It seems fitting, given the front page diary devoted to Bristol Palin, to address the true significanmce of her presence on the public stage and not whether voters are cheating to get her some trophy on a dance show. What Bristol Palin's "success" shows us is just how low our standards have sunk in this country.
How tragic is it that we celebrate a young girl in the 21st Century dumb enough to get knocked up in high school? Seriously, is this someone who is to be held up as some kind of role model because her only accomplishment is to have done something that has been campaigned against and held up to ridicule for generations by the very party her own mother pretends to lead? Or maybe because she is white and from a family of means her act of stupidity in having unprotected sex with a fellow teenager in an age where contraception is readily available---and STDs are rampant--is somehow more laudatory than if she were poor and black or Hispanic---and her parents weren't Conservative Christian Republicans.
I could care less whether Tea Partiers are rigging the votes for Bristol Palin on some TV show. So the girl can't dance. Maybe some egos will be bruised by the unfairness of it all, but I doubt any lasting harm will be done, except maybe to the American psyche.
What really bothers me is that a public that holds up this family of underachievers as the American Ideal may soon be stuffing the ballot box and we will wake up to find the Clampetts are living in the White House and Granny has access to the nuclear arsenal.
How did we fall so far so fast? In many ways I blame the media. The corporate media, that is. NPR and PBS still actually focus on that which most of us recognize as "news", not the "noise" that is passed off as relevant in the corporate run media world. Why else would FOX chief blowhard Roger Ailes want to see NPR defunded? They and PBS are the only outlets that haven't taken his right-wing bait.
There is nothing truly unique about Sarah Palin for the media to have made her into such a "star". She was not the first female VP candidate. (That was Geraldine Ferraro, who is now a rather forgotten, sad and bitter old woman dredged up periopdically by FOX pundits to snipe at the party that tired of her years ago.) Palin has not been shown to possess any real acumen regarding any particular issues or any intellectual curiosity whatsoever, though as with her fellow FOX contributors that has never been a prerequisite for employment (Hannity, for example, never made it past high school.) As best I can tell she works out and is fairly attractive and can parrot any talking point you feed her which meana she is pretty much like any newsreader on most corporate-owned stations.
Yet, the truth is the media has gone whole hog on the Palins and are literally expecting us to swallow urine by telling us it's lemonade. Palins are everywhere! They've conquered TLC and ABC and are 24/7 on FOX. A day without Palin-mania on MSNBC or CNN just isn't feasible. Their every Twitter and Tweet is breathlessly reported. Even when their 16-year-old daughter called someone a "faggot" on her Facebook page, the faggots at GOProud sprung to her defense. (Can't wait to see the newly formed "Friends of Willow" marching in their "Faggots for Palin 2012" wife beaters.)
The irony of it all seems to be totally missed by all. I mean, here they all are raving about foreigners and Muslims taking over America while taking their marching orders FOX and filling the coffers of the Australian family and the Saudi Prince who own it. Sure, Rupert got a US passport, but if you think that makes him loyal to America, dream on. The guy has traded countries and wives with the same frequency. His current wife is Chinese and so are many of his latest business interests. If things don't go his way here, he has options. Just as the UK, where the clan is threatening to pull up stakes if they don't get the meduia dominance they are demanding.
But none of this matters to the Palinistas or their corporate media enablers. After all, when they chose an unwed teenage mother to be their spokemodel for abstinence no one blinked. So will it really be a surprise if she wins a dance trophy without any real ability? She'll just be following family tradition after all.
(I wonder if she gets to keep the clothes?)