Palin, The Press, and Her "No Mas" Moment

Palin's mid-term surrender initiated lots of intriguing storylines, but, for me, the most fascinating one has been the visible split within the conservative movement over who's to blame for her early exit from the national stage. And specifically, how much culpability do the hated mainstream media deserve for the way Palin has been covered? For the way she's been smeared and attacked?

Seems to me 99 out of 100 times, conservatives would find common cause on an unfolding story like this and agree that the media, to a huge degree, are guilty of some kind of unimaginable double standard, that the press had stacked the deck against the Republican and treated that pol unfairly. That's been the go-to playbook for more than four decades now.

But then a funny thing happened -- scores of conservative commentators broke ranks with the "liberal media" brigade and decided Palin's political problems were of her own making.

In other words, the beloved liberal media meme completely fractured under the weight of the Palin story. The front-line, knee-jerk troops were ready and eager to lob the ever-ready accusations, but it turned out that lots of Noise Machine generals weren't buying it, and instead of blaming the liberal media for Palin's disastrous weekend showing, they blamed ... Palin.

How can it be the so-called liberal media's fault that Palin gets bad press when conservatives were out front giving Palin bad press? How can right-wingers argue that liberals are obsessed with taking Palin down, when it's conservatives who are elbowing each other to reach the front of the get-Palin crowd?

Read the entire Media Matters column here.

Comments

[speaker145]

If she can't handle the media attacks as a governor and former VP candidate, how could anyone take her seriously as a presidential candidate. It doesn't matter if you are Republican or Democrat, if you are president, you are going to be attacked constantly by someone.

[picard922]

Next to Paul Begala's take, this is by far my favorite assessment of the Palin self destruction.

Sadly for Sarah, she doesn't seem to know the difference between left and right, so any media outlet will do when she casts blame.

She desperately needs a course in media relations from a savvy strategist, though I doubt that she has the humility to listen and learn from anyone who dares advise her..

[TRYKER]

The right wing just accused the liberal media of what they do and would do, without even checking to see that mainly -- very little was written about her children, very little was attacking her, it was just reporting her idiocies and laughing at this joke that took herself so seriously, that they took so seriously.
Though the trolls came and tried to excoriate commenters here, there really was little maliciousness and more hilarity. Good night, she was a gift that kept on giving.
Palin and her trolls are out fishing, baiting every line, looking to hook some suckers in on some hate-fest that she can milk for more face time. She learned that the squeaky door gets the most oil and she just squeaks and squeaks and .... gasp.
Letterman was cool last night, he didn't give her anything to work with. Go Dave.

[Ginger47]

SP had to see the attention Letterman gave JMcC after John didn't show up on his show.
So why would she put herself in Lettermans sites? Attention!