Love Sarah Palin or not, one has to admit the press is so undone by her that they are both aggressive and passive-aggressive in their hate, and they betray themselves continually in all sorts of ways. They betray their snobbism; they betray their spitefulness, and most emphatically, they betray the fact that our “fourth estate” is populated mostly by perpetual adolescents.
Our press, with a few exceptions, is largely made up of people who, at age 14, decided they were sophisticates who knew everything about everything, and therefore had no need to ever think deeply, change an opinion or grow.
They betray their hate, their spitefulness and their perpetual adolescence very succinctly, here, in this piece about Palin’s spectacularly well-attended book signing in Michigan:
Country music played as Palin’s tour bus, painted to resemble the cover of her book, pulled up to the Woodland Mall in Grand Rapids.
“I just can’t tell you how good it is to be back in Michigan,” the former Alaska governor . . . Alaska and Michigan have so much in common, with the huntin’ and the fishin’ and the hockey moms, and just the hardworking, patriotic Americans who are here,” Palin said.
Ah, those rubes lining up were treated to “country” music; other politicians work the midwest to the strains of the prentender-everyman Bruce Springsteen, who is at least authentically “cool.” And then here comes former Governor Palin Buckshot Annie and her too-large family, droppin’ ‘er g’s and layin’ on the “hardworking, patriotic Americans” schtick with a graceless trowel.
Because Barack Obama never talks about “hardworking Americans.” Hillary Clinton never talked about “patriotic Americans.” And no other politician, except Bill Clinton (all the time), Hillary Clinton (when she was pandering) and Barack Obama (when he was pandering or playing) has ever dropped their g’s while talkin’ to the crowd.
Or, more correctly, none of those politicians have ever had their dropped g’s wholly spelled out in quotes or transcripts, as is routinely done to Sarah Palin. It was occasionally done to President Bush, too, most notably when the Democrats won the 2006 elections and Bush (unlike either Obama or Mrs. Pelosi in the recent election) manfully admitted the loss, calling it a “thumpin.’”
To our rather well-paid press-folk, dropped g’s are indicators of low intellects, lower incomes and the lowest social strata. Dropped g’s are so uncool. Except when they’re savvy and slick. In the screwed up world of the press, fake dropped g’s are clever, and authentic dropped g’s are campy.
The press is so busy embracing urban irony, they do not realize the disoriented, out-of-touch clowns they have become; just like those out-of-touch Beltway players they so love to promote. The clown-politicians are going to be voted out of office in the next two elections, barring fraud. And the clown-press is going to then stump around in their floppy clown feet, sadly beeping their horns and shaking their heads, wondering how it all fell apart.
The American public was not paying much attention to the press, back when they were systematically talking down President Bush day after day, with their incessant negativity and outright distortions, and so people could be swayed. They were swayable in 2008, when the press spent every last dime of its credibility convincing America that Barack Obama was the smartest man ever to run for president, that he was “sort of God”, that he was “stepping down” to accept the presidency.
The American public trusted the press, who told them that Cowboy president was a moron who had “made the world (except for England, France, Germany, Australia, Israel, India, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Eastern Europe, Japan, China, Taiwan, Philippines, Georgia, Ukraine, Lebanon, Turkey, Kurdistan and the entire continent of Africa…) totally hate us,” and whose administration was “cloaked in secrecy.”
So, persuaded by the positivism of the press, Americans voted for a charismatic fellow whose college transcripts, friendships and background -and seemingly all of his instincts- were cloaked in a secrecy untroubling to incurious media; a guy who promised “the most transparent government ever,” and sensible government economic policies. The guy who, since becoming president, has revealed himself to be -not the open, bi-partisan, coalition-building, transparent tower of transcendent brilliance the American people thought they were getting- but a flip-flopping, thin-skinned, secretive, teleprompter-dependent, far-left radical spend-a-holic who talks incessantly and does not listen, who can’t tell us where the money has gone; a guy who says pretty much anything that comes into his head, whether it is true or not, and figures that’s the new history; a “uniter” who has locked the opposition party out of every policy debate (there actually is no debate, anymore) and has weakend our influence abroad (by becoming “the worst sort of ally”) and our security at home, has disrespected, snubbed or betrayed every one of our allies, cozied up to tyrants and done little in a bare year besides bankrupting the country, dissing his predecessor at every opportunity, making us wonder what sort of government he is fomenting, and whether he is in fact, actively working to tear the country apart.
In less than a year, the media’s choice for President, the guy they carried on their shoulders into the White House along with his “most glamorous, most brilliant, most stylish First Lady, ever” has a surprising number of people missing George W. Bush. Obama even has some conservatives, myself among them, missing Bill and Hillary Clinton.
The American people have realized that they were played -by the very press charged with the public trust of information-gathering and presentment- into a bait-and-switch. They are not going to listen to the press, anymore. They will no longer be swayed by stuck-up 14 year olds telling them who is stupid and who is smart, because they’ve seen just how incredibly stupid the common-sense-deficient “smartest people in the world” tend to be.
The press has not had President Bush -who was insufficiently impressed by their intellectual conceits- to use as an outlet for their boundless disdain, They need an outlet, because they are frustrated. They cannot allow themselves to admit that they -they! who are so smart, so clever- have been utterly hoodwinked by the supposed-genius of Barack Obama (who said yesterday that “accounting is an inexact science”) – and they need a reassuring “stupid” focalpoint on which they can direct their scorn and reassure themselves that they are smart, and cool and not at all parochial and closed off.
Palin is that outlet, now Bush is gone, and the putzes in the press can’t mock, spite, roll-their-eyes or seethe enough about her. But their mugging and huffing and mocking is not working, this time.
At Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds notes that a few Certified Palin Haters in the pundit class have become so appalled by the behavior of the press that they are themselves backlashing against it:
DAVID HARSANYI ON SARAH PALIN: “All you haters out there force me to root for her.” and “The widely read blogger and purveyor of all truth, Andrew Sullivan, was impelled to blog 17 times on the subject of Palin on the same day Americans learned that the Obama administration awarded $6.7 billion in stimulus money to non-existent congressional districts — which did not merit a single mention. To see what is in front of one’s nose demands a constant struggle, I guess.”
Megan McArdle: “Y’all well know that I really don’t like Sarah Palin. In fact, more than one of you has yelled at me about this. And I find the whole schtick about how the media is just a bunch of elitist hooligans who are out to get her really grating. That’s why I really wish the media wouldn’t act like, well, a bunch of elitist hooligans who are out to get her.” Or, in some cases, crazed conspiracy theorists.
The 14 year olds in the press had better pay attention: when even those sympathetic to their disdain are alludin’ to their hatin’ and their pettiness an’ their excessive fussin’, they risk playin’ right into Palin’s graspin’, social-climbin’ and impermissible ambitions.
Whatever Palin’s weaknesses, and she does have them, the outsized disdain of the press for this woman Camille Paglia has called “a natural” on the political stage, is backfiring on them, and to her advantage.
Related: Why they hate Palin
Related:
Fred Thompson: Obama has no heart for victory in Afghanistan
Ed Morrissey: So much for Resetting relations with Russia
Malkin: Sullivan’s psychosis and Imagine if Bush (or Palin) talked like this
Melissa Clouthier: Mental illness…
Jules Crittenden: Nuts
November 19th, 2009 | 3:40 pm | #1
[...] The Anchoress – Palin Press: Putzes in Print Sphere It Share and [...]
November 19th, 2009 | 3:46 pm | #2
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by The Anchoress and The Anchoress, Patriot of America. Patriot of America said: "Palin Press: Putzes in Print » The Anchoress | A First Things Blog" ( http://bit.ly/2eQYBe )THE PRESS IS COMING UNGLUED. MUST READ! [...]
November 19th, 2009 | 3:50 pm | #3
Our press, with a few exceptions, is largely made up of people who, at age 14, decided they were sophisticates who knew everything about everything, and therefore had no need to ever think deeply, change an opinion or grow.
Perpetual students, too, that have never have left the womb of academia where they can extend that fantasy for years and years.
November 19th, 2009 | 3:55 pm | #4
Not only is Palin “that outlet now that Bush is gone,” she is the anti-Obama.
All of that undercurrent of disgust and anger towards the Obama administration–their power grabs and outright lies–has to be directed somewhere. No one else, right now, better personifies what so many Americans want to preserve. She’s not perfect, but she is a sort of back-lash figurehead.
November 19th, 2009 | 4:38 pm | #5
Why the continued belief that there is a mainstream press anymore? Newspapers continue their quick descent into bankruptcy, network TV has been splintered by cable, and countless blogs have subdivided us all into neat little tribes.
And here you are, quaintly dropping links to criticism of a Newsweek article. As if Newsweek hasn’t been irrelevant for years.
The times have changed. You are preaching to a small choir of like believers. So are the writers you blame for Palin-hating. Do you really think they’re converting people? Do you really think you are?
America is rapidly dividing. And divided we fall.
November 19th, 2009 | 4:53 pm | #6
girad31, at least the Anchoress is giving us ammunition for converting others. It does help in conversations with others.
November 19th, 2009 | 4:57 pm | #7
Good lord! Basically, Sullivan is saying that he has no real evidence, but he has this wonderfully nuanced story, which will reveal Sarah Palin to the world as the Anti-christ—or something.
I honestly think the man has mental problems. And his obsession with Trig Palin is downright creepy.
November 19th, 2009 | 5:01 pm | #8
The American public trusted the press . . .
I don’t know that anyone over, say, 25-years-old trusted the press — anyone old enough to pay attention to the press has long known how untrustworthy they are.
That said, when you have an unrelenting, nonstop, mountain of bad press attacking someone (like Bush), even despite the distrust, it starts to have an effect. Add to that when your so-called friends, when those in your own party (and not merely despicable Mavericks) start to stab you in the back because they are trying to curry favor with the press, then it is almost a certainty that the public will turn against you.
Now the distrust of the media has reached the flashover point. A free society is in need of information that they can trust, and people today ain’t getting it, and they are tired of it.
November 19th, 2009 | 5:12 pm | #9
“To our rather well-paid press-folk, dropped g’s are indicators of low intellects, lower incomes and the lowest social strata.”
You will seldom see quotes from inner-city residents attending Democrat rallies missing ending G’s. There’s a racial component to this sneering at the poorly-educated rubes.
November 19th, 2009 | 5:14 pm | #10
[...] The Anchoress: The press is so busy embracing urban irony, they do not realize the disoriented, out-of-touch clowns they have become; just like those out-of-touch Beltway players they so love to promote. The clown-politicians are going to be voted out of office in the next two elections, barring fraud. And the clown-press is going to then stump around in their floppy clown feet, sadly beeping their horns and shaking their heads, wondering how it all fell apart. [...]
November 19th, 2009 | 5:22 pm | #11
Then again, after a while, even some on the left MSM can’t take it anymore, like this from Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: “After reporters complained to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs about a lack of communication, he issued a 61-word written statement worthy of the Politburo Standing Committee . . . ”
Politburo? From the Post? Ouch.
[I saw that and twittered it. Milbank, for all he can be too snarky by half, sometimes, is not afraid to call BS when he sees it, sometimes. -admin]
November 19th, 2009 | 5:25 pm | #12
I don’t think we are all THAT divided. Most people in this country consider themselves conservative/moderate. Also, the One’s numbers tumble daily. People are coming to their senses. The travesty with KSM may be the last straw for some.
November 19th, 2009 | 5:35 pm | #13
I haven’t believed anything in the mainstream press since late November, 1963. These are the intellectual offspring of the same types that covered up Kennedy’s murder…I don’t trust them. They all have an angle, and axes to grind.
These are the people who pushed Vietnam down our throats then turned on the military establishment when they actually began to win the war.
The press couldn’t have that. The war was used as a political football. These are the folks who with great glee took Nixon down…then stood around and tried to cover up Clinton’s sins. But for Drudge and a few other sites they would have done it.
The press is corrupt. They have an ideological agenda…or, they have simply been paid off.
Don’t watch ‘em, don’t read ‘em.
November 19th, 2009 | 6:46 pm | #14
This is a major difference between responsible conservatives and responsible liberals:
Someone on the right questions Obama’s citizenship, and responsible conservatives distance themselves from nut-job.
Someone on the left questions Trig Palin’s parentage and responsible liberals, smile, wink, and nod.
November 19th, 2009 | 6:54 pm | #15
The press is furious that “fly over country” Americans would rather listen to Sarah than to them. It gnaws at them, like a child having a fit, that we are not paying attention while they instruct us what idiots we are.
November 19th, 2009 | 7:00 pm | #16
Surely we’re not figuring this out just today? Welcome to reality, Megan McCardle et al.
November 19th, 2009 | 10:27 pm | #17
It is not just the MSM of course, it is the left wing entertainment folks that took off on her as well such as the SNL attacks. It is also not the reporting itself, but the tone. Anchoress has done as always a great job of laying things out. They did to her what they did to Dan Quayle who got hammered right from the start without let up. Biden has made more real gaffs in a week but there is not such attack on him. It is really all about values a person wants for our country. If you are a person who wants to see the USA as a gutter, you are OK. If you want to see the USA as a shining city on a hill and a country that trusts in God, you are going to get hammered. Obama is the most abortion and gay special rights loving president in history and the fell over loving him. Did not hurt that he was black. Had he been conservative, we would have also heard he was not really african american and he would have had to prove with far more than a birth certificate he was really a citizen.
November 20th, 2009 | 12:04 am | #18
I get discouraged by what the media says and then I read your ‘take’ on the news–such an honest breath of fresh air! Thanks for your work in getting it all before us on your blog.
November 20th, 2009 | 12:43 am | #19
Sarah Palin — dragon slayer!
She killed the Oprah Show!
Oprah to announce Friday show will end in 2011
November 20th, 2009 | 1:14 am | #20
Pot meet kettle. Seriously. Pull up just about any post on Free Republic, or turn on Rush Limbaugh, and you will be treated to some of the most disgusting things ever said about a politician in this country.
To date, I have read so-called “Freepers” tear into Barack Obama’s daughter for wearing a t-shirt with a peace symbol on it – a peace symbol! These are Freepers who claim to be devout Christians, and they are gnashing their teeth together over a peace symbol. I have read Michelle Obama branded as “trash” by these very same Freepers for starting a vegetable garden on the White House lawn. These are Freepers who claim to be the salt of the earth, the sons and daughters of America’s heartland – yet calling our First Lady trash because she’s GARDENING. Finally, I have heard Rush Limbaugh state that black children beating up a white boy on a bus is a symptom of “Obama’s America” – while conveniently forgetting to mention the incident that happened right around the same time of a white man who brutally beat up a black servicewoman right in front of her daughter at a Cracker Barrel.
It’s very clear that the Palin fans only bemoan unbecoming criticism when it’s directed at her – not because they are above participating in coarse and ill-mannered discourse themselves.
[I don't think this blog has ever excused excesses of feeling from the right, and it has even occaisionally admitted to its own excesses, so "pot meet kettle" doesn't really apply. "Freepers" are not the mainstream media, they're just people on a forum, like Democratic Undergrounders, and Limbaugh isn't either. Limbaugh is certainly media, but he's also very up front about his bias. He is not the mainstream media, which has held sway over informational reportage while pretending to be e "unbaised" purveyors of facts and truth, and have abused the public trust in that sense. I'd be much more forgiving of them if they would simply stop the pretense. -admin]
November 20th, 2009 | 9:42 am | #21
Something that has been bothering for quite some time. Whenever Obama is mention, or labeled by his adorers as some type of god, the capital ‘G’ is inappropriate.
They thing he’s kind ‘of god’ please use a lower case ‘g’ to describe their thoughts; other wise it puts him on par with the ‘Almighty God’, which he is not.
Just a small thing that makes a big difference; idol worship on behalf of Obama is some type ‘of god’ is correct; lower case ‘g’.
November 20th, 2009 | 1:04 pm | #22
Hey, “Sick of the hypocrites” — Why don’t you actually quote Limbaugh, or didn’t they provide it to you at your commenting seminar or at Media Matters or Huffington Post or Daily Kos or wherever you came up with it? Because you certainly did not hear him say it on his radio show. Perhaps you did “hear” him say something on that matter from one of those left websites, but it is certain you are not a listener of his show.
For the benefit of correcting the record, here is the transcript of that particular show, where Rush made the comments in the context of Obama shooting his mouth off on the Skip Gates arrest, branding the police as stupid and implying racism, as well as in the wake of Eric Holder’s comment, in a pervasive pattern of despicable comments, that Americans were cowards when it came to talking about race. Following Obama and Holder, Rush was sarcastically following them to their logical conclusion, that the white kids were racists and deserved to get beaten up.
Here is a partial excerpt:
September 15, 2009
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Hey, look, folks, the white kid on that bus in Belleville, Illinois, he deserved to be beat up. You don’t know about this story? Oh, there’s video of this. The school bus filled with mostly black students beat up a white student a couple of times with all the black students cheering. Of course the white student on the bus deserved the beating. He was born a racist. That’s what Newsweek magazine told us in its most recent cover. It’s Obama’s America, is it not? Obama’s America, white kids getting beat up on school buses now. You put your kids on a school bus, you expect safety but in Obama’s America the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, “Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on,” and, of course, everybody says the white kid deserved it, he was born a racist, he’s white. Newsweek magazine told us this. We know that white students are destroying civility on buses, white students destroying civility in classrooms all over America, white congressmen destroying civility in the House of Representatives.
We can redistribute students while we redistribute their parents’ wealth. We can redistribute everything. Just return the white students to their rightful place, their own bus with bars on the windows and armed guards. They’re racists. They get what they deserve. Newsweek magazine told us this, post-racial America. I wonder if Obama is going to come to the defense the assailants the way he did his friend Skip Gates up there at Harvard. I mean the assailants are presumed innocent due to the white racism we all know runs rampant in America. The Drive-By Media is ginning up all this criticism of Obama. Again today it’s all based in racism, the criticism of Obama’s health care plan or whatever, it’s all based in racism and so, if he’s going to apologize for America, Obama needs to apologize for the right reasons. White Americans are racists who have created what they call free markets that really just enslave the rest of America and her trading partners. It was white Americans that ran off Van Jones.
Let’s just follow Eric Holder’s advice and not be cowards about all this. Let’s have an open conversation, an honest conversation about all of our typical white grandmothers. You had one, I had one. Obama had one. They’re racists just like our students are. ACORN, hey, nothing but racism fueling the pursuit of ACORN. Greetings, folks. How are you? (interruption) What do you mean you can’t look at everything through a racial prism? Obama does. And his media is looking at everything through a racial prism. The left looks at everything through a racial prism. Hey, they hit us; we hit back twice as hard. Greetings, folks, Rush Limbaugh behind the Golden EIB Microphone and the telephone number if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882.
Look, this thing on the bus cannot possibly be a hate crime. The cops are probably lying about what happened even though we have the video. The video was probably doctored and edited. We all know that cops are liars, racist pigs and that the white kid deserved it. I mean that’s modern 2009 going into 2010 America. . . .
Perhaps those who merely get their info from left websites do not understand or appreciate the idea of sarcasm to make a point, as Rush did and does frequently, but that is his point in this excerpt and the remarks following regarding the school bus incident.
I have no doubt what he says and how he says it makes you on the left cringe, but this highly racially-charged atmosphere we find ourselves in, fueled by the left here in Obama’s “post-racial” America, is highly destructive. Just look at Fort Hood.
–Sick of the frauds who claim to be readers and listeners of conservative websites and radio
November 20th, 2009 | 1:49 pm | #23
I decided today to support Palin in whatever ambitions she may have just because the press hates her so much. If they had ignored her or treated more respectfully, I’d doubtless be looking at someone else.
[That's dangerous, too, though. That is reducing yourself and your political process to spite and sympathy, much as the press asked nothing of Obama, and gave too many passes. The best thing for Palin and for the country is to simply be balanced about her -admin]
November 20th, 2009 | 2:50 pm | #24
Bender, thanks for providing the transcript. For the life of me, I don’t see how you can read it and take away anything BUT that Rush Limbaugh definitely meant to infer in “Obama’s America” white kids will now be routinely beaten by black kids. If anything, his comments are decidedly uglier than how I paraphrased them.
November 20th, 2009 | 2:57 pm | #25
Admin, thanks for responding to my post and your points are duly noted about the difference between Freeper haters and commentary from those in the mainstream press.
I am curious, though, why you used the AP article as your example of MSM bias against Palin? I just read it, and it seemed to be written to describe the sense of excitement and anticipation about Palin’s imminent visit – if I was here, I’d actually want press like that. I am not sure why you objected to the mention that country music was playing. It seems a relevant point, because how many book signings have music playing and a celebratory atmosphere in the waiting lines outside? And country music is one of the most popular music genres in America.
[It's a theme it is of a piece with the writer including the dropped g's. The whole article screamed DUMB HICKS LOVE DUMB HICK. -admin]
November 20th, 2009 | 3:12 pm | #26
There are those who do not see. And there are those who will not see.
November 20th, 2009 | 4:40 pm | #27
Amazing, isn’t it Bender, how those who work so hard to tell us how much smarter and “nuanced” they and their leaders are, somehow never catch the nuance of conflicting views, even when it rises up and bites them on the behind?
November 20th, 2009 | 5:41 pm | #28
Blender, so you really believe that there is a new America where, because Obama was elected, whites are now going to be on the receiving end of more racism and violence from blacks?
Sorry, I don’t buy it. Racial discord has a long, long history in this country, from both races I might add. Again I ask, why didn’t Rush mention that along the same time as that bus incident occurred, a white man savagely beat a black woman at a Cracker Barrel restaurant in front of her young daughter?
As for your reference to Ft. Hood, I believe the perp had religious, not racial motivations for his killing spree. That too has been going on for years, and has nothing to do with Obama. Well, maybe it does, since he’s still sending troops to Iraq, and Hassan was one of them about to ship off.
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