Sarah Palin e-mails: First details emerge

[vienna]

There's an old Japanese proverb: "The nail that stands the highest, gets hit first and hardest." Palin is a very high standing nail and she has brought the scutiny on herself. I don't believe there is any more scutiny of her than there is of anyone else in her position. It is a little naive and self-serving for her supporters to insist she is being singled out unfairly for media attention. Prior posts have tried to draw comparisons between efforts to investigate Obama's past and Palin's. The inference (if not outright statement) is the "liberal-controlled" media goes soft on Obama and not on Palin. This is absurd if only for the fact there is a substantial "conservative-controlled" media that has and most likely still is delving into the background and actions of Obama, past, present, and, assuredly, future. If they had found anything of material import, we would have heard about it by now. Also, use a little logic and ask yourself if you were an owner or editor of a media outlet, would you bury a sure-fire, front page, attention getting (possibly Pulitzer) story because of political bias? Would you risk your journalistic reputation or employment? Would you want to be known as the person who passed on possibly the story of the decade (if the "dirt" was dirty enough)? Even if you subscribe to the "liberal-controlled" media paradigm, do you think Limbaugh, Hannity, et. al., would balk at the chance to be the one to bring Obama down? As may be possible with Palin's e-mails, perhaps no Obama secrets have come to light before because "there is no there, there".

There is, truthfully, a form of media bias that often goes unnoticed: the slant or spin. This is selective journalism at its most insidious. Rev. Jesse Jackson like to tell a fable about media reportage:

Jesse Jackson and the Pope decide to have a face-to-face meeting. They decide to meet in a row boat in the middle of a lake to be out of ear-shot of the media, who ring the shore. During the meeting, a strong wind blows the Pope's hat off his head and into the lake. Jesse climbs out of the boat, walks on the water, retrieves the Pope's hat and returns to the row boat. And what does the press report the next day? Does the headline read "Jesse Jackson Meets with Pope"? No. "Jesse Jackson Saves Pope's Hat"? No. "Jesse Jackson Walks on Water"? No. The headlines read "Jesse Jackson Can't Swim".

Think of that the next time you see or hear an eye-catching headline. Oh, and no I am most certainly not a Jesse Jackson supporter but I do appreciate his take on media.

[Gerald]

Just, e-mail note

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/h..._interview.pdf

[tater]

Yeah, doubling down for palin was idiotic. Obama also said 10,000 died the day before in a speech due to a tornado. Gore said the core of the earth was millions of degrees.

No one in politics is terribly smart

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by vienna

There's an old Japanese proverb: "The nail that stands the highest, gets hit first and hardest." Palin is a very high standing nail and she has brought the scutiny on herself.

That sounds like an accurate assesment to me.

[tater]

I agree, but then again after the 2004 DNC speech, Obama was a very high nail indeed.

Except, instead of hitting it down, the press seems to have mounted it and rode it

[Ducimus]

All i know is Palin stuck out to me from day 1 she emerged from bumblefark Alaska. She sounded incredibly dumb and ignorant to me. I was all aboard the McCain ticket until he stupidly choose Palin as his running mate. First impressions are hard to break, and i still think of her as dumb and ignorant of the world past her front porch. Wait... i take that back. I also think of her as a whiney attention whore too, along with dumb and ignorant. Although.. i have to hand it to her for knowing how to cash on on new found fame. That takes some semblance of intelligence i suppose.


Don't get me wrong, I have no problem voting for a woman to go to the white house. But NOT Palin. She's too F'ing stupid of the world. And certainly NOT Clinton, she's too power hungry.

[tater]

The Paul Revere thing was pretty stupid. The correct response should have been to just say she misspoke, and said "British" when clearly any idiot meant "Americans" or "Colonials." Instead she doubles down. Obama has been doing that all along, though. He kowtows to a king, then doubles down.

Even though I don't like Palin, you have to admit, the press is rabid about hurting her. She's not even a candidate, and they spend more effort reading her emails already than they spent checking up on Obama, period. Where are Obama's legal records from his time as a lawyer? What about his documents from the state legislature (which like all pols should be public)? The birther nonsense masked the real issues of docs that the public really needed to see, and never did, which is probably why he strung it along the way he did.

Bottom line is that I'm fine with reading all the official emails (obviously everyone should have some expectation of privacy with personal mails) of any public official, heck, every single work-related thing they ever wrote. But the standard should be EQUAL, and scaled to the person in terms of time spent by press. The more important, the more time. The president's old stuff should get the lion's share, and the final candidate on the ballot running against, the exact same. Primary candidates should expect the same scrutiny, but the press should devote less time to them, clearly. People who have not even declared yet? Unless the press has more than 30 (a LOT more) working on EACH of the other Republicans seeking nomination, and more than 30 digging dirt on Obama (not covering, but "digging dirt"), then this is over the top, IMHO.

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by tater

Even though I don't like Palin, you have to admit, the press is rabid about hurting her. .

Just as an aside. I haven't ready much of anything the press has written about her. Reading too far into political articles just takes more time and patience then i'm willing to put forth on the subject. I have a very low BS tolerance. No.. the press didn't really influence my thoughts on Palin. The presidential debates did.

I cannot help but feel Palin will be in the oval office some day. She is under constant attack from all quarters, but she survives and continues on.

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by sidslotm

I cannot help but feel Palin will be in the oval office some day. She is under constant attack from all quarters, but she survives and continues on.

Let's hope she's washing the floors then.

I agree, but then again after the 2004 DNC speech, Obama was a very high nail indeed.

A bit of a difference there though, Palin just appears like she is thick as pigslop and seems to revel in demonstrating again and again how dumb she is.

Obama has been doing that all along, though. He kowtows to a king, then doubles down.

Off on one of your repeated nonsensical episodes again?

[tater]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

A bit of a difference there though, Palin just appears like she is thick as pigslop and seems to revel in demonstrating again and again how dumb she is.

The press is rabid about attacking her. I'm fine with digging dirt on every last one of them, regardless of party. But the same people that deride "fair and balanced" used to describe Fox (I don't watch TV news (or commentary) at all, so don't even go there), seem to have no problem with the press putting way more effort into "researching" a non-candidate than they ever did on the candidate of their choice.

Multiple full-time people reading old emails, and none even asking if any old Obama emails exist, much less reading them, and asking people at large to dig dirt for them.

[yubba]

What a joke the media is today, what about the war powers act, the state of the economy, why 44 million people are on food stamps, why gas is over 4 dollars a gallon, a freakin drug war in our border states, and we have the worst president to date in office, they have to go after her, you go girl, you rock