From the beginning, the Weekly Standard has been on Sarah Palin’s side. As the magazine’s associate editor Matthew Continetti reminds us throughout the course of his new book, The Persecution of Sarah Palin, it was Fred Barnes who first brought the Alaska governor to the attention of grassroots conservatives. And so it’s fitting that his colleague would be the one to pen such a tome, released just days before the governor herself drops Going Rogue. Persecution is lite-fare as much as it is red-meat, and should be taken with a barrel of salt.
I walked into it expecting what I got. The book is filled with complaints of double-standards in favor of the Democrats in last year’s campaign, indignation over the fact that Palin’s center-right record as Alaska governor was ignored, anger about myths that were spread and widely accepted (Africa-as-country garbage, book-banning nonsense, etc.), and a whole lot of disdain for left-wing bloggers.
And yet, what we have here is the other side of the same coin: to take the most striking example, Continetti paints Palin’s tenure as mayor of Wasilla as an idyllic time of growth and proper management. After glossing over and even glorifying the fact that she ran her mayoral campaign on a pro-life platform (?!), the defining issue of Palin’s second term — the Wasilla Sports Complex — is noted only briefly, to mention that while there may have been a teensy little eminent domain problem, it wasn’t really that big of a deal. Indeed, the reader is left with the impression that it was really just a footnote, even though the legal issues have yet to be worked out, as Continetti reminds us, “to this day.” No mention of the crushing debt that it sent Wasilla into.
Continetti insists that since the “factual,” “empirical data” show that Palin put a stop to the infamous Bridge to Nowhere, it was a smear against her to assert that she was spinning the facts by claiming that she told Congress “thanks but no thanks.” Alright, Mr. Continetti, I’ll call uncle: I suppose that Palin, in the very literal, empirical sense, put a stop to the Bridge to Nowhere. But no one in his right mind can possibly suggest that she did not mean to imply that she was a crusader against the earmark. She wasn’t. She put a stop to it after national pressure made it impossible to proceed with it. While reading his prose, one gets the sense that the author realizes that this is so: the “empirical” data are constantly referred back to: did Palin literally stop it or not? Well, did she? This Alaska Democrat website seems to think so! One good spin deserves another, I guess.
Continetti repeatedly equates left-wing bloggers with “the elite media.” Blog post after blog post is cited, especially from writers for the Huffington Post. Using this bizarre methodology, one could quote from RedState and WorldNetDaily, seeking quotes to show that there was a “media persecution campaign” against Barack Obama, alleging all sorts of crazy things, and even questioning his citizenship!
Continetti fares better when he tackles media double-standards. A fact-checking of the Palin-Biden debate reveals all sorts of missteps on Biden’s part that would have sent the media into a harried tailspin had Palin asserted it. The classic example serves best: could Palin have possibly gotten away with saying that France and the United States went into Lebanon to kick out Hezbollah? It would have been proof that she’s a total dunce, a complete know-nothing on foreign policy issues. Not so on the part of “Joe being Joe.” But this is standard media bias; par for the course every way you cut it. Similarly, when Continetti compares the softball questions Katie Couric asked Joe Biden — “Do you like campaigning?” — with the tougher questions Palin was asked, there’s a fair point. But that merely shows that the media need to be tougher on Democrats. If Palin’s partisans regard it as “persecution” to expect their candidate to produce intelligible answers when asked tough questions, we are rapidly approaching a world in which even journalists themselves have lost their understanding of the dividing line between reporting and flacking.
17 responses so far
1 Churl // Nov 17, 2009 at 11:42 am
From the LA Times: Top of the Ticket
“Wow, for somebody who’s supposed to be such a political joke, an Arctic ditz and eminently dismissable as a serious anything except maybe a stay-at-home hockey mom, Sarah Palin is sure drawing an awful lot of attention from Democrats and eager critics.”
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/11/sarah-palin-going-rogue-democratic-national-committee-.html
“Every few minutes another note from Democratic National Committee operatives and others dropped into electronic mailboxes across the media-verse, helpfully passing on even the tiniest tidbit of negative news about Palin.”
(from the above-referenced article)
2 SFTor1 // Nov 17, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Do you think Sarah Palin is a worthy Presidential Candidate, Churl?
3 pnwguy // Nov 17, 2009 at 12:24 pm
I don’t think the issue of “softballs” and hard questioning had as much to do with media bias as it did with exposure. By 2008, anyone who follows national politics had listened enough to Joe Biden over a long career in the Senate, to know quite a bit about his views on national topics. Between his chairmanships on Judiciary and Foreign Relations, and numerous hearings that were on television or radio (like Supreme Court nominations for weeks), his views on numerous areas of public policy were easily documented.
Palin had zero exposure to a national audience, prior to the announcement of McCain’s selection. Virtually no one in the readerships or audiences of print and broadcast media had anything to judge her qualifications for high office on. Journalists were playing catch up. Every reporter who covered the political beat was in a frenzy to get background.
The partisans who defend her spin that this was some unprecedented attack, and that she was unfairly persecuted. But the fact that McCain picked such an unknown, and from a region that national audiences have scant knowledge of, brought on a flurry of questions to be answered in a short period of time. The fact that she wouldn’t hold ANY press conferences merely added to the suspicion that she couldn’t hold her own in questioning.
4 Churl // Nov 17, 2009 at 12:50 pm
SFTor1, yes.
5 balconesfault // Nov 17, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Yes, Dems do keep talking about Sarah. She is a useful shorthand for a certain lack of realism that infests about 40% of the Republican Party.
6 LFC // Nov 17, 2009 at 1:44 pm
“Say Anything” Sarah is delusional. She’ll say anything that she thinks will make her look good at the moment, leaving behind a stream of easily documented lies in her wake.
7 Arch // Nov 17, 2009 at 1:56 pm
She describes the “what do you read?” question as feeling insulting (my interpretation, not her words), like Couric was astounded people read in Alaska or something. I thought it was a perfectly legitimate question for a relative unknown, even a softball, but for whatever reason (victim complex or self-esteem issue interpreting the question as an insult or perhaps she really doesn’t read anything) she bungled it. And the paucity of other real interviews left the impression of her weirdly lying about reading everything to stand. She could probably have moved the conversation by continuing to engage but for whatever reason they made her less available for genuine questioning, not more so.
8 LFC // Nov 17, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Waddya’ know! I was off looking at other things, and now the AP has fact checked her too.
9 SFTor1 // Nov 17, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Well, Churl, I can’t escape the impression that she is a lightweight in too many ways, and therefore unsuitable.
Most worrisome is probably her quitting her job. That was mystifying to say the least.
Isn’t there someone channeling Ike or Teddy R around somewhere, who could be more credible? I think either type could be needed down the road.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the Obama presidency will turn out well—just look at the fine way he is kicking the can down the road in Copenhagen. But we need a succession of good Presidents to break the oligarchs, restore financial sanity, and get us out of our costly wars. It’s not like there’s no room for a good Republican in there.
As for Sarah I think she’s unelectable, and rightfully so.
10 Churl // Nov 17, 2009 at 4:35 pm
LFC, Waddya know further, herewith an amusing autopsy on your AP fact check:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTE2YmEyMDZkM2Y3NjAzYWZjOTRmYjExZDg4MGE0NzE=
11 anniemargret // Nov 17, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Seems like something like 55% of Republican males think she is ready to be POTUS. To which the rest of us….holy demolition, Batman, get me outta here!
There is nothing to ‘defend’ about Palin. She’s having a rollicking good time. Never puts herself into too much of a difficult situation where she might have to answer some real questions, but always in front of adoring fans…much safer that way. She’s raking in millions although her book gives no glimpse into any policy goals should she go for the gold . Just whining about how bad McCain and company were to her.
Of course, they were terrified she was actually going to talk. As I said before…holy heart failure, Batman……
12 ottovbvs // Nov 17, 2009 at 7:30 pm
……Continetti knows his market…..it’s Churl and similarly highly intelligent and perceptive people…….he knows that about 2.5 million people watch Fox regularly……he knows that the base of the Republican party is about 20% of the electorate, thats about 26 million people……so you roll it all together and sure enough there’s a chance he could sell a few hundred thousand copies of this stuff and pay for his new car or a deposit on new home…….So step rights up folks (that’s you Churl), open your pocket books and show your support for the liddle lady we all love so much
13 Skull / Bones » Blog Archive // Nov 17, 2009 at 7:35 pm
[...] Because I need to link to something about Sarah Palin sometime or other. … to review one Palin related book [...]
14 Churl // Nov 17, 2009 at 10:06 pm
I’m curious about this ottovbvs chap. He seems to possess a sound intellect, is erudite beyond measure, and has a productive lifetime of world wide experience in all manner of endeavors. He also seems to be a dedicated liberal, but is anxious to warn conservatives away from draping around their reddened necks the sure-to-lose albatross of Sarah Palin.
What I don’t understand is why is he wasting his valuable time lecturing us mental defectives. Has he not heard of the admonition not to smarten up chumps?
Odd, that.
15 ste4ve // Nov 18, 2009 at 7:00 am
Time for a Palin palate-cleanser, don’tcha think? Here you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx4kXgF88wQ.
Cheers!
16 Drew // Nov 18, 2009 at 9:36 am
“Wow, for somebody who’s supposed to be such a political joke, an Arctic ditz and eminently dismissible as a serious anything except maybe a stay-at-home hockey mom, Sarah Palin is sure drawing an awful lot of attention from Democrats and eager critics.”
Is this supposed to be a coherent argument? Because it’s basically the mission statement of a troll: look at how much attention I’m getting!
But attention is not proof of anything other than attention. And in this case, the reason eager critics and Dems are jumping on Palin is that she’s an easy target, and a very rich and productive one. Some Republicans just love her to pieces… but she makes Independents groan. So, yes, Dems ARE very eager to give her lots and lots of attention, anointing her the face of the Republican Party. Because they know that all sorts of key swing groups mostly have a hard time taking her seriously.
Her latest cry of sexism is just baffling. The image is not “out of context.” The context is that Palin is a clown out of water: she posed for that ridiculous shot (funny how after all the uproar about flag protocol in ‘08, no one is upset by the use of the flag as a drape). That’s the context. She’s used her family and her body as political props, but then cries victim whenever they are commented on critically. She’s a one woman circus sideshow who comes across as not only not having thought seriously about any national issue, but not being interested in EVER doing so, more than a YEAR after she came to the national stage. She thinks settlements are good because Israel’s Jewish population is increasing and they need space to move into? Not even _proponents_ of settlement expansions would put their position that dumbly (and, factually confused).
But instead of anyone on the right being able to sit her down and tell her to get serious, she’s made clear that she listens to nobody and has no need to change anything.
17 Churl // Nov 18, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Drew, the point of the link is this: if Palin is certain to be a big loser for Republicans, it is odd that Democrats and the lefty media spend so much time and effort quashing her.
Not to say that she wouldn’t lose big, but if the left and the Democrats really think that she is a looming disaster for their opponents, why don’t they just keep quiet and allow the train wreck that they think her candidacy would cause?
I rather think that she is perceived by the left as a threat and they are therefore applying Alinsky’s tactic #13. “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it”.
Frum and Chums are generously helping out with tactic #5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
You must log in to post a comment.