Sarah Palin: Media Vixen or Media Victim?
November 11th, 2008 | by Omnipotent Poobah |
I’ve never heard of a politician that didn’t howl about their quotes being taken out of context. Frequently the howls come juxtaposed with video not only showing the quote in context, but also the unambiguous vigor with which it was delivered. Public officials are also quite fond of accusing the media of victimizing them with bias. These charges howls often fly in the face of unimpeachable, unbiased facts and sometimes after a pol has repeated a lie numerous times.
Lord knows the media makes its mistakes and sometimes there’s a clear bias. There are incompetents and rogues in every profession and the media isn’t immune. I hate to pick on our delicate hothouse flower Sarah Palin – she already sees herself as a media martyr – but she’s the ultimate poster girl for responsibility shifting. She needs a Jerry’s Kids-style telethon to fund a cure for her terminal case of the media yips.
She was in hot water almost immediately after the convention. Following the most cringe-worthy interviews in history, Team McPalin squirreled her away until the media showed more “deference”. Judging from the softball questions she muffed, proper deference consists only of questions about her mooseburger recipe. She blamed the media for making her look like an idiot even though she offered the piss-poor performance of a moron wallowing in her first 15 minutes of fame.
The Deference Deficit
The VP debate also showcased the deference deficit between Sarah and the Fourth Estate. Instead of answering questions, she made up her own – preferring instead to talk “straight to the American people without the filter of the media”. Sure, a question-free environment is where Sarah excels, but it’s hard to make the case for media persecution when you’re making your allegations via the media.
Yes, her mastery of the eye-wink and ankle-flash cemented her “maverick” status well-enough to take in a good number of rubes who didn’t understand the difference between an extended, self-conducted Fluff-O-Gram and a debate with actual questions, but her numbers tanked when the rubes woke up and saw her as a blathering idiot.
Her latest account of assault and media-battery revolves around the shameless, unprofessional leaks tossed between the McCaniacs and the people from Planet Palin. She was alternately a “hillbilly”, “whack job”, or “diva” and a shopaholic who didn’t know who was in NAFTA and whether Africa was a country, a continent, or a branch of the Nieman-Marcus chain. She defended herself as a loyal Dr. Pepper drinker and aggrieved victim of the nefarious media.
In fairness, the leaks were reprehensible and some of the tales might actually be false, but the problem here isn’t media bias or incompetence – it’s asshats who want to rule the free-world but act like 3-year olds in a mud puddle. St. Sarah didn’t do her case much good either. She showed a reckless disregard for facts during the campaign and that eventually came to haunt her.
She claimed the first bipartisan investigation of Troopergate cleared her of all legal and ethical clouds even though it said quite clearly she had broken ethics laws. When her hand-picked investigatory panel checked in a few weeks later with a verdict more to her liking she essentially said, “I told you so”.
The Big Haired Anchor at K-Moose
Sarah also took great relish in attacking her opponent with all the civility of a tiger shark while complaining the media were biased and trying to make her look bad. Apparently her six-year quest for a four-year journalism degree didn’t prepare her for the media bogeymen. Her stint as a big-haired anchor at K-Moose wasn’t much help either. She apparently never learned that the media latch onto a liar, boob, or charlatan like a leech on a swamp-dweller’s leg and the best defense is sticking to the facts and shutting your trap unless asked a specific question.
Sarah, babe, get a clue. The media didn’t sully you, you did it to yourself with the help and enablement of your incompetent campaign handlers. The media just held the unforgiving camera before your face and let you run. If you say stupid things, don’t complain when people believe stupid, outlandish, or untrue claims about you. You’ve already proved you’re capable of such things and it’s natural for people to believe you’re really as vapid as you seem. It’s not the media’s job to make you look good nor report only what you think is fair and unbiased. You’re not entitled to pick and choose the news of demand deference when you’re a politician. It works that way even in Alaska.
Not everyone believes only in Hannity, O’Reilly, or Limbaugh. Some people actually think. If you’re not prepared for that, I’d recommend you forget your dreams of moving the kids into the White House and go back home to Wasilla where you can do the job for which you’re best suited – hockey mom.
You can even wear some lipstick if you want. Really, we don’t mind.
5 Responses to “Sarah Palin: Media Vixen or Media Victim?”
By Windspike on Nov 12, 2008 | Reply
My vote is “media vixen.” She’s got legs to stand on as an entertainer. My prediction ten years from now? Sarah Palin wins the Oscar for something and we remember fondly how the Veep tour launched her acting career. It will be a first – where the politician becomes the actor rather than pulling a Reagan or a Schwarzenegger. Well, maybe not an Oscar, but some Christian Riechwind Evangelist station will pick her up. Perhaps she will be the next on the throne to run the 700 club in Va. Beach.
By Craig R. Harmon on Nov 12, 2008 | Reply
I’d say she’s a bit of both. The media definitely went at Palin much more negatively than they want at Biden who, largely got a pass.
My prediction: four and eight years from now she runs for President as a Republican and does pretty well.
By Liberal Jarhead on Nov 13, 2008 | Reply
I think Palin was one of the best things that happened to the Democrats this time – more Americans thought she hurt McCain’s campaign than that she helped it.
The Republicans drastically overestimated the size of the far right and the appeal of a fundamentalist candidate – although you’d never know it from the amount of noise they make, the fundamentalists are a shrinking minority in America.
I’d wager that their running her as a candidate again in the future would make the Democrats pretty happy. Not only did she put on a startling display of Dubya-like ignorance and incoherence when she didn’t have a script, she revealed a pretty nasty side of her personality that turned a lot of people off. The McCain/Palin campaign was the most venomous people have seen in a long time, and Palin’s discourse was really ugly. She kept repeating lies after they were widely revealed in the media as lies, and that didn’t go over so well either.
In short, she showed herself to be stupid, mean, and dishonest. So unless the stupid, mean, dishonest demographic grows a lot, her appeal will remain limited to the red-meat-loving far right.
By Pete on Nov 13, 2008 | Reply
The media was lucky she didn’t tell them to “F” off.
I believe the meanness was on the other foot.
By Liberal Jarhead on Nov 13, 2008 | Reply
The media are equal-opportunity mean, no doubt about it; but all that crap ranging from thinly veiled racism to ‘palling around with terrorists’ to insinuating that Obama (or his supporters) were not ‘pro-America’ or as pro-the-troops or as patriotic as her audiences was over the top. She was saying very ugly things, things she knew were lies, with a big smile. She’s never gotten past being one of the mean kids in high school, and her personality is the opposite of the humility, honesty, charity, and generosity she supposedly practices as an evangelical.
A good-looking face can fool people for a while, but not forever. I don’t think she has a serious chance of being taken seriously by more than a shallow fraction of the electorate again.