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| Palin lashes out. How low will she go? |
In her first public appearance since the Arizona tragedy, rather than attempting to calm the heated political rhetoric that had arisen so disgracefully about this horrible event, Palin poured more fuel on the fire lashing out harshly at her critics while engaging in not too transparent blatant self pity.
ABC poll shows only 30% support Palin’s conduct in response to the Tucson shootings. Her most offensive remarks: Journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible." served to reignite fire that the American people wanted quashed.
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In the aftermath of tragedy, society often quickly looks for lessons learned or that perhaps something that happened that was so terrible might sew some seeds of good in response. While it is way too soon to see what the total impact of the Tucson tragedy will be, one hopes that the citizens of this country will hold our elected leaders responsible to meet higher standards of conduct and that the back and forth head bashing must stop. We demand passionate debate of real issues not how one person can gain in the one-upmanship game of name calling, bogus accusations, and crude insinuations.
There is a long list of political figures and media icons who are guilty of heinous hateful blame storming perhaps the most stunning initial response being that of New York Times columnist squarely laying the blame on the tea party and conservatives for what he claimed to be hate inducing rhetoric while bodies were still being unloaded from ambulances and the shooter identified.
Naturally, it’s hard for any situation that arouses left-wing anger not to invoke Sarah Palin and associate her with the worst of whatever it is as a major contributor to the worst of that which they criticize.
Well before Barack Obama’s memorial and “chill out” speech on Wednesday, only the most radical leftists could still stick by their guns attempting to lay blame on the right. Their blame game and insinuations were so obviously false. Up to that point, Sarah Palin had followed a responsible course of action, remaining silent aside from an obligatory statement of sympathy and concern for the victims.
There is a time and place for speaking out. There is a time for silence. Clearly, in the wake of what happened in Tucson, any high profile politician should only weigh in on the situation in a very careful way if his or her contribution would be helpful. It’s time for the families to deal with their loss and for the legal system to take care of what lies ahead.
Sarah Palin destroyed herself on Thursday acting as though she intended to show her solidarity with the victims – at least that’s how she would explain her remarks but what followed became another all too typical Palin – poor pitiful me narratives where everyone’s out to get her. That she would invoke the concept of “blood libel” surely ignorant of the term’s historical significance relating to Nazi treatment of the Jews under Hitler the implied analogy linking her critics to Nazis and herself to persecuted Jews took the whole level of her tears and jeers presentation to an even more absurd rhetorical frenzy.
The manner her comments were broadcast was also revealing. She did not speak before an audience. She posted it on her Facebook page where the media immediately ceased up on it, and the results were quite predictable – another media pounding for Palin over-reacting and demonstrating how she never can keep herself from lowering herself into the mire of madness her nastiest critics create. She is once again to rise up above the pig pen wallowing in the slop instead. She comes across as immature and insecure, self-centered in a profoundly childish way.
Her remarks proved to be another Palin hit and run. She issued her inflammatory statement while refusing all media contact until, ironically prime time coverage on Fox News on the date America salutes Martin Luther King. That in and of itself coupled with her involvement with the Glenn Beck rally at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28th, the anniversary of Dr. King’s dream speech shows her absolute insensitivity to Dr. King’s cause and the feelings of his admirers.
The setting was an interview with Sean Hannity occupying the first two programming slots, more than 20 minutes giving her a chance to explain herself, but where Sean Hannity is a fine conservative talk show host, he is way too biased to provide a satisfactory probing interview of Sarah Palin. He tosses up little more than softball questions that are absolutely sympathetic with her campaign.
Palin offered nothing to calm the confrontation. She did nothing constructive to attempt to quell the rhetoric. She plunged right back into the cesspool her critics had crafted for her and attempted to lob the contents of the cesspool at anyone who does not feel sympathy for the self-perceived abuse she receives once again reviving her slut at the media “the lame-stream media,” a term created by media critic Bernard Goldberg, to tear away at her critics.
In having her spot on primetime she accomplished nothing to advance her situation or help cool off the bad feelings Americans feel about what happened in Arizona. She covers no new ground. Intelligent Americans know the score. Their tolerance for more political bomb throwing especially in response to this national tragedy will not be accepted. What she accomplished was to establish herself even more as a crass polarizing figure. Certainly, her hard core supporters will fall for the “poor Sarah’s getting the stuffing knocked out of her again” while those who can’t stand her have been served up a huge serving of fresh meet to feed their passion even more.
New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie, clearly understood her dilemma when being interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. He criticized Palin for hiding behind scripted presentations and urged her to take her message directly to her critics.
Sarah Palin only expresses her views in three forums: on the Internet, friendly forums on Fox News, and to live audiences of the most carefully selected Palin supporters. She still carries resentment for how she perceives she was unfairly treated during her vice presidential run in the fall of 2008. While surely a person like Katy Couric would never be seen as a Palin sympathizer, her interview was professional and fair. It’s Palin who made herself look ignorant and shallow. Only Charlie Gibson’s question about a so-called “Bush Doctrine” was the least bit a trick question since there was never a formal Bush doctrine per se. It was a media construction used to describe President George W. Bush’s foreign policy. Rather than looking foolish, if she were prepared she could have clarified the question and presented a fair response if she had any real clue what Bush’s policies were.
That brings us to our final criticism of Palin. When and where can the American people expect her to engage in any discussion of real issues rather than bashing her opponents with tirades of insults while claiming to be a believer in the Constitution and follower of the Founding Fathers showing blind religiosity in her conviction as if the Constitution is scripture and our founders are deities?
Her avoidance of media other than one outlet that pays her to play might keep her from avoiding tough questions but it also leaves it to her critics to complete the narrative of her limitations because she refuses the chance to set the record straight if in fact she has any real defenses worth hearing or has anything of substance worth saying.
.
In the aftermath of tragedy, society often quickly looks for lessons learned or that perhaps something that happened that was so terrible might sew some seeds of good in response. While it is way too soon to see what the total impact of the Tucson tragedy will be, one hopes that the citizens of this country will hold our elected leaders responsible to meet higher standards of conduct and that the back and forth head bashing must stop. We demand passionate debate of real issues not how one person can gain in the one-upmanship game of name calling, bogus accusations, and crude insinuations.
There is a long list of political figures and media icons who are guilty of heinous hateful blame storming perhaps the most stunning initial response being that of New York Times columnist squarely laying the blame on the tea party and conservatives for what he claimed to be hate inducing rhetoric while bodies were still being unloaded from ambulances and the shooter identified.
Naturally, it’s hard for any situation that arouses left-wing anger not to invoke Sarah Palin and associate her with the worst of whatever it is as a major contributor to the worst of that which they criticize.
Well before Barack Obama’s memorial and “chill out” speech on Wednesday, only the most radical leftists could still stick by their guns attempting to lay blame on the right. Their blame game and insinuations were so obviously false. Up to that point, Sarah Palin had followed a responsible course of action, remaining silent aside from an obligatory statement of sympathy and concern for the victims.
There is a time and place for speaking out. There is a time for silence. Clearly, in the wake of what happened in Tucson, any high profile politician should only weigh in on the situation in a very careful way if his or her contribution would be helpful. It’s time for the families to deal with their loss and for the legal system to take care of what lies ahead.
Sarah Palin destroyed herself on Thursday acting as though she intended to show her solidarity with the victims – at least that’s how she would explain her remarks but what followed became another all too typical Palin – poor pitiful me narratives where everyone’s out to get her. That she would invoke the concept of “blood libel” surely ignorant of the term’s historical significance relating to Nazi treatment of the Jews under Hitler the implied analogy linking her critics to Nazis and herself to persecuted Jews took the whole level of her tears and jeers presentation to an even more absurd rhetorical frenzy.
The manner her comments were broadcast was also revealing. She did not speak before an audience. She posted it on her Facebook page where the media immediately ceased up on it, and the results were quite predictable – another media pounding for Palin over-reacting and demonstrating how she never can keep herself from lowering herself into the mire of madness her nastiest critics create. She is once again to rise up above the pig pen wallowing in the slop instead. She comes across as immature and insecure, self-centered in a profoundly childish way.
Her remarks proved to be another Palin hit and run. She issued her inflammatory statement while refusing all media contact until, ironically prime time coverage on Fox News on the date America salutes Martin Luther King. That in and of itself coupled with her involvement with the Glenn Beck rally at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28th, the anniversary of Dr. King’s dream speech shows her absolute insensitivity to Dr. King’s cause and the feelings of his admirers.
The setting was an interview with Sean Hannity occupying the first two programming slots, more than 20 minutes giving her a chance to explain herself, but where Sean Hannity is a fine conservative talk show host, he is way too biased to provide a satisfactory probing interview of Sarah Palin. He tosses up little more than softball questions that are absolutely sympathetic with her campaign.
Palin offered nothing to calm the confrontation. She did nothing constructive to attempt to quell the rhetoric. She plunged right back into the cesspool her critics had crafted for her and attempted to lob the contents of the cesspool at anyone who does not feel sympathy for the self-perceived abuse she receives once again reviving her slut at the media “the lame-stream media,” a term created by media critic Bernard Goldberg, to tear away at her critics.
In having her spot on primetime she accomplished nothing to advance her situation or help cool off the bad feelings Americans feel about what happened in Arizona. She covers no new ground. Intelligent Americans know the score. Their tolerance for more political bomb throwing especially in response to this national tragedy will not be accepted. What she accomplished was to establish herself even more as a crass polarizing figure. Certainly, her hard core supporters will fall for the “poor Sarah’s getting the stuffing knocked out of her again” while those who can’t stand her have been served up a huge serving of fresh meet to feed their passion even more.
New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie, clearly understood her dilemma when being interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. He criticized Palin for hiding behind scripted presentations and urged her to take her message directly to her critics.
Sarah Palin only expresses her views in three forums: on the Internet, friendly forums on Fox News, and to live audiences of the most carefully selected Palin supporters. She still carries resentment for how she perceives she was unfairly treated during her vice presidential run in the fall of 2008. While surely a person like Katy Couric would never be seen as a Palin sympathizer, her interview was professional and fair. It’s Palin who made herself look ignorant and shallow. Only Charlie Gibson’s question about a so-called “Bush Doctrine” was the least bit a trick question since there was never a formal Bush doctrine per se. It was a media construction used to describe President George W. Bush’s foreign policy. Rather than looking foolish, if she were prepared she could have clarified the question and presented a fair response if she had any real clue what Bush’s policies were.
That brings us to our final criticism of Palin. When and where can the American people expect her to engage in any discussion of real issues rather than bashing her opponents with tirades of insults while claiming to be a believer in the Constitution and follower of the Founding Fathers showing blind religiosity in her conviction as if the Constitution is scripture and our founders are deities?
Her avoidance of media other than one outlet that pays her to play might keep her from avoiding tough questions but it also leaves it to her critics to complete the narrative of her limitations because she refuses the chance to set the record straight if in fact she has any real defenses worth hearing or has anything of substance worth saying.
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