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Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Can We Please Stop Giving This Woman MOAR Press?

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Yes, I fully understand the priceless irony of devoting space to this question.

Yes, Former-Governor Palin managed to grab headlines again, and now for a second time while on vacation to Hawaii by quitting her vacation early because of all the media attention.

It’s time folks to call a spade, a spade.

Sarah Palin is not a naif.  She is not a rookie on the scene any longer. She is not some uncultured hick from the backwoods, and she is certainly not dumb.

Polished?  Not so much.  Deeply intellectual?  Not by a long shot.  But can we please stop treating her every word and deed as if she WASN’T playing for press?  

Sarah Palin didn’t graduate with honors, and it did take her a bit to actually get through school thanks to transfers and some degree of scholastic inefficiency, but she DID graduate.  And with a journalism degree.  And she even parlayed that degree into a short lived career on television news.

She may not be a tower of intellectualism, but she is a professional.  She is a professional politician, and she knows how the media operates.  She has been a part of that media even.  So, can we please dispense with Idiot Palin Narfs It Up Again stories?  

Former Governor Palin made a calculated flap with her Hat Trick. I give full credit to The Washington Post’s Jonathon Capeheart for that turn of phrase.  But let’s face it, the woman manipulates the press like an instrument to get attention.  The idea that she “didn’t want to attract attention” and then pull a boneheaded stunt, to draw more attention doesn’t fly. She’s not that naive.  She is not that guileless.  And can we start calling her on this BS?

She left Hawaii and her vacation short–which will be called being “hounded” by the press in a disingenuous victimhood that simply offends me to no end–and there will be folks who rally to her support as they do to other professional victims.

In the media, big and small, can we please start calling her on this bullshit, please?

Give the woman her due: she is NOT uneducated.  Polished?  Not so much, but to continue to fall for the faux folksy crap is for the birds.  I’m sick of the faux folsky crap.  Tired.  GW was a Yale educated son of a political player, and he was someone folks wanted to have a beer with because he could mime an accent and a dumb ass chuckle.  Why are folks letting this journalist turned politician off the hook for USING HER GODDAMN DEGREE AND PRETENDING THAT IT DOESN’T EXIST?

Seriously.  We cannot let her get away with this crap, because we owe it to ourselves and the people we do share airwaves with, and share opinion with in the blogosphere–boy do I hate that term–to call her on this.

She’s not a naif. She’s not uneducated. She knows what she does, and rewarding her for this kind of disingenuous ploy for press is not just annoying, it only gives this aware and watchful player on the political stage not just more attention, but a pass on the spotlight that she deserves: as a slick, mean spirited, and clever huckster who has no real intellectual gas in the tank, but enough native smarts, and professional chops to get the press she wants.


15 comments

  1. that will keep her from going any farther in politics. She can’t take the heat. How the hell will she be able to handle the presidency if she can’t even stand up to the paparazzi? Her GOP opponents would pound her into the ground with that.

    I don’t think she is as cunning as you apparently do. Getting her communications degree after attending several colleges over longer than the usual time doesn’t only suggest academic problems, it also points to her tendency to quit. She quit four or more colleges before getting a degree. This as a young beauty contest winner. Of course, she got through college. She had plenty of students and professors falling all over themselves to help her make it. Then she got a job in sports reporting. It doesn’t take brains to get a job on television. Hell, Kelly Bundy got a job as a weather girl (that was a good episode).

    Nothing you’ve written here has convinced me she’s at all smart or is manipulating the media. The media is doing what it does best, chasing celebrity. First the media creates a celebrity then they exploit them for profit. She’s not going away until people get tired of her or someone new comes along to replace her.

    On a lighter note…

    Can We Please Stop Giving This Woman MOAR Press?

    So stop writing about her already. Recognizing the irony doesn’t get you off the hook on this one.

    and share opinion with in the blogosphere–boy do I hate that term–

    That’s two for two, so far. A title that was invalidated by the action of writing it and a mini-hypocrisy by using a word that you admittedly hate. Simple solution – don’t use it if you don’t like it. Coin a better word.

    Sorry, couldn’t resist pulling your leg.

  2. HappyinVT

    Her father came out a couple of weeks ago and said one of the reasons Sarah transferred from Hawaii was that the Asians scared her or something to that effect.  I’m also surprised she’d want to be where that guy who pals around with terrorists spend his formative years.  Who knows what could rub off on her.  Oh yeah, except she’s a real American so she’s immune, I suppose.  And, it’s it elitist of her to go to such an exotic locale, Cokie?

    That sense of victimhood may work with her tiny base but I think most people will think she just isn’t tough enough to make it in national politics given that she’s quit on yet another endeavor.  I’m not sure if she’s trying to manipulate the press or the voters or both.  But I’d guess, in the long run, she won’t be successful with either one during an election.

  3. fogiv

    …but I can’t be convinced she’s not, at her core, a fucking moron.  On a particularly generous day, I might be willing to grant a mark of ‘slightly below average’.  Best I can do.

  4. sricki

    John’s comment above sums up much of what I have to say about her intelligence. I understand the desire to shift the narrative, and maybe that’s a good idea. But the fact that Palin knows how to play the victim and get a bunch of attention from the MSM while pretending that’s not what she’s trying to do does not make her some crafty, slick politician. All this whining she is doing is screwing her chances in 2012. She is not helping herself.

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