"Goring" Palin

I can't stand Sarah Palin. She's unappealing to me personally, and I sure think, well, know, that she's nowhere close to being qualified to be within a time zone of the White House.

But there's something I've noticed from a few in the press these last few days that really pisses me off. They're "Goring" Palin.

By that I mean that the press has decided it's OK to repeat stuff which isn't exactly true, but which are so snarky and sarcastic and demeaning that they can't resist.

The grand-daddy of all such bullshit was of course, the entire false "Al Gore said he invented the internet" crap. Wholey untrue, a complete distortion, unfair, and simply false. But how many thousands of times did you hear it repeated, not only by Republicans, but by journalists? In fact, they sometimes STILL DO.

What happened to Palin is far less bad, but it bugs me nonetheless.

Palin, in what was truly a stunning example of stupidity on parade, has cited the fact that her state is the nearest to Russia as some sort of proof of her foreign policy credentials and qualifications.

This will go down in history as perhaps one of the must ludicrous, insulting to anyone with a mind, crazy political assertions in history.

It started with Cindy McCain, then her husband repeated it, and then Palin repeated it over and over and over and over and over. She might as well have said in a high-pitched squeak, "I'm stupid!, I'm stupid!, I'm stupid!, I'm stupid!, I'm stupid!, and I think you're stupid too!"

It was disturbing to even hear any grownup trying to use such mangled logic, but what was worse was that they stuck to it even after it had become the joke it was.

At one point, as if to try to explain it and put a finer point on the ridiculous claim, she mentioned to an interviewer (one of the three) that you could actually SEE Russia from land in Alaska. (From a tiny island at the end of the Alutians.)

Tina Fay famously took this and during her turn as Palin on SNL squeaked, "I can see Russia from my house!"

It was hilarious stuff.

But what pisses me off is that I've heard reporters on more than one occassion ascribe that line to Palin!

They'll say something like, "Well, Palin might be able to see Russia from her house, but ... blah blah blah."

One blogger even posted a map of Alaska marked with Wasilla and Russia and calling Palin a liar for supposedly saying she could see Russia from her house.

I mean, it's insane!

It's really irresponsible and infuriating to see the press or commentators or anyone take a politicians words and distort them to make them look like a buffoon when they didn't say it, and these people should know better. (Especially when you don't NEED to distort anything Palin says to make her look like a buffoon! She does a bang-up job on her own.)

Surely these highly paid reporters KNOW that it was Tina Fay that said the "see Russia from my house" line, NOT Palin, who only said that you could see Russia from land in Alaska. (true, on a clear day) But that doesn't stop them. "Well, I can see the MOON from my house. That doesn't make me an astrophysisit!" har har har har.

They did it to Gore with reckless abandon. Now they're doing it to Palin.

The "turn about is fair play", or "live by the sword, die by the sword" axioms might apply. And the Republicans elevated such false distortions to an art form and used it to turn Dem candidates into cartoon caricatures. It was dishonest and underhanded and slimy.

So maybe what's good for the goose is good for the gander? (as long as we're slinging around platitudes.)

Maybe.

But it doesn't make it any less disgusting to anyone who doesn't like to see anyone attacked with words they never said.