Has Sarah Palin gotten a raw deal in the press? I don't think so. She stepped into the spotlight as the vice-presidential candidate and then she didn't like it when that spotlight revealed what many of us suspected: that she was unprepared and largely unqualified to be vice-president.
But even as she stepped down as governor of Alaska on July 3, she was still taking shots at the press. After citing her accomplishments, she lamented that "You don't hear much of the good stuff in the press anymore, do you?" Sigh.
A friend criticized the Times for calling the speech "rambling," but having read the speech I have to defend the Times use of the word "rambling." Not where she states that she is resigning because it would be "apathetic to just hunker down and "go with the flow." She then adds, "Nah, only dead fish "go with the flow." Um OK.
Like many politicians, Palin has always wanted to have it both ways. She paraded her family into the national spotlight when she stepped onto the stage of the Republican National Convention. She showed she was both a devoted mother and a staunch anti-abortion advocate who put her money where her mouth was by giving birth to a baby with Down Syndrome. If that wasn't evidence enough of her prolife bonafides, there was her pregnant teen-age daughter.
But after an electrifying convention speech, she apparently refused to prepare for important national interviews. The recent Vanity Fair article on Palin details exactly how unprepared and uncooperative she was after she was chosen by McCain. (It also shows that, as we always suspected, she was poorly vetted by McCain's people). She had a very poor grasp on national and international issues and so fumbled her interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric, neither of whom are the hardball interviewers).
Even after the presidential race was over, she has continued to both take shots at the media as somehow being at the heart of her problems. At the same time, she got into bizarre media tugs-of-war, as the recent Vanity Fair article shows. After the father of Palin's grandchild Tripp told Tyra Banks that he stayed in Bristol's room and that he assumed Palin knew they were having sex, Palin issued a "blistering" statement refuting those claims, for example.
More recently, Palin's lawyers threatened to sue media outlets if they publish defamatory material relating to whether Palin is under federal investigation, according to Politico.com. The blogosphere, including Alaskan blogger Shannyn Moore, has apparently been speculating that Palin embezzled funds from the sports arena project built in Wasilla, Alaska.
"This is to provide notice to Ms. Moore, and those who republish the defamation, such as Huffington Post, MSNBC, The New York Times and The Washington Post, that the Palins will not allow them to propagate defamatory material without answering to this in a court of law,” the lawyer warned. Neither the Post or the Times have published anything about the rumors but the statement was apparently meant as a warning to deter them from doing so.
Whether this ultimately proves to be true or not, this does seem to point out my problem with the blogosphere "publishing" unsubstantiated rumors. But by issuing such a detailed refutation of the charges, Palin succeeded in drawing attention to the very issue she was trying to defend herself against.
Palin's attacks on the press make sense as a way to establish a connection with her conservative base. If she resigned in order to make a run for the presidency, as many people think, she will need those conservatives who still love her, to establish her base.
Jon Friedman, of Market Watch, says that Palin has "mastered the art of using the media to divide and conquer and is using it to solidify her hold on her political base."
"Go ahead. Call her stupid and unsophisticated and goofy and sleazy. But understand that Palin also has more street smarts when it comes to keeping her name in the news than anyone today on the national scene. She has mastered the media by acting like the star of her own reality television series," he says.
And he's right. We are all (myself included) fascinated by Palin. Some of us are fascinated and repelled by her but we are fascinated nonetheless. It will be interesting to see whether she is planning to run for office or just running away.
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