CNN commentator Jack Cafferty summarized the conclusion of the mainstream media by stating that former Governor Sarah Palin, "won't have the same impact if she doesn't carry the mantle of governor of Alaska....she becomes...a thumbsucker."
In a related story, on September 30, 2009, Sarah Palin's memoir Going Rogue shattered records by hitting number one at Amazon and Barnes & Noble...48 days before the book even hits shelves. Not bad for a thumbsucker. To put it in perspective, at the time Sarah's book catapulted to the top of the bestseller list, it didn't even have a cover and hadn't even been edited yet.
One might begin to wonder how Cafferty can be so clueless and still keep his job -- even if it is on a network that just became a laughingstock by fact-checking a Saturday Night Live skit in defense of their beloved Obama. But the truth is that Cafferty is merely mimicking the uncontrolled Palin-derangement that plagues the entire left-wing old media.
Since the moment she burst onto the national scene, there has been an unparalleled effort amongst the so-called sophisticated elites to destroy Sarah Palin. Unparalleled, but not unprecedented.
In the 1970s, the dominant left feared the rise of another radical right-wing governor of a western state -- you might remember his name: Ronald Reagan -- and they utilized a full arsenal of tactics to try to slow his meteoric rise. Comparing their words and actions then to their current anti-Palin crusade now is stunning.
First, the media attempted to downplay Reagan's intellect. They called him a buffoon, an empty suit, dim. They said this despite Reagan's articulate approach to issues and his effective leadership of the country's most populous state. Surely no one needs to be reminded of the Tina Fey parodies, the New York Times' references to "Caribou Barbie," or Newsweek's declaration that Palin was an "ill-informed, inarticulate, shopaholic" to see how little has changed in the left's playbook. They said all this of Palin despite her breadth of knowledge on key domestic issues like energy and her effective leadership of the country's largest state.
The old media also denounced Reagan as unqualified. He was just a "B-movie actor" who spent more time focusing on campus athletics at his second-rate college than he did academics. That sounds startlingly similar to CNN's Fareed Zakaria who wrote, "Sarah Palin is utterly unqualified to be vice president," and other left-wing media sources that scoffed at her degree from the "substandard" University of Idaho. The parallels don't end there:
Reagan was the target of ageism (New York Times Magazine in 1976 proclaimed Reagan "too old to run"), while Palin is the target of sexism (the Today Show, Washington Post, and PBS all suggested Palin should be staying home with her kids).
Reagan was proclaimed politically dead after his term as governor ended (Newsweek in a 1971 piece called "Ronald Reagan's Slow Fade" said that Sacramento would "mark the end of Ronald Reagan's political road"), while Palin has been labeled finished after resigning the governorship of Alaska (David Shuster on MSNBC prophesied, "I've said it before, I'll say it again, Sarah Palin will never recover from this....she has no future").
Reagan was termed a radical (columnist John Coyne wrote, "Reagan seems somewhat out of step with the new political stirrings"), while Palin is called a right-wing nut (columnist Jonathan Alter lamented, "She is a far-right conservative who...thinks global warming is a hoax and backs the teaching of creationism in schools").
Reagan used TV and radio appearances to address fundamental issues of the day without having to worry about his words going through the filter of the liberal media. Palin is accomplishing the same thing through her utilization of Facebook, Twitter, and the new media. Is it possible these are nothing but coincidences? Sure. But perhaps they're not.
Try as they might, the left ended up completely impotent in their efforts to dampen the American public's fascination and admiration of Reagan. As Palin chooses which of her more than 1,100 speaking offers to accept, packs venues and sells out banquets, watches her book soar to unmatched sales numbers, curries political favors from Republican Party officials for lending her star power to their events, and uses her charisma -- unrivaled on the right -- to build momentum towards 2012, perhaps the mainstream media helplessly sees the writing on the wall.
After all, everyone knows how the Reagan story ended: the annihilation of a bumbling predecessor, a clear conservative agenda that revitalized the American economy and ended the Cold War, a landslide re-election of embarrassing proportions, and a legacy as one of America's greatest Chief Executives. Considering then the striking parallels between the "Gipper" and the "Pitbull with lipstick," maybe the left's deranged animosity towards her is simply born out of a fear of the inevitable.
Full Article At:
Posts
