There's more to Palin than media's telling via 'tabloid blogs'

Governor Sarah Palin is joined onstage by state commissioners, members of the gasoline team, state lawmakers and representatives of TransCanada to celebrate the signing into law of HB 3001, which awards a license under AGIA to TransCanada for development of a natural gas pipeline.On the heels of Sen. John McCain’s historic move to add the Republican Party’s first female candidate for vice president to his ticket, well-connected left wing blog sites did exactly what they did to Sen. Hillary Clinton—they hit her below the belt. First there was Troopergate II. Troopergate I was completely unrelated to Palin, dealing instead with a completely disgraced New York Democratic governor’s top aides.

Palin’s Troopergate, largely manufactured by media and a sore loser in my opinion, came about because she fired a public safety commissioner because he continued to employ a state trooper who, according to various media, tasered a teenager AND (drum roll, please), according to the Associated Press, “[h]as been reprimanded for violating nearly a dozen laws and departmental policies since December 2001.” And there’s more.

In the instance of the errant trooper, the governor exercised her authority and held a commissioner accountable. The fact the trooper was her sister’s ex is a silly point. Do you want a guy with a gun and a badge running around after he tasered a teen and violated laws? Palin’s accuser, the blogger and rental car executive who morphed from Republican to Independent, challenged Palin for the governorship and lost. Doesn’t that really say it all? Palin did her job and I’d have done the same thing she did.

Palin has Dem strategists and Republicans shook up for a very good reason. She comes close to being a younger version of Sen. John McCain and they didn’t peg him with the nickname ‘Maverick’ for nothing. Both these politicians mean it when they say, “Country first.” But here’s the rub. I don’t think McCain was aiming at Clinton supporters so much by adding Palin. I think he was aiming at his party’s conservative base, especially the conservative part that rings a bell with supporters like me: government revenue and taxes. There's an excellent article about Palin by Bill McCallister at WTUU TV.

Here’s some of what media missed about Palin, pulled from the archives of major outlets (see ‘References’ below):
• Lydia Green, president of the Alaska Senate, who said Palin came to the governor’s office without “intimate knowledge of the energy and financial industries” her predecessor had. “But she’s a very quick study….she has good people around her.” (NYT)
• Alaska State Rep. John Harris : “What the governor has is a lot of credibility with the public…she’s been a breath of fresh air.”(NYT)
• Sen. Johnny Ellis, a Democrat: “It was absolutely a magic moment in Alaska political history for there to be all of the judgments and admissions from the oil industry, the corruption scandals, the governor's high popularity, the bipartisan working group in the state Senate." (KTUU)

Palin is Alaska’s first female governor and the youngest in the state’s history.

Mass media has never hopped on the scandal bandwagon by paying homage to tabloid blogs as quickly as it did with Sarah Palin. When media vets men with the tenacity it vets women, I’ll stop pointing a finger over gender bias. Have you ever known media to verbally assassinate a man over something his child has done? I didn’t think so. Al Gore's kid comes to mind.  Consider the hands-off approach to the John Edwards scandal. If the National Enquirer hadn’t put that story on your plate it’s likely you’d never have known. The guy could’ve been your president. Mainstreamers call The Enquirer a tabloid. All I can say is the publication did a fine job of actual reporting on the Edwards fiasco.

The vicious attacks on Palin’s family tell me Washington insiders are worried. And that’s always a good thing. You have to accept that in this election, mass media is a veritable lobby for the Democratic Party—sort of like the state run news service in countries like Iran.

The tabloid blogs stooped to a new low, even by their standards, in attacking Palin’s family. That mainstream media gave the attacks credence, unlike the behavior towards stories about Edwards and other Democrats, really says it all.

[Text by Kay B. Day; photo courtesy Alaska Governor's Office.]