October 22, 2008
Shabby, deliberate
The mass media's pile-on directed against Alaska governor Sarah Palin continues, including this week's outright fabrication by CNN.
The Wall Street Journal's Daniel Henninger summarizes the cognitive disconnect pretty well.
The abuse being heaped on Sarah Palin is such a cheap shot.The complaint against the Alaska governor, at its most basic, is that she doesn't qualify for admission to the national political fraternity. Boy, that's rich. Behold the shabby frat house that says it's above her pay grade.
Congress has the lowest approval rating ever registered in the history of polling (12%!). She isn't the reason polls are showing people want the entire Congress fired, with many telling pollsters they themselves could do a better job. [...]
By not bothering to look very deeply at the details beneath either candidate's governing proposals, the media have created a lot of downtime to take free kicks at Gov. Palin. My former colleague, Tunku Varadarajan, has compiled a glossary of Palin invective, and I've added a few: "Republican blow-up doll," "idiot," "Christian Stepford wife," "Jesus freak," "Caribou Barbie," "a dope," "a fatal cancer to the Republican Party," "liar," "a national disgrace" and "her pretense that she is a woman."
If American politics is at low ebb, it is because so many of its observers enjoy working in its fetid backwash.
Remember, the piling on isn't an accident, it's a deliberate strategy. Don't be fooled.
Posted by Alan at October 22, 2008 09:18 PM