newt was accused of making a racist slur against by NBC’s David Gregory for his comment that President Obama is the “food stamp president.”

“That’s, that’s bizarre,” responded Gingrich. “That–this kind of automatic reference to racism, this is the president of the United States. The president of the United States has to be held accountable. Now, the idea that–and what I said is factually true. Forty-seven million Americans are on food stamps. One out of every six Americans is on food stamps. And to hide behind the charge of racism? I have–I have never said anything about President Obama which is racist.”

Palin went further and hit Gregory on the racism issue. “That was a racist-tinged question from David Gregory,” countered Palin. “He made it sound like if you’re black, you are on food stamps. And the president is referring to you as being on food stamps. I think that’s racist.”

The media racism parade continues and will be a factor in 2012.

#4. The Whopper.

Like Palin, Newt could have seen his conservative support swell after media attacks like these. The rule is: when a conservative is unfairly attacked by the mainstream media, we stick together. But, by attacking Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to transform healthcare entitlements on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, he turned the tide of conservative opinion against him. He only has himself to blame:

“I don’t think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering,” said Gingrich “I don’t think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for free society to operate.”

“I think you want to have a system where people voluntarily migrate to better outcomes, better solutions, better options, not one where you suddenly impose upon the — I’m against Obamacare, which is imposing radical change, and I would be against a conservative imposing radical change,” he added.

Since Ryan had the guts to offer a bold plan to solve the debt crisis, he has earned conservative kudos. Even if he felt the Ryan plan was flawed, it wasn’t necessary for Gingrich to throw the Democrats a “GOP is planning to end medicare” attack ad just in time for the 2012 election. In other words, he blew it.

Big time.

It is one thing to knock your opponents, but GOP candidates have to be very careful not to give Team Obama any 2012 election fodder. That was Gingrich’s real sin.

Gingrich made since made a public apology to Ryan. But will it be enough? The next Republican presidential debate on June 7th – known to be Newt’s forte – will tell Gingrich’s tale.

This week’s media meltdown must have led Palin to wonder how – after all this time, could Gingrich, the normally razor-sharp history buff idea man of the GOP, fall for the lamestream media’s traps hook-line-and sinker? And what does that portend for the rest of the GOP field in the critical battle to beat a left-of-Castro socialist president whom the media is attempting to recast as the second coming of – if not Ronald Reagan (hardly) – George W. Bush?

Palin’s advice for Gingrich and other GOP presidential candidates?

“Don’t even participate in that goofy game that has been played now for too many years, with the leftist mainstream media trying to twist the candidates’ words and intent and content of their statements,” said Palin.

“I don’t know why politicians feel that they have to apologize for something that they’ve said just because they’ve gone through a 24-hour cycle of the lame extreme media giving them a hard time.”

But despite Palin’s advice – don’t play the mainstream media game – GOP and conservative candidates are still forced to work with them, around them, over them, under them, or through them. It’s a risky game no matter what way you play it.

Why? Because conservatives don’t control the media, entertainment, or pop culture news outlets. Not yet anyway. Maybe not ever.

So what is the upshot of this week? It isn’t just that Gingrich lost. Conservatives lost too.

Will conservative and Republican voters continue to let themselves be manipulated by the media? We will define the candidates or let the media set the agenda?Will we attack each other or will we focus our sight on the real target: winning the White House back in 2012?

In other words, will we be the sheep or will we be the wolves?

Personally, I’d settle for a lipstick-wearing pitbull.