Palin says "jump" and the Very Serious media says "how high"
(Photo:
Roger H. Goun/Wikimedia Commons)
Oh, my. Someone grab a hanky.
The dozen or so Very Serious reporters from such Very Serious outlets as CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, and The Times of London are "grumbling" because, in the words of Time's Jay Newton Small, Sarah Palin has "turned the Washington press corps into a bunch of paparazzi stalking your every move."
Also, they are "hot and sweaty, sitting in 100-degree weather at the Gettysburg battlefield."
These Very Serious reporters from Very Serious media outlets are cranky because Sarah Palin has them following her around like a bunch of dopes, while refusing to give an interview to anyone but Greta Van Susteren—the most influential journalist ever!—because only Greta is part of the "the new social media — fair-and-balanced reporters who will just allow the facts to get out there."
Meanwhile, Very Serious reporters like Michael D. Shear of The New York Times have stalked her for days so they can Very Seriously report to us that Sarah was "dressed in workout shorts and wearing sunglasses." Ooooh, relevant!
Look, Mr. Shear et al., let me help you out. I know that writing about Sarah Palin is a lot of fun. I've done it myself, more than a few times. I enjoy coming up with semi-clever new and interesting ways to describe her stupidity, mock her faux folksiness, or just quote her exact words.
But you don't have to say "how high" every time Sarah says, "Jump also!" Sarah isn't "forcing" you to follow her PAC-sponsored, fund-raising road trip, to sit in the 100-degree heat, to anxiously await three whole minutes of her time, during which she can berate you for being part of the "lamestream media," which you can then dutifully report in your Very Serious papers.
So you can all hop off the Palin Paparazzi Tour of 2011, go back to your air-conditioned offices, sit back, and let her show off her savvy "new social media" skills on Twitter and Facebook—and Fox "News"—and then mock the holy hell out of her for being a fucking idiot. That's all. That is the sum total of the amount and kind of attention she deserves. You don't have to treat her like a serious presidential candidate, or even a serious person. Despite her protestations that she doesn't want media attention, she's starving for it. Hell, she quit her job as governor just so she could devote herself full-time to getting you to give her attention in the pages of your Very Serious papers.
And frankly, if you're dumb enough to be outsmarted by a "clever" bait-and-switch by Sarah Palin, you just might be in the wrong line of work.
