One Last Thing About the Palin Inquisition
In the comments, I keep hearing about how Sarah Palin’s personal life is relevant because she made it part of her campaign. Well, yeah – but that’s a reason not to scrutinize her personal life. In an age of 24-7 media, when a politician brings their personal life into a political campaign, they are quite literally and quite intentionally inviting people to scrutinize that life. They’re not terribly afraid of the results of that scrutiny – they either get to be portrayed as a uniquely relatable character, or they get to claim that they were smeared and play the part of the victim (sometimes both and sometimes even justifiably). The only way it can backfire on them is if no one talks about their personal life. Investigating their personal life plays right into their hands.
Or maybe I’m just too cynical about the average modern politician (but can you really blame me?).
My advice to Sarah Palin — http://bonzai.squarespace.com/blog/2009/7/10/my-free-advice-to-sarah-palin.htmlReport
On the other hand, though, it could also backfire on an official if voters thought, This person seems to have terrible character, and their response to the scrutiny they’re receiving seems unreasonable and, in fact, even unhinged. I will never vote for this person.
Which is what I think has happened with Sarah Palin. But I think I have gone on for more than long enough on this subject today.Report
It seems interest in family stuff has been around for a very long time.
“Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion….”
Good luck expunging curiosity from politics.Report
well its nice to know this: “In the 2008 election, we took sides, straight and simple, particularly with regard to the vice presidential race. I don’t know that we played a decisive role in that campaign, and I’m not saying the better side lost. What I am saying is that we simply didn’t hold Joe Biden to the same standard as Sarah Palin, and for me , the real loser in this sordid tale is my chosen profession. carl cannon senior whitehouse correspondent politicsdaily.comReport
I am more then willing to admit the attacks on Palin regarding her child were sleazy. She has been a victim in some ways of the press. I am sure it has something to do with Hillary Clinton having something to do with Vince Foster’s suicide and Obama being a secret muslim who wasn’t born in the US, but that article you linked was lame apologia for sarah.Report
Mostly because of the tone of this post, I copied, and used find and replaced to substitute terrorist for politician. Hilarity ensued.
More seriously, I agree with you. I get why people care in a mob/scandal/story sense. but I don’t get why people are so incoherent with their erstwhile stated beliefs in identity politics and politicians.
The left seems to care far more about what a politician will do for them than they do about the same’s personal life (see Ted/Patrick Kennedy). Which is fine but then magically when somebody becomes useless to them, their personal lives become fair game.
The right seems to care enormously about politicians’ personal lives but can’t see how in doing so they’re engaging in the same kind of identity politics they claim to abhor. I mean how many conservatives supported Mark Sanford or John Ensign because they were swell gentlemen with good families and a record of supporting families from the scourge of high taxing, gay married terrorists. How is that any different from gays for Barney Frank or blacks for Barack Obama? Sure one metric is a choice but they’re all still important markers of self-identity, right?Report
The right needs to learn to fight. The left plays the dirty game. Sarah just found out how dirty.
http://animal-farm.us/obama/dirty-game-517Report
You have no need to fear. The Right knows how to fight dirty. They continue to follow in the footsteps of Nixon and Lee Atwater.
From today’s NYT, Frank Rich replays some golden oldies from the Republican Pretty Hate Machine catalog.
“The Palinists’ bogus beefs about double standards reached farcical proportions at Fox News on the sleepy pre-Fourth Friday afternoon when word of her abdication hit the East. The fill-in anchor demanded that his token Democratic stooge name another female politician who had suffered such “disgraceful attacks” as Palin. When the obvious answer arrived — Hillary Clinton — the Fox host angrily protested that Clinton had never been attacked in ‘a sexual way’ or ‘about her children.’
“Americans have short memories, but it’s hardly ancient history that conservative magazines portrayed Hillary Clinton as both a dominatrix cracking a whip and a broomstick-riding witch. Or that Rush Limbaugh held up a picture of Chelsea Clinton on television to identify the ‘White House dog.’ Or that Palin’s running mate, John McCain, told a sexual joke linking Hillary and Chelsea and Janet Reno. Yet the same conservative commentariat that vilified both Clintons 24/7 now whines that Palin is receiving ‘the kind of mauling’ that the media ‘always reserve for conservative Republicans.’ So said The Wall Street Journal editorial page last week. You’d never guess that The Journal had published six innuendo-laden books on real and imagined Clinton scandals, or that the Clintons had been a leading target of both Letterman and Leno monologues, not to mention many liberal editorial pages (including that of The Times), for much of a decade.”Report