Posted on 09/16/2011 9:35:27 AM PDT by onyx
They kicked her around, victimized her, tried to destroy her. But all of a sudden, the lamestream media is coming to Sarah Palin’s defense.
Faced with a barrage of negative portrayals — a much-hyped investigative book, a Levi Johnston memoir and a new movie — Palin is finding support in the unlikeliest of places.
Film reviewers have slammed the British documentary “Sarah Palin: You Betcha!” Newspapers have refused to run comic-strip excerpts of Joe McGinniss’s rumor-mongering tome “The Rogue.” Johnston’s accusations have been consigned to the gossip pages. And none other than The New York Times has angrily taken Palin’s side in a brutal takedown of the McGinniss book.
Reviewer Janet Maslin called “The Rogue” a work of “caustic, unsubstantiated gossip,” accusing its author, who rented a house next door to the Palins for a time, of sloppiness, attention seeking and a lack of neighborliness.
“‘The Rogue’ is too busy being nasty to be lucid,” Maslin concludes, describing its many accusations as “indefensibly reckless.”
In a statement issued through a PR representative, Todd Palin trumpeted the Times review, pointing to it as proof that the book was so reprehensible that “even The New York Times” disdained it.
But it wasn’t the first time in recent weeks the Palins have found the Times — the print voice of East Coast intellectualism — in their corner. The Gray Lady also recently published an op-ed praising Palin as a person of ideas and calling for her to be taken seriously.
The column by Anand Giridharadas — impeccably credentialed as an Aspen Institute fellow and Cambridge, Mass., resident — accused the media of “ignoring the ideas [Palin] unfurled” in her recent speech at an Iowa tea party rally. “Ms. Palin may be hinting at a new political alignment that would pit a vigorous localism against a kind of national-global institutionalism,” he wrote.
It’s a lot of love for Palin from the news outlet she decried back in March in a Facebook post titled “NYT, There You Go Again,” wherein she speculated that the paper’s “false reporting” was the source of its “economic and reputation woes.”
And it’s not the sort of treatment Palin generally perceives from what she loves to call the “lamestream media” — because, as she explained in another Facebook post, “The ‘mainstream’ media isn’t mainstream anymore. That’s why I call it ‘lamestream,’ and the LSM is becoming quite irrelevant, as it is no longer the sole gatekeeper of information.”
“The Rogue” hasn’t yet been widely reviewed — the Times defied the publisher’s embargo to publish its take, and the Los Angeles Times followed suit with a less acerbic take that nonetheless called the book “tame” and said it lacked credibility. But many of its accusations have been aired over the past several days in “Doonesbury,” which received McGinniss’s permission to weave excerpts from the text into the strip’s narrative.
Once again, though, media outlets haven’t played along with the anti-Palin gambit. The Chicago Tribune and other newspapers have declined to publish the “Doonesbury” strips, with the Trib explaining, “The subject matter does not meet our standards of fairness.”
And then there’s “You Betcha!” a cheerfully ruthless documentary about Palin from Nick Broomfield, whose past subjects have included Kurt Cobain, Margaret Thatcher, Heidi Fleiss and Tupac Shakur.
The film premiered last week at the Toronto International Film Festival, and it wasn’t exactly a critical darling.
Variety called it “a sarcastically toned, strategically timed character assassination” that “lacks sufficient humor and insight to make it a must-see for anyone outside the Brit muckraker’s fan base.” Other critics called it “obnoxious” and “unnecessary.”
When reviewers turned their noses up at “The Undefeated,” the pro-Palin film that came out in July, Palin’s fans cried foul and blamed critics’ presumed liberal tendencies. But the critics faulted the anti-Palin movie for the same flaw they noted in “The Undefeated” – clumsy one-sidedness.
Now that the enemy has crossed to their side, Palin’s fans don’t quite seem to know what to do.
The left hates/fears Sarah (and us) as much as ever. No way would they EVER come to her defense unless they see some benefit to them. Given the intensity of their hatred/fear, it must be something pretty big.
They would like Romney to be the nominee, especially compared to Perry. But in a two horse race, the odds are Perry will beat Romney handily. The only way to get Romney back into the game is to split Perry’s support. If Palin enters the race, she could easily split conservatives enough to open the door to Romney.
I don’t think it will succeed. If it actually looked like the conservative vote would be split so badly that Romney would win, I think either Palin or Perry would drop out rather than give it to Romney.
Regardless, when the dust settles, I think Palin will be the last conservative standing and she will be our nominee.
BTW: Palin’s strategy of waiting seems to be paying off. A LOT of hit piece garbage on Palin has come out in the last few days, and she had to know it was coming. She’s putting all of this garbage behind her BEFORE she announces.
By waiting to declare, Palin forced them to play their hand too early. The hit pieces will blow over quickly, leaving Sarah with a much stronger start to her campaign.
Doonesbury is about as funny and insightful as what you would read on a bathroom wall.
It is one thing to unfunny, but to try so hard at it says a lot about the scumbag who writes it.
BTTT!
Run, Sarah, Run!
why MSM “likes” palin now (no, they don’t)
1. print a few positive things, then that is proof there is no media bias
2. media loves republican internal warfare. If Sarah gets in, there will be 3 titans battling for the nomination, they can hurt each other a lot. So say nice things about SP to weaken Perry, especially
3. Palin sells
I think she will run but you are absolutely right. When Reagan died, the media was aglow with accolades about him. While he was alive and president, not so much.
Gosh, I hope you're right.
Perhaps they have some ‘dirt’ on her that they’re saving up.
**
What I was thinking. October surprise?
They’ve already exposed their lack of credibility as far as Palin is concerned. Too late and we know they are still pimping this book and the stories to continue to slander her.
They are on record for the constant smears and attacks on Palin. Now they have shot themselves in the foot and only at this stage after all the constant barrage do they give these lame condemnations when they have ALWAYS been the one to lead this and even now it is done with a wink because they know Palin has made them the focus and they have no defense. We know they’ve NEVER gone after 0bama.
I don’t see how anyone can not understand what the media is doing right now. This is only damage control for their sorry arses because they’ve been on constant attack. They still love this book and the smears and lies against this woman while trying to claim they’ve been fair. There’s too much to show they haven’t and it will come back at them should she run because they’ve never gone after 0bama and know she would make that an issue and has made them an issue.
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