Where is Tina Fey when we need her? This question sprang to mind when I saw a Washington Post story about Sarah Palin's latest publicity stunt:
...Unless Palin decides to formally explore a possible presidential run, she is free to spend the money raised by SarahPAC for “any lawful purpose” under federal law, experts said. That means it doesn’t matter whether the trip is a holiday, a political event or something in between...
Traveling in a brightly decorated bus — which is labeled “Paid for by SARAHPAC” — Palin kicked off the “One Nation Tour” Sunday with an appearance at the Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally on the Mall. Stops since then have included Mount Vernon in Virginia, the Gettysburg Civil War battlefield in Pennsylvania and the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor...
Reporters are being kept at bay throughout much of the trip, with even lodging details kept secret.
My policy is, if I can help it, to only post once about celebrity clowns -- one post on Glenn Beck, one on Donald Trump. Today's clown is Palin, whom mainstream reporters continue to pursue because... well, because she's Palin. The half-baked Alaskan never makes sense when she speaks, but she's good looking and sexy and is therefore deemed newsworthy by the powers that be.
I was going to suggest that truly fine citizens everywhere contact Tina Fey and urge her to launch a nationwide tour posing as Palin, in a bus covered with patriotic images and slogans. Fey could cover costs with a "TINAPAC" and, like Palin, travel to random destinations without notifying the press in advance. (Although it's pretty hard to keep the press "at bay" when you're traveling in a bus that looks like a redneck art installation.)
If neither Palin nor Fey were announcing appearances, then reporters would have an even harder time telling them apart than they did in 2008, when Fey was lampooning Palin on Saturday Night Live.
Alas, Fey, due to her pregnancy, is out of action for the summer, according to a publicist I contacted today. The closest you could get to her, which wouldn't be close at all, would be through William Morris Endeavor Entertainment (phone 310-285-9000, fax 310-248-2020).
It looks like the best we can do is personally remind print reporters and talking heads on TV, through e-mails, tweets, and so on, that their knee-jerk coverage of the Paris Hilton of politics is an absurd and unprofessional waste of time and resources.
This might shame them into living up to their responsibility to keep the public informed of serious issues, including the mystery of why the Obama Justice Department is ignoring evidence that Goldman Sachs executives such as Lloyd Blankfein and Daniel Sparks lied under oath to a Congressional subcommittee investigating Wall Street's role in creating the mortgage bubble that ate America.
But that's ridiculous wishful thinking. Hacks have no shame.