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• Saturday, October 4, 2008 10:42 AM

  Studied Nonsense

  The same question could be asked of the right wing pundits as of Sarah Palin: are you serious?

  Palin has to answer yes and tweet on because she's the candidate and has a campaign agenda to follow, over the cliff if necessary.

  But what is the excuse for supposedly independent thinkers and writers who, even allowing for a professional ideological stance in the service of journalism and commentary, throw over their minds to find a way, some way, any way, to say that this woman is going to serve the country well as vice president?

  It's hard to believe these writers don't cringe a bit while serving up this bilge.

  In a related note, Howard Fineman of Newsweek had an exchange with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on the Biden-Palin go to.

  Fineman said the McCain campaign will keep Palin completely under wraps until the election, except for public appearances where she does reasonably well, like stump speeches and "town hall" events with friendly voters, a la Bush.

  Fineman called the McCain tactic of simply ignoring reporters from here on out a "new trend." It is not. The right wing rants, ongoing for thirty years, have created conditions such that the "mainstream" or "drive-by" media can now be discredited completely by being ignored completely. It would be interesting to hear stronger reporting on the slant of the "reporter stiffing" tactics from here on out - with some history on it - and with some hint of how this suggests unconstitutional behavior by the Republican Party.

  Palin talks about her "world" and her people and her wowie-wow interest and belief in the "team of mavericks" she's aligned with.

  She's really describing, in her massaged talking points, which include a new level of attack and dismissal of regular, everyday American reporting, the maturation of an alternate American narrative, enhanced greatly after eight years of the Bush administration, and almost thirty years of Reaganesque themes and cloned, bobble-doll candidates, assisted by the "zoo watchers": the hack political consultants and columnists who have helped to concoct this alternative reality.

  Is it within the left/right paradigm, or is it something else, something outside of the real mainstream?

  —Dirigo Read Dirigo's other letters
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