Friday, October 03, 2008

Media bashing

The Nightly Build...

Palin Bashes the "Liberal Media"

Karen Brooks, on The Dallas Morning News Trailblazers blog, criticizes Sarah Palin for using the media and bashing it, too. Seconds after last night's Vice Presidential debate, Palin issued a fund-raising email, in which she bashes the media for being liberal and allying with Obama/Biden. Then she complains about controversial voter registration efforts in Ohio, telling her supporters they may have read about this in "media reports." Palin doesn't explain why the same media that's supposedly allied with Obama would be informing the McCain voters about these supposedly underhanded voter registration tactics. Palin doesn't explain a lot of things.

For example, Palin doesn't explain why the "liberal media" would ever write this glowing review of Palin's performance in the debate:

"I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America."
-- National Review's Rich Lowry

Stand aside, Chris Matthews. Rich Lowry's "little starbursts" just eclipsed that thrill going up your leg when you listen to an Obama speech as this campaign's most outrageous example of a reporter losing objectivity. Rich Lowry may make it impossible for Karen Brooks to defend the integrity of the press in general, but Lowry's crush on Palin certainly ought to give Brooks a "get out of jail free card" for any charges of liberal media bias for the next week or so.

Don't expect Lowry's ode to Sarah to cause Republicans to let up on their media bashing, especially given how much effort it took to get Palin to memorize her talking points for even this one debate. Palin surely wasn't going to let moderator Gwen Ifill's questions distract her from reciting those talking points during the debate itself. It took chutzpah for Palin, at one point in the debate, to brazenly declare that she wasn't going to answer Gwen Ifill's questions, and then, at the end, boast how she liked being "able to answer these tough questions." You betcha, Sarah.

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