Flickr photo by Bruce TutenSarah Palin may have gotten her start as a weather girl in TV news, but the former vice presidential candidate showed this week she still doesn't understand the first thing about media.
Palin has leapt to the defense of Tea Party candidates Nikki Haley and Rand Paul, pointing a finger at the media for picking on them solely because they're underdog conservatives.
Apparently she put her hands over her eyes and refused to watch as the media took down John Edwards?
Palin announced Sunday that Paul's controversial comments in which he said directly that he doesn't think it's appropriate to enforce the Civil Rights Act on private businesses is nothing more than a victimization of the "gotcha" press that she dealt with during her run for the White House.
According to Politics Daily, Palin announced, "One thing that we can learn in this lesson that I have learned, and Rand Paul is learning now, is don't assume that you can engage in a hypothetical discussion about constitutional impacts with a reporter or a media personality who has an agenda ... You know, they're looking for that 'gotcha' moment. And that's what it evidently appears to be that they did with Rand Paul, but I'm thankful that he was able to clarify his answer about his support for the Civil Rights Act."
She was alluding to Paul's disastrous showing on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, but Palin conveniently forgot Maddow didn't bring up the Kentucky Senate candidate's feelings on the Civil Rights Act. Paul did, in an editorial board meeting with the Courier Journal and then again with NPR's All Things Considered.
Being asked about your own comments made in a public forum isn't a "gotcha" moment; it's thorough reporting.
If you don't want your comments trotted out by the media -- liberal or not -- here's a simple fix: Don't say them.
Cut to South Carolina where gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley is facing allegations from political blogger Will Folks, who says he had "inappropriate" relations with the married mother of two.
Haley is denying the affair, and she's been endorsed by Jenny Sanford, whose husband Mark's cheating lost him both his position in politics and her. Folks, who once worked for Haley, has troubles with the law in his past.
He claims he went public because word of the affair was being leaked to the media.
Which Palin wrote on her Facebook is all a matter of the "lamestream media" being afraid of Haley's threat to the "political machine."
"That, unfortunately, is the nature of the beast in politics today -- especially for conservative 'underdog' candidates who surge in the polls and threaten to shake things up so government can be put back on the side of the people," Palin wrote.
So what's the excuse for the rampant publicity about Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer's affair? Or Rod Blagojevich's particularly spectacular disaster? Neither was surging, neither was a conservative, and neither was an underdog.
The media covers politicians because they're our representatives. Their foibles are a black mark on the names of the constituents, voters who have the right to defend their own honor by learning of the mistakes and making up for them in the voting booth.
Palin also used the Facebook blog post to bash the media for quoting blogs -- catch the irony there?
Her righteous indignation on behalf of the candidates is a Palin special -- puffery to mask the problem.
Just as Katie Couric was at fault for expecting her to name the newspapers she claimed to read daily, Palin is blaming the media for not making life easier for these "underdog" candidates.
Point of fact: That's not our job. The true "fair and balanced" media does not care who is making the mistakes -- we're there to report them. And let the chips fall where they may.
If Sarah Palin wants credibility as a political candidate, she needs to accept that the way to get fair treatment is to expect it ... and to earn it.
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Comments 14
You need to print a retraction regarding your statement: "Paul's controversial comments in which he said directly that he doesn't think it's appropriate to enforce the Civil Rights Act on private businesses..." Which is untrue. He didn't say that. The Chicago Tribune has printed a retraction, MSNBC has issued two separate clarifications. Will you?
Here's the proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg5zOQ05b9E
spinnikerca -- although the Maddow show pointed out that the word "yes" did not mean he said they shouldn't serve blacks, the remainder of his statements stand. Among them: "I would never belong to any club that excluded anybody for race. We still do have private clubs in America that can discriminate based on race.
But I think what's important about this debate is not written into any specific "gotcha" on this, but asking the question: what about freedom of speech? Should we limit speech from people we find abhorrent? Should we limit racists from speaking?
I don't want to be associated with those people, but I also don't want to limit their speech in any way in the sense that we tolerate boorish and uncivilized behavior because that's one of the things freedom requires is that we allow people to be boorish and uncivilized, but that doesn't mean we approve of it"
He also said in the Courier Journal that private instutitions should reserve the right to discriminate - even if he doesn't agree with discrimination: http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20100520/NEWS0101/5200351/1008/NEWS01/.
Ugh. Do we have to claim Palin in the category of "woman?" She's a disgrace to our intelligence.
I think Palin understand the media just fine. After all, you just wrote an article about her on a popular website. ;-)
I think that anyone that believes that the MSM holds liberals and conservatives (especially conservative women) equally accountable is either delusional or just plain not thinking. It is not fair to compare an alleged allegation from a blogger to being outed by a madam.
Where is the media in reporting Dem. Congressman Hank Johnson? He thinks islands can tip over and capsize. Or CT Attorney General Blumenthal who lied about his military service in/during the Vietnam War? We can't even get the media to correctly report on SB 1070, the new immigration law in AZ, which is supported by most conservatives.
The President of Mexico was invited to our country, thrown a huge party at our expense, then he insulted our immigration laws, even though Mexico's immigration laws are 100 times stricter than our own. They don't put up with Guatemalans sneaking across the border. Where the media outrage over this attack on our country? Where is the outrage that OUR president agreed with him?
People can repeat something enough times, and it will start to sound like a truth. But no matter how strongly a person has convinced themselves that the media is unbiased, it doesn't make it true. And perpetuating the lie isn't helping anyone.
Jenny -- since you brought it up, not only have I seen Blumenthal's scandal all over the mainstream media, I wrote about it here on CafeMom and discussed how seriously wrong he was. A Google News search shows in just the past 24 hours, he's been discussed on the likes of the New York Times and the Washington Post.
As for the issue of whether the media is unbiased or not, painting this as a question of whether the media is too far liberal conveniently skips over the whole matter of Fox News' regular (daily) conservative bias in its "reporting."
What counts as mainstream media? Is that just the people who don't agree with her? Or is it the most vocal, most followed media? Because FN is highly conservative and yet highly followed -- which I would say makes it pretty "mainstream."
Ah, and how come most of the media never reported - or reported very late - some things that should have been huge scandals, such as when several major offices of ACORN were caught on video advising on how to profit from crimes such as child sex trafficking with impunity, the global warming hoax, etc.? Oh, no, there was no bias at play there, and there's no bias in this article either. Oh no, it's the most objective piece I've ever read.
What bothers me most is the way "journalists" make no honest attempt to even verify facts before "reporting" them. Like the Arizona immigration law, which few in the media or the government have even read, though everyone in America thinks they know exactly what it says. And the same goes for laws that the media thinks they like - like the healthcare law - they have no idea what it actually says. How unprofessional.
I have found that the MainStream Media is very biased. There have been a lot of stories that have been completely ignored, but picked up by one station. And that station is boycotted by the White House! How unbiased and professional is THAT?? Ever since the last presidential campaign, the alphabet channels have been extremely biased, so I very rarely watch them. And I have found that the more conservative you are, the more you are bashed in the media. And Rand Paul is a Libertarian, which apparently is a new party that the alphabets have never heard of....they certainly don't understand what they stand for, which is sad. You would think that a true journalist would know what party the man belongs to, and find out what that party believes in and stands for. You know, do some background, some research, like us voters do. To me, Mr. Paul makes a lot of sense, and evidently he does to the voters in KY as well.
And I have yet to figure out why you liberals keep on saying how unintelligent Ms Palin is, yet every time she speaks, you are all over her! YOU are the ones making her so popular! She is not running for ANY office, yet you all give her as much or more airtime/print space than the actual candidates!
FNC is a heckuva lot more center than MSNBC or CNN. Aside from Glenn Beck, I find it to be very moderate. *shrug*
PS- I'm glad to hear your displeasure over Blumenthal. That was totally uncool.
Ok, here I go...
Rand Paul isn't a racist. His comments aren't racist. He simply holds to the libertarian belief that capitalism takes care of itself. I understand that it's icky. Personally, I believe that the portion of the civil rights act that he refers to was needed in it's time, and isn't now. You want to know why? because the majority of people aren't racists. (I may be naive. If so, I don't care.) I believe that given the opportunity to see the true colors of racists will hold far more consequences than making them pretend to assimilate. If i knew someone really didn't want to serve, say chinese people, they wouldn't be serving this Irish Italian American Either.
As far as Sarah Palin goes...I wish she'd go away. Quickly, and quietly. She may have had something once upon a dream.
Right now, she's a talk show host.
Joe McGinniss still doesn't seem to understand that his behavior makes him appear like a predatory pederast.