This campaign has perhaps seen more media bias than any previous contest for the White House. But, of all the outrages committed by the mainstream media, few compare to their treatment of one of the most accomplished women in American politics, the Republican Vice-Presidential nominee, Sarah Palin.
In the media’s questions of the Alaska Governor, few television journalists have even asked her about her record, as if she were just a pretty face and her career a blank slate, save for the dirt they could dig up (or make up) from the Last Frontier. Ask any person who gets his news from the MSM about her accomplishments and you’ll be met with a blank stare.
Yet, they do know that her daughter’s pregnant and the Republican National Committee (RNC) paid for her wardrobe.
Despite all the attacks she has endured, she has retained her poise on the campaign trail. Quite a contrast to the opposing party’s standard bearer. She doesn’t let the obsessive opposition and media obloquy get to her.
Heck, it seems to upset me more than it does her.
I think the reason she can be so strong in the face of such vitriol is that her marriage, like that of Ronald Reagan, truly centers her life. Seeing her and Todd on stage together, one can feel their connection. You know that man loves this woman and this woman that man. While other politicians certainly love their spouses, few manifest it as readily as do the Palins. And the Reagans.
Reagan also seemed unfazed by the vituperative vilification that defined much of the media reaction to his rise and election. Today’s news reports notwithstanding, the Gipper suffered some pretty harsh blows from his political foes. In 1988, John Kerry called the Reagan era “eight years of moral darkness.”
Just like Sarah Palin, Ronald Reagan took it all in stride. Perhaps, that’s because when a strong marriage anchors your life, you develop the strength to withstand all manner of insults. Sarah Palin has that strength.
You’d think feminists would hold such a woman up as a model to which all women should aspire, standing tall even when others try to bring her down.
No wonder I love this lady.
UPDATE:Â Just got Kimberley Strassel’s Wall Street Journal piece on her interview with Palin. Excerpts below the jump.She notes the abuse Palin has endured:
The press has brutalized the Alaska governor, playing gotcha with her record, digging through her family life. The liberal intelligentsia has declared her unfit for office, a rube, a right-wing maniac. The conservative intelligentsia has accused her of being a lightweight, of “anti-intellectualism.”
The Alaska Governor faults the GOP for failing to deliver, saying, “We must prove to the American people that we will live out the ideals and the values articulated in that platform.” She reminds us that she’s “ever been known as an obsessive partisan. In fact, I’ve taken on my own party. I’ve run against members of my own party in order to reform at a local level and a state level:
I haven’t always just toed the line in the party. I’m not wired to do that. I want reform of our party, I want to be able to prove that our party is worthy of leading this country. And I’m not going to just go along to get along. I’ve never been able to do that. It bodes well for someone’s character, I believe, and is a strength.
This is the kind of woman we need to help clean up our party and lead our nation. Read the whole thing!
Who cares about that. A question about what newspapers she reads is far more important. Well, at least to liberals who rely on Jon Leibowitz and TMZ for their news.
I completely agree. What a great role model for teenage girls! But are they going anywhere but TMZ?
I have to agree with you on the strength of the Palin’s relationship. Their close coordination during Troopergate is a testament to their closeness. He had her back all the way.
I have to disagree with the premise that she was treated unfairly. The McCain camp did not vett her properly, pushed her out as a celebrity and a “maverick” (god I hope in never hear that word again), and then yanked her back behind the curtain again.
The questions asked of her in the first interviews were certainly probing and not out of line for someone that no one knows. You’ll get the family questions to get a feel for a person and some policy questions to see were she stands on issues. She failed miserably.
But, it’s the media’s fault. They asked her questions in a sneaky way so she would trip up. “What do you like to read?” Duhhhhhhh! Everything! “What does the vice President do?” Duhhh! Controls the Senate! Dontcha know!
I do agree that she has strength with all due respect. She would not have attained her status without it. But has she really used it for good? That is debatable.
you mean like Obama?
You do realize you are using a media talking point (that Palin wasnt properly vetted) to defend the medias treatment of her.
She said the Vice President “runs” the senate, and if you read your constitution, Article I, Section 3 (which, contrary to Biden, establishes the Congress not the executive branch), you will find that the Vice President is the President of the Senate, and presides over the Senate, the only time anyone else presides over the Senate is if the VP delegates the duty. Indeed, other than replacing the president if he dies, running the Senate is the VP’s ONLY constitutional duty.
And I wouldn’t answer the question on reading materials either — it’s intended as a trap. name anything conservative and get nailed for being a right wing wacko, name a liberal source and have them ask you to name an author, or try to find an article you didnt read then call you a liar. And as Palin said, what the people really want to know is her views on issues that concern them.
*running the senate includes certifying the results of the electoral college vote.
I took Tim O for a drive-by troll and wasn’t going to say anything, but since A&E has done so, I want to comment on Tasergate.
Why would it have been a bad thing if Sarah Palin had tried to get a dirty cop fired? Between the Democrats piling onto Palin for allegedly trying to fire a dirty cop who was being protected by a corrupted bureaucrat, and their defense of Obama for his dealings with Tony Rezko, Frank Marshall et. al; his disabling of the credit card verification system to accept illegal campaign contributions; and his close association with ACORN voter-fraud racket… is it fair to say the Democrat party is now ostensibly Pro-Corruption?
No it’s not V the K,
I object to your use of the word ‘NOW’ in that sentence. Remove the now and you’re accurate.
I saw Palin at a rally on television recently and once again I’m amazed. She strides onto the stage, smiling and waving, shaking hands, giving the thumbs-up, and delivering a perfectly-timed barn burner. She’s as effective as the New York bird, but far more beautiful.
“I would rather be governed by the first thousand names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty.” — W. F. Buckley
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!
— R. Kipling
No matter how strong your marriage is, if the media and country decide to vilify you at every turn – you will fold. Look at President Bush, it appears to me that he and Laura have a very good solid marriage. But years of attacks from all sides have worn him down.
I used to think that he didn’t care about the polls. Now I think that he did the right thing for the security of our country – but he tried to buy back some respect with his social programs. He mortgaged our childrens’ future to China in order to buy some respect.
Didn’t work, but when the world turns on you – the love of a strong man or woman just isn’t enough.
But if the world turns on you, and you don’t have that, what do you have?
This weekend Obama threw his illegal, poor Auntie under the bus…”break the law, send her home’ knowing that won’t happen.
Couric asks him one question on said Auntie and NOTHING else….Palin treated fairly by media???? NOT!
As a woman with a marriage like Palin’s, I am so glad to have a ‘real’ person on the side of the people. People hate her because she IS a woman. If that weren’t so, Hillary would be running for Pres right now. The media wasn’t ready for a WOMAN and that is the problem now. They can support history with Obama, but Palin is going ‘too far’. Sad? but true. We really haven’t come far after all…….
V the K, we as a country are worse off when our leaders are in sham marriages. Just look at Clinton. I’m rooting for Sarah and Todd the whole way – if nothing else – what an example to people of what a real marriage is like.
I watched the Greta Van Sustren interview with the Palins in PA. Piper is a force to be reconed with! What a pistol. I also watched Todd carefully, often while Sarah was talking, he was looking over with such love at Trig, who was being held and fed by Willow.
This is a lesson the lefties need to learn – a child is a blessing a deserving of love – regardless of how ‘perfect’ he/she is.
V the K,
Had Palin NOT gone after the trooper and he had done something wrong, the left would be the first to vilify her for not firing him. Lets not pretend there is any intellectual honesty or consistency on the left, there simply isn’t.