With Sarah Palin, is the Daily Kos Helping McCain?
Sarah Palin and Bristol Palin Attacks Backfire
Their candidate, Barack Obama, now enjoys an 8-point lead in the polls but it's his uncivil supporters, not limited to the Daily Kos, who may cause it to evaporate. Some, if not a majority, of this lead is from undecided women and former Hillary Clinton supporters. Women who could be turned off quite easily by the treatment of Sarah Palin. Let's evaluate a portion of the double standards at play.
Democratic plan to take Sarah Palin down
As noted by a blogger at the Huffington Post: "Democrats need to get ahead of this curve for once, and start defining her [Sarah Palin] in their own terms. They need to frame her before Republicans get a chance to."
Here you can find 45 talking points, out in the open, most of which are irrelevant to Sarah Palin's fitness as VP. The valid issues are overshadowed by misogyny, misinformation and irrelevant attacks.
Drugs and DUI
A prime example of a double standard is to make an issue of the fact that Sarah Palin's husband had a DUI 20 years ago. Yet, not much is said about Sarah Palin's experimentation with marijuana. Why? Because Barack Obama abused both marijuana and cocaine or "blow" well into his college years. The message is, bad choices do not matter if you don't get caught or it's your candidate.
Sarah Palin's personal life
Though Michelle Obama is suppose to be off limits, at the Daily Kos it is legitimate to tear apart Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol, and justify doing so by linking her 17-year-old daughter's pregnancy to her mother's fitness for office aka judgment.
And, there is no stopping there as they create a National Enquirer level scandal by starting a rumor that Bristol Palin is really the mother of Sarah Palin's baby - a baby who is afflicted with Down Syndrome.
Even the fact that the baby has Down Syndrome has been used against Sarah Palin both personally and professionally. Here are pro-choice people condemning a women for how an experienced birth mother handles her labor and delivery.
What can you expect from people who make a big deal out of the earrings she wears?
Sarah Palin and experience
Attacking Sarah Palin's experience is a risky move too, considering Obama's relative lack of it. Yet, we're suppose to believe that Obama's judgment makes up for a thin resume - but not use the same standard on Palin, the only candidate with executive experience.
At least experience is a valid issue as is Sarah Palin's associations with any lobbyists and whether or not she abused power in the firing of an official. Though none of these accusations look factually damning thus far.
Did John McCain depend on the Daily Kos reaction?
What left-wing haters (distinct from Democrats) like those at the Daily Kos do not understand is that the average American voter cares about the issues of the country and our lives. We care about a person's fitness for office - the president more than the vice president, and want fairness and facts to make an assessment. That is those of us who don't make our political decision within 30-seconds.
Middle-class America and Independents largely detest bullies and Chicago-style politics - some of whom want to vote for Obama, or at least a Democrat, but the haters (and sexist Palin pitbulls) keep getting in the way. The dependability of some of the electorate to react to Sarah Palin as such probably did not escape McCain, either.
Sources
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080831/palin_vp_080901/20080901?hub=TopStories
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-weigant/framing-sarah-palin_b_123027.html
Published by Donna Porter
Writer / Journalist -- A Yahoo News! Contributor Donna began her writing and internet career in 1995 in the health industry and became an early dot-com entrepreneur soon after. Masters certified in Internet... View profile
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57 Comments
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Good topic :) Sheri
How did I miss this one? You present a great case and may be right that the perception of media bias could hurt Obama. He has been smart to distance himself from the most obvious smears (though some might argue that his media surrogates are acting on his behalf, even without his overt blessing). Now the right wing media is besotted with Sarah Palin... we'll have to wait and see how that pendulum swings.
No matter who runs for president or VP; they don't deserve special treatments because of their gender. Sarah Palin has to show me more than her ability to deliver a good speech that somebody else wrote. Through my research, I have not found anything to lead me to believe, that (GOD forbid) - if anything happens to McCain; she will be able to step up from day one and lead this country. I will not vote for Sarah Palin just because she can delievr a good speech, or because she is female, or a Super mom! I need to know her views on the issues and if she has the best interest of the country at hand. We don't need 4 more years like the last eifgt years. Seriously, I don'y know anything about sarah Palin. Maybe she will prove herself in the weeks to come. Her speech and her gender is not enough for me.
From what I see both parties republicans and Democrats are being attacked equally. I believe Obama clearly said that Sarah Palin's personal life should be left out of the picture and her daughter's pregnancy should not be an issue. My opinion is: Sarah Palin, herself, can't be treated with kids gloves. They have to go after her the same way they went after Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Sen. Obama and Sen McCain. Vice President is a very important role. It's not her lack of experience that counts as much as the fact: "God forbid anything happens to McCain;" does Sarah Palin have what it takes to step in and be president of the United States from day one. That is the big issue. What is her views on the issues? We are not just talking about democrats or republicans; we are talking about the furure of our country. We can't just vote for someone because she is a woman. If a woman is going to run for an office that high; she should not get any special treatments. No matter who'
If, you'll note too, before the media joined the self-awareness bandwagon, I wrote that the media bias would backfire on Obama....that is not a right wing agenda...look around at what has transpired.
Jon -- I think you'll find most of my political articles are some of the most objective here...(without being bone dry) I don't advocate for the right-wing or left-wing...I guess you could say I'm an Independent because the DNC is no longer the party I subscribed too...I share beliefs of both parties but my main concern is that of country (not the slogan) and who I feel will get the job done, or hurt the country least. I have not yet made a bullet-proof decision, for the first time in my voting life at this point, albeit I have strong leanings, which I largely keep in check here.
One final word: When you reactionaries write this pro-John McCain claptrap, do you ever think of the legions of innocent non-Americans, as well as the legions of American servicemen, you are condemning to death in useless wars to feed the psycho-sexual dysfunctions of "men" like George W. Bush and yes, John McCain? McCain is a burlesque character who makes Stanley Kubrick "Dr. Strangelove, or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb" look like a documentary rather than a satire. Anyone with an understanding of American history knows about the Jungian mechanism of ego inflation that is engaged by the Presidential process. It's sad that inflated egos of Americans choosing their "Elected King," modelled after the Royal Governors of colonial England evey four years usually, four times out of five, has such disastrous results for the country and the world.
I believe that John McCain will be elected President of the United States as too many Americans are bigoted, "Know Nothing" reactonaries. I belive that the American educational system is kept as poor as it is to ensure that the mass of Americans remain mediocre and incapable of developing any critical intellectual capacity at all; this is a hangover of the English system that Anglo-Saxon and WASP wanna-be's ape. The idea of Sarah Palin as President, and she would be four and a half months away from that post, is a sorry joke, but likely the President Americans deserve. Politicians and the political system are absolutely are a reflection of the people they represent. The sorry American system and pathetic Republican candidates, who seem to be constitutionally unable to tell the truth...well, you do the calculus.
Gimme a break! Sarah Palin is the pathetic end result of the "Hollywoodization" of American Presidential politics that began with JFK in 1960. Anyone with any sense of proportion would wonder why the press didn't react and score John McCain for his choice of the utterly unqualified Palin for V.P., what with Russian and American warships facing off in the Black Sea and bringing us closer to nuclear war than any time in a generation. And 72-year-old cancer survivor McCain proposes to put someone unqualified a heart beat away from the Presidency. One wondered how the press didn't rise up and react the way they did with Barry Goldwater in 1964. It would be hard to see such a choice made in the days of a Walter Cronkite. That there isn't a wide sense of outrage is indicative of the fact that American democracy has failed.