John McCain's "Objectivity" on Sarah Palin

McCain called Palin his "soul mate" last year shortly after meeting her -- an unfortunate choice of words given how radically right, and radically bereft of correct information, Palin was.

This was the same Palin, whom the media is quick to point out, that supported the Bridge to Nowhere initially while telling voters she "stood up to it," while not so quick to point out that she "told" voters she "stood up to that bridge to nowhere and told them no!," repeatedly, night after night after night even after the lie was dubunked, in wildly passionate crescendoing, booming eloquent voice, when in fact she remained a supporter of the project even after becoming Governor, and only "turned against" the project when it became a national symbol of pork waste (McCain even contemptously cited it several times on the primary campaign trail even while Palin was still in favor of it), and Congress cut off all further funding for the project.

That's just the tip of the iceberg on Palin.

But pointing these things out -- which still is not sufficiently done as we continue to listen to this person's opinion as if he is an expert when she is nothing of the sort is apparently being unfair to Palin, according to John McCain.

"Attacks" upon Palin are apparently unsettling to her former running mate and "soul mate," who himself, in order to get the nomination, radically shifted to the right, and nevertheless still became the media protected savior of integrity in politics and the untouchable expert on foreign policy and military strategy matters.

Maybe there are some crass attacks out there on Palin which are not non personal, fact based assessments of this person's constant assertions to the American populace. But even if so, this recent assertion by McCain belies a huge disconnect between the Palin issue, and everything else:

"I’m entertained and sometimes a little angry when I see this constant, vicious attacks by people on the left," McCain said of Palin during an interview with Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren.

"’I’ve never seen anything like it in all the years that I’ve been in politics," McCain continued, "the viciousness and the personalization of the attacks on Sarah Palin."

McCain's "never seen anything like it" in all the years he has been in politics? Really?

He probably didn't see anything like it -- in fact, far worse than it -- in 2008, when Palin herself engaged in a constant and wildly misleading campaign against his political opponent, Barack Obama, repeatedly questioning his integrity, calling him "unfit to lead" as a result of critical facts she got wrong and he got right, questioning his patriotism that even conservatives were calling racially tinged, very insinuatingly said he "doesn't see America like other Americans" in concert with suggesting he was connected to terrorists, suggested that he was two faced, and, as CNN puts it, intoxicated by his own voice; called Obama's actions "appalling" and "atrocious" while wholly mischaracterizing Obama's votes on the issue, and completely lying about the subject matter of a remark that Obama had made in order to falsely make him look horrible on it.

Or maybe McCain just hated Obama too, so much so that such viciousness then, simply did not exist?

The politico article linked to above also points out that McCain "did not mention that some of the harshest attacks against the former Alaska governor have come from former members of his own presidential campaign." Wonder why that is.

And speaking of viciousness and personalization unlike any he has ever seen, here is McCain in 1998:

Q:"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?"
A: "Because her father is Janet Reno."

McCain said that. Not a late night stand up comic. And still it would have been inappropriate. What leading politician has said anything that downright meanspirited on a personal, not policy or factual, level about Palin? McCain didn't only attack the personal looks of the female attorney general, in an extraordinarily disparaging way, he attacked an innocent kid. Publicly.

Calling all Teapots. Get your black out. Seriously.

The Wall Street Journal's John Fund is to Political and Media Objectivity, what Sarah Palin is to Serving out Full Terms as Governor

The chasm between prematurely ex-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's rhetoric, and reality, is so large given her status as one of the GOP frontrunners, that it is frightening.

Below is an example of precisely the type of media that Palin does not viciously condemn; does not blatantly mislead about; does not frighteningly misunderstand the entire purpose of and premise behind; and which, irony of ironies, is precisely what Palin likely envisions when she nevertheless speaks of something entirely disparate, about that very same media itself.

That is, media not doing its job, and not serving as an independent, objective, fourth estate check upon power and the powerful, upon government, upon groupthink run amuck, and upon misrepresentation and untruth, but rather a media that says what Palin wants to hear, in the way that she wants to hear it. In other words, exactly what defines a state run media in non democratic regimes.

The scary thing is Palin, and her followers -- like the Wall Street Journal's Fund -- do not seem to see the extraordinarily ignorant hypocrisy in Palin's statements, including this one - a statement that here Fund promotes as if it were quite reasonable, coming from Palin:

Ms. Palin appeared liberated by leaving office and used blunt words to take her media critics down a peg. “You represent what could and should be a respected, honest profession that could and should be a cornerstone of our democracy,” she said. “Democracy depends on you, and that is why -- that’s why our troops are willing to die for you. So how about in honor of the American soldier, you quit makin’ things up.”

She didn’t stop there. “One other thing for the media, our new governor has a very nice family, too, so leave his kids alone,” she told the enthusiastic crowd gathered at a picnic grounds in Fairbanks. Ms. Palin will no doubt have a future as a stump speaker and political commentator in the lower 48, and her media critique certainly will find receptive audiences.

For just the tip of the iceberg -- but enough to objectively (something that Fund routinely appears on the road to being incapable of doing) establish a bit of the case above, see this piece with respect to Palin's statement to the media to "quit making things up."

Perhaps Fund should read it. Along with a bit more in regard to the actual facts, the actual media coverage of Palin, and the rhetoric that Palin has repeatedly used. (It is almost like while the rest of us are composed of flesh and blood -- most of us anyway -- or, alternatively, a few key atoms in various combinations, Palin is composed of something entirely different: Pure, unadulterated rhetoric. It is like in the science fiction movies where "it" is not a being, but a pure energy field -- except Palin is instead a pure rhetoric field. )

It works, of course, because in that same media itself -- including those, like Fund, who might be about as politically (and journalistically) objective as as Fox guarding a hen house is on reporting about a missing hen -- are those who buy it.

Yet It is rhetoric like Palin's, and the sheep like mentality that does not look behind it at the facts, that has changed the nature (and, ultimately and quite ironically given Palin's constant yammering to the contrary, the freedom) of every once great nation or society the world has ever seen.

Fund, as an allegedly independent journalist, is a bit of a cheerleader for it, without even knowing it. Fund's bs meter is not only broken; so long as it meets his political orientations, he's got a bs feeder, which apparently sniffs it out and promotes it.

And then, of course, there are some others, such as conservative columnist Katherine Parker, who seems to want to like Palin, but nevertheless, aptly penned perhaps the most applicable line about Palin yet put to print.

Yet Parker is either not very objective; or, perhaps more likely, not excessively knowledgeable with respect to all the facts. And was "relieved" at Palin's vice presidential debate performance, and praised it -- as apparently, truthfulness, or again, knowledge, was not relevant to Parker's assessment (or again, more likely, unknown to her.) Yet contrast the absurd standard that Parker starts with; "What did they do with the other Sarah Palin? I mean the one who bases foreign policy experience on the proximity of Russia to Alaska" with this from the link just cited:

Most media outlets [etc.] repeated the [idea] that ...Palin “exceeded” expectations...and that there were no real gaffes. ...[And] there were no gaffes:...by the standard which expected Sarah Palin to be incapable of uttering a coherent sentence. But let’s apply a different standard, one which some might have the temerity to suggest is more applicable to the actual situation: That is, what might be expected and required of .... someone who's the right arm to, and a heartbeat away from, the most important job in the world.

Contrast that idea,with Parker's positive assessment of Palin's debate performance, because Palin did not (once again) say that she had relevant foreign policy experience because "Alaska is close to Russia." ("Close to" hundreds of hundreds of miles of some of the most barren, desolate, largely uninhabited tundra on earth, and further away from Moscow than Washington, D.C, is from London.)

And then Parker had this to say about Palin:

Does that mean she's ready to lead the free world should circumstances warrant? that question remains. Right next to same question about Barack Obama.

Granted, Parker is a conservative, so she is not supposed to be hawking Obama. Though -- unreported by the general media, and largely ignored by active Democrats, who somehow neglected to see the relevance in terms of building credibility with those whom the Democrats need to reach -- Obama was supported by an unusually high number of knowledgeable, leading Republicans. (Some of whom are now questioning that support, as are some Democrats, at least. But we forget that Obama inherited a lot of problems, that are quickly transitioning over to being "his." Particularly with Democrats once again losing the battle of framing -- or perhaps, not even fully knowing how to wage it, or recognizing its prominent existence in the first place.)

And Parker certainly was entitled to her legitimate doubts. But to place Palin, given the ex-Alaska Governor's incredibly poor grasp of facts, constant reliance upon almost zealous belief, continual habit of misrepresentations, lack of relevant experience and almost complete and utter lack of any world knowledge, equally alongside Obama in terms of being ready to lead the "free world," is a bit much.

Yet here is what a few days prior, Parker had, much more insightfully, penned about Palin, which pretty much sums it all up:

If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

John Fund, who writes for the Wall Street Journal, and about Wall Street, apparently bought it; hook, line, and sinker.