Posted on 05/16/2009 5:14:20 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
WASHINGTON The first 100 days of the Palin presidency, according to a consensus of media commentators, have proven a near disaster. Perhaps it was Palins scant two years experience in a major government position that has eroded her gravitas, or maybe it was her flirty reliance on looks and informal chit-chat. In any case, the press has had a field day, and it is hard to see how President Palin can ever recover from the Quayle/potatoe syndrome. Here is a roundup of this weeks pundit mockery.
LET THEM EAT MOOSE Ted Stevens may have gotten off, wrote Bob Herbert in the New York Times, but he taught our Sarah something first like using $100-a-pound beef for her state dinners. And whats this $50 mil for her inauguration gala? Since when do you fly in your favorite pizza-maker from across the country on our dime? Or send the presidential 747 for a spin over the Big Apple for a third-of-a-million-dollar joyride? Does Palin think shes still in Alaska and has to have everything flown in from the South 48 by jumbo jet?
WASILLA CHIC Also in the Times, Gail Collins weighed in on the already-tired yokelism of the new commander in chief. What were getting is Wasilla chic. Thats what were getting. She arrives in the Oval Office, and first thing sends back Blairs gift of the Churchill bust as if its a once-worn Penneys outfit. Then she gives the Brits some unwatchable DVDs as a booby prize as if she idled the old Yukon and ran into Targets sale aisle. Did Sarah send Bristol into Wal-Mart back in Anchorage for that engraved iPod for the queen? And whats this dont-bow-to-the-queen stuff, but curtsy for a Saudi sheik? Maybe that explains why she brags to Stephanopoulos about her Muslim faith. So far, the best things going for her are Todds biceps.
IT'S THE MATH, STUPID! Well, lectured Paul Krugman, again in the Times, we were worried that they didnt teach math at Idaho U., and now we know for sure they dont. Is it $1.6 trillion, $1.7 trillion, or $2 trillion in red ink this year? Are we supposed to be impressed that she offers fiscal sobriety by cutting 0.003 percent of the budget? She gives out money to those who dont pay taxes and calls it a tax cut. And now Queen Sarah tells us that in four years shell halve the deficit, as if she hasnt borrowed another $5 trillion in the meantime. Does she think were morons? How many Drill, baby, drill! oil wells can she tap into up there in Alaska to pay for the extra $11 trillion in debt shes saddling us with?
WORSE THAN 'NUCULAR' ABCs Katie Couric summed up the general disappointment with the presidents communication skills. I tried to warn the American people in that interview a few years back what they would get if they voted for her. Lets face it: Shes a walking embarrassment. I mean just count em up: The mayor of Wasilla thinks Austrians speak some lingo called Austrian. Then she tries her hand at Spanish and comes up with some concoction, Cinco de Cuatro. Next thing shell walk into the window of the Oval Office and expect it to open oops, shes already done that. No wonder that when her Teleprompter stalls, she shuts her mouth until it catches up. Im surprised she managed to get sworn in. And did she think that tasteless Special Olympics slur was funny? Or making fun of octogenarian Nancy Reagans séances? No wonder Wanda Sykes feels at home.
ANCHORAGE STYLE A dragon lady in heels is what President Palin is, according to the NYTs Frank Rich. Dont fall for this pageant nice-girl stuff. Our former beauty queen is a ward hack. Look at her nominations. Cant Palin find anyone who has paid his taxes or do they simply ignore that stuff in no-tax Alaska? Does No more lobbyists mean More lobbyists than ever? Her chief performance overseer doesnt perform too well herself and, like Daschle, Geithner, and the rest, skips out on her taxes. When Palin brags about fiscal sobriety, it really means record deficits. In Sarahland, not wanting to take over banks and car companies translates into, She already has. Highest ethical standards equates to There are none. Calling herself the VA president means shes just told vets to use their own health insurance.
GUTTER TRASH Pretty crude, pretty petty, Sally Quinn sighed in the Washington Post. No manners at all. Does our new mom in chief think its neat to laugh when her court jester at the correspondents dinner calls Michael Moore a traitor and a terrorist and hopes he dies of kidney failure? Is that funny? Ask those on dialysis. Is that what Alaskan hockey moms do scream out at every talk-show host who hurts their itty-bitty feelings? Limbaugh, Hannity who will it will be next? Poor old Jim Cramer?
NEOCON CON Shes a Bush clone, the Timess Maureen Dowd chimed in. Bush is out, Palin is in but we keep getting renditions, military tribunals, wiretaps, e-mail intercepts, Predator drone executions over Pakistan, the same in Iraq, and even more of the same in Afghanistan all retrofitted with new hope and change banalities. I mean, whos putting Mommy Dearest up to this Wolfie, Perlie, Cheney?
TINGLE FOR HUGO? There is no foreign policy, Chris Matthews said on Hardball, his voice dripping with scorn. She just tours the world and nods, as if her good looks and serial apologies are going to win us a collective tingle abroad. I dont think Hugo Chávez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad care much that shes got great legs and a nice wink. How many times can Ms. Vapid say, Were sorry and Hit that old reset button and expect thugs to make nice?
RACE, ALL THE TIME Eugene Robinson worried in the Washington Post about Palins emphasis on race. Look, she gets 95 percent of the working-class white vote. She promises next month to talk to the Christian world from Estonia, of all places. Hello? She goes to the Summit of the Americas and immediately puts race on the table as if we are supposed to separate those with European heritage from those without. Then she tells al Arabiyya that she hopes to heal the rift with Europe because of my own shared European heritage that seems to resonate in ways I hadnt imagined throughout the EU. I guess were learning that those gaffes last year on the campaign trail, like her typical black person remark and Todds I am finally proud of my country again nonsense were not gaffes at all.
WHERE IS THE PRESS? Howard Kurtz summed up the press cynicism the best in his Washington Post column. How long does she think she can keep picking on her right-wing plants in the audience for these softball Q-and-A sessions? I mean, there are only so many pukey What has surprised you the most about this office? What has enchanted you the most about serving in this office? questions you can lob.
Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal. © 2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
I really hope that VDH is forecasting the year 2013 with this.
Well at least the conservative pundits have not lost their mojo.
Delicious article!
I think he’s making the point that if Palin were as messed up as Zero, the press would be having a wall-to-wall snit fit.
This is a recap of the Obama Regime until now, with a different name and face to show how the MSM would show a conservative doing the same things would be treated.
Thanks for the post !!!!
Gotta love it !!!
VDH is an incredible writer in his own right. Watching (or rather reading him) perfectly mime the predictable rhetoric of others is the equivalent of watching Muhammed Ali pick apart Joe Frazier.
Not me. Sarah is the antithesis of Zero. VDH is eloquently describing Zero's first 100 days in the context of how the MSM would castigate Sarah for this treasonous activity, but celebrates every breath The One takes!
In her first 100 days, I pray that Sarah will start the process to rebuild our country!
Donate to her OUR future! America is in the crosshairs!
Thumbs up - cheers!
True. But with the drive-bys the way they are, this would be just how they would describe a Palin Administration.
I really like VDH and just about wrote him off as credible, but the whole article is about Obama! LOL!
He is spot on with this!
Brilliant piece.
That’s exactly correct.
Yeah, I think I had read this same article earlier this week here at FR. There’s just something about the way the drive-bys cover us that makes me think “hey, we’re doing something right!”
DEVASTATING...! Verrry witty!
And doing a damn fine job of it.
The author should have mentioned something about how President Palin “traveled to all 57 [sic] American states”...
Obama is a media creation. If he had an “R” by his name many of these little snippets in this article would have been major news items.
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