More Right-Wing Whining Over Media's Coverage of Sarah Palin

Posted by Eric Boehlert, Media Matters for America at 5:26 AM on July 10, 2009.

Why is Time being so mean to Sarah Palin?! Sure, they put her on the cover, and yeah they generously photographed her as a J. Crew cover girl look-alike. But just look at this lede! No wonder conservatives are so furious with how media elites are attacking poor Palin:

Sarah Palin is that most exotic of American creatures: an Alaska original, raised and ripened in an environment remote, extreme, unfamiliar — and free. A land of self-invention, where no one bats an eye at a mom-deckhand-governor-whatever-comes-next. Ever since John McCain introduced his running mate last year, Palin has been like a modern-day version of the captive specimens hauled back to Europe by explorers of old. Like Squanto in London, she speaks the language — if not always the idiom — of the audiences she fascinates. But she remains, on some level, unknowable.

Okay, that's not the best example, because that's actually a rather flattering take on Palin. 

But take a look here at how the Time writers swoop in for the kill:

Whether that is true or not, Palin's unconventional step speaks to an ingrained frontier skepticism of authority — even one's own. Given the plunging credibility of institutions and élites, that's a mood that fits the Palin brand...If ever there has been a time to gamble on a flimsy résumé, ever a time for the ultimate outsider, this might be it.

Again, not the best example. Reads like it was written by Bill Kristol.

Okay, here's the real nasty stuff:

So, bye, Alaska! She made her declaration on Independence Day weekend as a symbol, she says, of her new and exhilarating freedom. She's headed to a bookstore, a television set, a convention hall near you, armed with an anti-résumé. Cut loose from her obligations to her huge and awesome homeland, her message remains quintessentially Alaskan. Where she comes from — the last American frontier — the past is irrelevant, the rules are suspended, and limitations are for losers.

Hmm, I'll keep searching...

Tagged as: wing-nuts, media criticism, palin