Whether Palin has a national future or not will depend on her willingness to hit the books at some point and absorb more information about international history and politics than she has needed to know in her role as governor. She also needs a shrewder, cooler take on the mainstream media, with its preening bullies, cackling witches, twisted cynics and pompous windbags. The Northeastern media establishment is in decline, and everyone knows it. Palin should not have gotten into a slanging match with David Letterman or anyone else who has been obsessively defaming her or her family. Let surrogates do that stuff.See also, Dan Riehl, "Paglia's Advice For Sarah Palin." And Memeorandum.
The vicious double standard is pretty obvious. Only the tabloids, for example, ran the photos of a piss-drunk Chelsea Clinton, panties exposed, falling into her car outside London clubs a few years ago. If Chelsea had been the scion of Republican bigwigs, those tacky scenes would have been trumpeted from pillar to post in the U.S. as signals of parental failures or turmoil in clan Clinton. As a Democrat, I detest the partisan machinations that have become standard in Northeastern news management and that are detectable in editorial decisions at major metropolitan newspapers nationwide. It's why I, like a host of others, have shifted my news gathering to the Web.
Plus, my take is here: "Can Palin Win the 2012 GOP Nomination?"
Palin was a good Governor. She is a good person -shouldn't be persecuted, but she shouldn't be thinking about running for president. Not yet. An unusually fair assessment of Sarah Palin by Camille Paglia. The educated class, the left-press and the earnest bloggers waste too much time trying to second-guess and denigrate her. If she were Democrat, the press would be hanging the right if the tables were turned. Where are the feminists coming out in her favor? They are too busy marching for Lesbian rights and hating men. Palin is too sexy, too successful, too confident, but also too religious, too middle class values to be appreciated by liberals– we need to see existential angst, and bitterness like Pelusi. That we understand.
ReplyDeleteYet, “willingness to hit the books at some point and absorb more information about international history and politics?” No way! This is her field, she shouldn’t have to be cramming. Jealous Katie Couric and smug Charles Gibson proved she was unprepared for the simplest of challenges. She is buying into her own local successes. Palin is not experienced enough and too gullible to run for the presidency. The GOP needs to stop and reconsider other options. I like Sarah Palin, but a world leader? The GOP needs to come up with a smooth criminal like Barak Hussein Obama. Unless of course, Obamaland goes by the way of Neverland. Then, the Republicans may have a shot at this, but not with Palin by 2012.