Politico has an article up today in which Sarah Palin complains about her alleged unfair treatment at the hands of the media and contrasts it with what she characterizes as Caroline Kennedy's free ride. She goes so far as to attribute the difference in treatment to class.
While I would agree, in the sense that Kennedy has class and Palin has none, that's not quite the point Palin is trying to make. Rather, she's asserting that her problems with the media had nothing, NOTHING, to do with the fact that she demonstrated a breathtaking lack of knowledge and insight into the basics of American government, history -- even culture. That she couldn't (for instance) name a single publication, let alone a Supreme Court case or explain the Bush Doctrine.
Do you recall how, at first, right wing flacks attempted to excuse Palin's lack of knowledge until it became obvious that such efforts were an exercise in futility on par with -- oh, I don't know -- shoveling shit against the tide. Do you recall George Will, for instance, claiming that he couldn't explain the Bush Doctrine. And the Weekly Standard's claim that the question had been unfair as the Bush Doctrine is ambiguous.
At this point, following Obama's resounding victory, I find some perverse joy in watching Palin squirm. The more she speaks, the more she hurts herself -- at least on the national stage. (Alaska's, of course, another story. It's impossible for any rational human to understand how these things play in the land of tundra and caribou.)
I found it ironic that, after asserting during the election she had been charmed by Tina Fey ("Hilarious with the volume off"; "Didn't hear a word she said but the visual -- spot on!") she now claims she's been exploited:
I did see that Tina Fey was named entertainer of the year and Katie Couric’s ratings have risen," she said. "And I know that a lot of people are capitalizing on, oh I don’t know, perhaps some exploiting that was done via me, my family, my administration. That’s a little bit perplexing, but it also says a great deal about our society.
Sure, Sarah, it says a great deal about our society that someone as uninformed as you could run for an office a single heartbeat away from the presidency and have countless apologists in the Republican party, the media and elsewhere. Truly scary; thanks for pointing that out.
With regard to the Couric interview, here's an idea Sarah. Blame the McCain Campaign, CBS News, Katie Couric -- everyone but Sarah Palin.
Looking back on the Couric interviews, Palin said she knew things were not going well after their first session and asked the McCain campaign to pull the plug on the remaining sit downs but insisted the campaign made her go through with the rest.
"I knew it didn’t go well the first day, and then we gave her a couple of other segments after that. And my question to the campaign was, after it didn’t go well the first day, why were we going to go back for more?" she said. "Because of however it works in that upper echelon of power brokering in the media and with spokespersons, it was told to me that, yeah, we are going to go back for more. And going back for more was not a wise decision either."
Palin criticized Couric for the way CBS "spliced it together," saying that "so many of the topics brought up were not portrayed as accurately as they could have, should have, been."
She also expressed frustration with Couric’s characterization of her since the interviews. After being shown a clip of Couric complaining to David Letterman that no post-election interviewer has asked Palin why she would not tell the CBS anchor what newspapers she reads, the Alaska governor responded: "Because, Katie, you’re not the center of everybody’s universe."
If you've got the stomach for it, here's a strong dose of The World According to Sarah Palin. Wade through it, for old times sake, subject to the condition that I take no responsibility if you contract cholera.
(The title of the diary is property attributed to Winston Smith in comment 11 following the Politico article.)