I accidentally flipped onto Glenn Beck tonight and I have to say I was alarmed by the Palin narrative that was being proffered. It's clear the GOP chattering class has been given their marching orders and are out in force. They are pushing the frame that Palin is a bold reformer in the image of John McCain, Maverick(tm). As the GOP has carefully and methodically trained and supported their intellectual class of personalities they have a fire power advantage when it comes to manipulating the apparently hapless media. What can we as a community do to countervale this offensive?
Since the announcement of Sarah Palin as John McCain's vie-presidential running mate, our community has done an admirable job stripping away the thin veneer of Palin's image...amongst ourselves, in our little workshop. The reformeryness has bubbled away with chemical effectiveness, but I sense we may have become a little intoxicated by the vapors. Perhaps it is time to step outside the studio and reveal the particleboard laid bare?
Less lyrically, we need to call into all the shows where this line of reasoning is being offered to debunk the message with factual evidence to the contrary. At the same time, we need to stop comparing Palin to Obama, it does his ticket leading status an unintentional disservice. Palin should only be explained or compared to Biden.
The "Bold Reformer" image needs to be set right. For example, the use of a Ted Stevens associate and Jack Abramoff connected lobbyist to curry massive ammounts of federal funds (tens of millions) for Palin's small municipality "renders quaint" the notion that Palin is by nature anti-pork. In fact, as others have diaried, Palin's work landed on McCain's pork list.
Now despite this infusion of federal funds, Palin left Wasilla deply in debt (tens of millions of dollars) after her tenure. The primary cause? Not the sewage treatment they desperately need, but a sporting complex, Wasilla's equivalent of the Bridge to nowhere. Palin's leadership should not be known for it's fiscal responsibility. In other matters of mayorship, Palin's performance was so bad, her own party forced her to hand numerous duties over to a newly hired city administrator. Now we must question whether Palin can even make a claim to leadership ability?
You get the idea, now we need to make sure America gets the same idea. I'm sure Biden and Obama will do some heavy lifting in this regard, but we the sometimes idle could lend a hand as well.
What seems to be needed now is a few bullet point scripts for people to riff on and perhaps a list of numbers to call.