Fox on the run
Things are developing even as I write. Sarah Palin’s bus tour has taken off, with that fox leading a pack of ten to fifteen barking cars of the mainstream media. MSNBC’s Martin Bashir demands to know what she’s doing, and charges her with violation of federal law for having a flag motif painted on the bus. CBS’s Ryan Caruso insists that the situation is unsafe, and blames Palin for not telling the media where she’s going. She rode in front at Rolling Thunder, to which CBS dutifully records the irritation of a few RT office-holders, and this demonstrates the essential divide: CBS is talking to the “national legislative director” for an organization’s public event, while Sarah Palin is feted by the attendees.
The thing is, she comes back stronger, while the media cannot recover. She doesn’t have to win an election, and she may be better off not to try. All she has to do is prove that she is the anti-media; that by colluding to take her on head-to-head, the MSM made her into a figure more powerful than any media outlet, perhaps more powerful than all of them.
In countless matters large and small, Sarah Palin is telling the truth, whereas the MSM is lying. For example we on the right (and many more) know that the colorfully named Death Panels must be there somewhere in a rationed-care system, or there’s no rationing. The media is covering this up by ridiculing, rather than merely addressing, or (gasp!) reporting on these issues. This is not because she is smarter or more experienced or anything of the sort. It’s because her job is easy, because it’s simple and well-suited to her. All it takes is guts, character, charisma, stamina, judgement, honesty, and leadership. It’s also because the media’s job is hard. They have to convince the American people that good people are bad, the bad people are good, that simple things are complicated and that complicated things are simple. That evil is merely different, whereas wrong is proof of evil. They have become prisoners of their own contradictions, and are finally being called for it.
They rely upon speed and confusion to keep viewers from arriving at the obvious follow-on questions. This sort of hand-waving is an old fiction trick, appropriately enough. As a writer, you don’t actually have to solve some issues. You only have to show the protagonist attempting to solve it, and move on smoothly. He’ll ask a good question and will receive a plausible answer. The difference is that in fiction, towards the end of the book, he gets suspicious and follows up on things. In the media this does not happen.
And it’s intentional.
Advantage: Palin
Sarah Palin is the biggest threat to the media right now because everybody knows the deal: 60% of Americans like her, zero among the media like her, and the media has her blood on its hands from her first career. The whole Obama Palace Guard lined up to do battle with someone they thought was an easy target.
Well, they should have picked on McCain. His other stellar qualities notwithstanding, he has been a liability for the GOP since the gang of fourteen derailed our judge and Justice nominations. Remember the whole “Nuclear option”? Remember how we didn’t in fact do that because McCain’s gang of fourteen forked us into accepting that it wasn’t going to happen, and it would mean more civil times ahead? Look at the runaway Marxism, the lawless administration, and the simple nullification of American rights since the election of Obama. Pelosi and Reid locked the Republicans out of the Congress for two years, issuing every single bill from their own offices, bypassing the committees and staffs who are supposed to work on these things, and which by the way, are composed of both parties. So the Gang of Fourteen bought us nothing, and cost us quite a bit. Now those same squishy “Republicans” are counseling moderation in opposition to the destruction of our country.
These shenanigans are only possible because the media is covering for the democrats. I just explained in a sentence how Pelosi and Reid had their way with our laws, and the media couldn’t be asked to cover these abusive irregularities in two years. So yes, the foreign enemy is Islamist terrorists, and yes the domestic threat is Marxism, but it’s the media which renders us defenseless against both threats by keeping us in the dark. They have an Achilles’ heel, however, and Sarah Palin discovered it while being kicked.
Our media enjoy a protection by name in the Constitution because a completely non-governmental press, driven by market forces and the ceaseless clash of ideologies, is the only method by which the people might monitor their government. The capture of our media by the “progressive” left is a clear and present danger to our republic. This is why Palin’s war on the press is a worthy cause, and why every Republican candidate should get to work supporting her. She can keep bouncing back, whereas the media is trapped between what they should be doing and what they have done for the past decade. Nobody really stands up to the media, and that’s just the way it goes. Until now.
The point is not to elect her. The point is to give her the longest fox run possible, because we are not hunting foxes. We are hunting dogs.
The Field
Oddly enough, it may seem both a bit late and a bit early, and at any rate arbitrary, to declare Sarah Palin the implacable agent of the MSM’s necessary decline. She has after all not declared, and might not in the end. And if she insists on playing for all the marbles, it might not workout well.
[pullquote]Romney is struggling to explain what scant differences there might be between RomneyCare and ObamaCare, and the problem is NobodyCares. Quack, blam![/pullquote]
It could be that a Palin campaign ends up about as well as Gingrich’s run. He should have stayed in a supporting position, where he was devastating. He got out in front and was hammered by his own mealy mouth. Romney is struggling to explain what scant differences there might be between RomneyCare and ObamaCare, and the problem is NobodyCares. Quack, blam! There’s Tim Pawlenty, who won himself another chance by doing what Romney would not, and renouncing an old bad decision. People will forgive you if you ask them honestly. Herman Cain has a real shot which is only beginning to gain traction. So far, all systems go. Gary Johnson gave three good interviews, then put himself on the wierd side of Ron Paul, which is admirable, but not desirable.
And a host of very good Representatives and even a Senator or two look appealing, but are just not ripe yet, and they know it. Lay off these guys, and let them build power. If they’re worth electing now, they’ll still be good men in 2016, 2020, and if not, then don’t worry about it.
There is a growing list of governors who are either on the line or ambling up to it. This is very good indeed, and is the most promising source of the Republicans’ “dark horse” or political messiah. It is important to note that none of this would be developing if we had a settled front-runner. Far from a disaster, the Republican field is right now the healthiest it has been in my lifetime because it is ideologically wide and numerically deep, it is dynamic in rankings and fertile in producing a stream of new names, and it has more attention focused on it than ever in my recollection.
How
For Palin’s gambit to work, the whole Republican organization is going to have to take a leap or two of faith. We all want to see Obama defeated, and everything else is secondary. I would vote for John McCain or Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich even though I have little confidence in any of them as President. This is because I live in the real world, and that any of them would be just fine compared to four more years of Obama. If we elect (say) Rudy Giuliani and later he goes to grab our guns, then we fight that out later. First get the nominee elected, then worry about how much wiggle room we have for complaining.
This is dragging on. For now call it 2 of 3, and I’ll screw it all down Real Soon Now. Meanwhile, please do comment.
