Let's Talk About Me

It was a given that Palin would do this, because it's ultimately all about her anyway. And just a tip for Sean, it's hardly an "exclusive" when she's practically sitting in everyone's lap at Fox"News" on any given day.

So let's get started:



Just to get this out of the way, and as I've said it before, if conservatives don't want this to be about Palin, then they should stop pushing the narrative that it is about her. Also, the Left in America should also be prepared to listen to her clearly coached and couched responses in the metaphorical game of "T-Ball" that she is playing with Sean.

In classic form, and has been the Right Wing narrative du jour in light of what Loughner did in Tuscon, Palin has to make the equivalency argument. If anything is intellectually more dishonest than ignoring the fact that heated and even violent rhetoric - from any side - is without consequence, then that point of view absolutely is. But to follow that canted form of logic all the way through, you didn't hear anyone on the Left talking about "Second Amendment solutions", or have seen anyone from the Left take a gun to a political rally, or even talk about "the blood of tyrants". Those instances are true exclusivities for the modern American Right.

There is something that Palin said - which she initially mentioned in her "blood libel video sermon" - that it's about the message. But that was ultimately lost when she insisted that if her, or Rush, or Hannity were to go silent then America would surely fail because of the loss of "civil" debate. Civility and the modern American Right are mutually exclusive creatures, as anyone who has listened to the noise being vomited up by them can surely understand.



One of the most prominent traits of the modern American Right is that it's never about what they say, but about who does and who doesn't report on it in the fashion that they feel entitled to. Certainly, Palin has come out against violence - as virtually every big name within the Right Wing does when something like this happens - but those reasonable intonements are always drowned out by the bombast and platitudes that boil back up to the surface within days, or even hours, of an event like Tuscon being over.

More to the point, this really isn't about what Palin claims to want, or even what her mouth agape followers claim she believes; nor about what Olbermann, Maddow, O'Reilly, Hannity, or Beck report on, as it's about how Right Wing themes are processed and rationalized by a person as mentally unstable as Loughner. These types of violent actions never happen in a vacuum, something Palin either doesn't understand or isn't willing to admit.



Now we finally see where Palin is uncomfortable - as she rightly should be - when even lightly pressed about her misuse and historical ignorance of the term "blood libel". Rather than speak about why she - or her writing staff, actually - would use such a term, Palin fumbles straight into a diversionary tactic of talk about "timing", and Congress, and what this country "needs". The "timing" of her statement - to my knowledge - has never been an issue with the Left in America, as we are more focused on the message itself.

Moreover, it was apparent to many that Palin's handlers got the "blood libel" talking point directly from the Wall Street Journal - not exactly the bastion of liberalism that Palin seems to be hinting that it is.

Palin seemed less prepared toward the end of the interview. Did she know, or even consider, that Hannity would ask about the "blood libel" portion of her speech? He even read the part where Palin admitted that violent acts can be spurred by the catalyst of heated and violent rhetoric, but she wasn't at all troubled with that being repeated. But in the end, the goal was achieved - at least in reference to those who watched the interview for some sort of validation that Palin is somehow this morally incorruptible and superior creature. Conversely, if you watched this hoping that there would be some new revelation about Palin, her tainted socio-political history, and what will clearly be her future, you didn't get much of anything.

As an aside, I noticed that not once did either Palin or Hannity mention Glenn Beck - a fellow employee at Fox"News" who makes a considerable living doing the things that they claim that the modern American Right doesn't. Was this an unconscious act or do they know that Beck needs to be swept under the carpet right now so people don't pay that much attention to him?

At the end of the day, nothing has changed - not Hannity, not Rush, and most certainly not Palin. I don't want any of them to "sit down and shut up", as they are doing such a wonderful job of proving our points for us.