John Mortell’s blog

Given Sarah Palin’s recent ‘I’m retiring… or am I?‘ presence in the news, I posted a twitter comment that covered my feelings in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek, if also honest manner. To quote:

Sarah Palin is gone! Woot! Tho now I’m worried that she’ll come back as a zombie politician…

Following this, I was asked on my facebook later why it is that I ‘hated’ the woman, with the same person also saying that he could not understand why so many people had such vehement hatred for her. But here’s the thing. I don’t hate Sarah Palin. I have problems with her politics as a general rule, and and as I said when she first appeared on the scene , I don’t believe that she’s the ‘maverick’ or ‘political genius’ that’s she’s been made out to be, but I will admit I find her commitment to her family and her pro-life beliefs to be an admirable characteristic at least.

Saying all of that though, brings me to the problem I have with her. Which isn’t really a problem with her, but rather with the narrative that exists around her.

(Full disclosure, I’m writing this post largely off my experience of two particular people I know who are strong Republican/Palin supporters, but I’m also trying to use my experience of what Republican followers seem to say anyway)

In this narrative, Sarah Palin is an honest, knowledgeable, hard-working politician who would have been a perfect Vice-President (and later in the narrative great future President) who, despite having as much, if not more ‘experience’ than Barack Obama, was not seen as a credible candidate with the reasons for this being either
A) That she was unfairly beaten down by the ‘Liberal (sneer when you say it for full effect) Media’
B) That she wasn’t given a fair shake because ‘Barack’s Black’ and he wasn’t questioned on things by a biased media/political class
C) Both of the above
D) She’s a woman
Etc.

And the thing is, this narrative continues. What bugs me about this, is that it’s not based on any objective facts. For example, was Palin given a hard time with regards to her CV? Yes. But in fairness, when the best Fox could come up with for her foreign policy skills was ‘she can see Russia from Alaska’ (see bottom of the linked post), what do you expect? Had John McCain even tried to run a campaign of two halves saying: ‘I’ll handle the International ‘stuff’, the VP is here for domestic’, the effect still would have been the same, as really the main thing Palin had was that she was doing an ‘ok’ job as a first term Governor. However, that is not a ringing endorsement for such a major job as Vice-President especially given that Palin really had no major strength’s as a domestic politician either.

Now, did Barack Obama have a CV that was as (if not even more) empty? Yes. Probably. But, and it’s a pretty big ‘but’, he managed to avoid gaffs like the Couric Interview and for the most part seemed to have the presence and knowledge that would be required for a national leader. I mean compare these:


I mean, interviews where Palin came across looking like she had no idea what she was talking about, where she can’t answer questions that really should be answerable by somebody running for the second most powerful job in the world do not exactly inspire confidence. And her attempts didn’t inspire confidence when you look at the results of the U.S election.

Now what about the points A, B and C? Firstly the ‘liberal media’ point.. This is a point I have never understood. Essentially it seems to be that any media that makes the case for liberal politics, or questions the Republican ‘view’ or even just asks questions is ‘liberal’. To a large extent it seems to be simply part of the persecution complex of many Republican politicians. I mean, look at this quote from the BBC article on Palin’s resignation:

At the same time, she said the response in the media to her surprise announcement was “most predictable” and “detached from the live of ordinary Americans”.
“How sad that Washington and the media will never understand; it’s about country,” Mrs Palin wrote.

“Detached from the live (sic) of ordinary Americans”? What does that even mean? That ALL of the American news coverage of her has ‘attacked’ her on some level? Surely asking why a person resigns before the end of her term is a legitimate question?

B – the ‘Barack got an easy time of things because he’s a Black Man’ line. I’ve seen (otherwise sensible) people seriously use this argument which generally seems to run something to the effect of ‘Liberal guilt meant people elected an incompetent Black Man rather than a competent White Woman/Barack wasn’t asked ‘the hard questions because he’s black/etc.

I think I’ve covered this line pretty well in the rest of the post – but I will ask, if Barack was given such a ‘free ride’ by the ‘Liberal Media’ why couldn’t all the people who voted Republican the previous eight years see through the ‘Liberal bias’ and see how ‘useless’ he was? If he was given such a ‘free ride’, why wasn’t Hilary Clinton able to poke holes in his ‘obvious’ weaknesses?

And what about the coverage of the Jeremiah Wright affair? Essentially, Barack Obama was able to convince people that he not only knew what he was talking about, but that he was a good man capable of leading the United States. These arguments for Palin often seem to end up taking a very ‘anti-democratic’ element as the eventual stance of her supporters is that ‘the people’ ‘didn’t know what they were doing’.

The final, and biggest problem I have with Sarah Palin though, is this. She never pretended to even represent ‘all Americans’, but only those whose world-view was similarly narrow, religious and conservative. Though she eventually apologised for the comments, it is hard to not believe that they reflected pretty accurately the reality of how she viewed a lot of her fellow countrymen (and women).

Personally, I think that people that complain about how Palin was ‘treated’ miss the point. To me, their bitterness over the fact that Barack Obama ran a better campaign, and won a fair election has blinded them to many of Palin’s flaws. A woman who tries to claim that people who bomb abortion clinics AREN’T terrorists, who nearly seems willing to claim that anybody who isn’t a Republican isn’t an American, who runs a campaign that is designed to appeal to a very specific section of the population and who claims that everything negative said about her is down to media bias is NOT a national politician. Rather she is a sectional politician with national coverage.

Do I hate Sarah Palin? No. But I have find it hard to take seriously a woman who still seems to be claiming to have national ambitions, despite seeming to have no interest in educating herself as to international politics. A woman who has resigned from a high-profile (in political terms) Governorship before her term is finished and for no apparent reason. A woman who believes that media coverage that asks questions is ‘biased’ and regards not believing what Republicans tell you as ‘being anti-American’. I don’t believe asking these questions or saying these things are unreasonable, or show ‘hatred’ for the woman.

Unless somebody can tell me why I’m wrong?