Sarah Palin and the Obsession of Media

It's very difficult to objectively critcize a person about whom, until this week, one has known nothing, and who one has found is simply polarizing. I am, I dare not hesitate to say, on the opposite pole from Governor Palin, in numerous ways. Her biography hints at censorship in the form of banning books at libraries, firing people for spite, religious fervor (I at best can present myself as "religiously neutral." When confronted with censorship, denial of reproductive choice, or derision against my gay friends, I become "religious-negative" as in, I can not endorse and must oppose religions that climb on the backs and get in the faces of people just trying to live their lives), a sybiotic relationship with the oil industry (not unheard of in her neck of the woods, just out of synch with her "reformer" vibe) and a mix of incompetence blended with authoritarianism. No, so help me, I have been her stalker on the internet this past week. That is the take-away I got.

The campaign means to keep her in a box until the media can show proper deference to her. With respects to Rick Davis, I do not think that word means, what you think it means.



"Deference" is what you provide to people whose experience and intellect you have cause to admire. It's earned. She would have to do the appropriate retail-politicking and write a few of her own speeches before anyone would give her that--capische? If she has nothing to say, then what should anyone be deferring to?

Not any of the caveats I have about her involve her personal life--I am only interested in who her political persona is. If it includes the Alaska Independence Party, whose founder despised America and all her institutions



well--how personal is that? If she sat in a church where it was allowed that Israel might have terrorist attacks coming because of their stiff-necked inability to accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior--this isn't a family issue, it's a judgement issue. How does that affect how she will deal with the Middle East?

Just as choosing her was a governing issue, not a campaign issue. Contra Rove. She may be called upon to govern, and whether she was right or not for the temporary needs of the campaign should not have mattered as much as whether she could do the job! And ps to Rick Davis, who admitted that the campaign was about personalities not issues well, yay, you, for finally running somebody who is all personality, and is shite on all issues. She's nothing on foreign policy, her economics sucess in Alaska was a big windfall profits tax on the oil concerns, and she loves pork. Nice albatross to hang on your candidate, you shallow bimbos.

In other words, if the media pays any attention to her, they are probaby more struck with her newness and strangeness and the inconsistencies regarding stuff like her trying to sell an Alaska-state "luxury" jet through ebay. It never sold on e-Bay, and she sold it to one of her donors at a $600K loss. They might not be ready to address her gravitas--if she can muster any.

It isn't the media bringing her down, though.

It's the notion she'll say something. Out of turn. And the campaign's cynical acknowledgement of that. As a feminist, I think I'd prefer they let her say just whatever "something" she needs to say.

(Edit: For coherence, really.)