Even the beltway-centric National Journal concedes that former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is right about the double standard in the mainstream media’s coverage of women. That double standard is put on steroids when it comes to conservative women who are outsiders like Palin, who is neither beholden to nor cares about the elite opinion makers and whisperers in the permanent political class.
After Palin blistered and mocked liberals and the mainstream press for coddling Hillary Clinton last week, Emma Roller noted in National Journal, “nearly every reporter covering the 2008 campaign bought into” the narrative of Palin as “a clueless bimbo.” The press characterized Palin in this way even though Palin arguably accomplished more in her time as Alaska’s governor than nearly every major GOP presidential candidate during the last election cycle and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton had in the Senate.
“Democrats are right–scouring records of a female candidate is just politics of personal destruction, and for the media to engage in it would be unfair, unethical, and absolutely UNPRECEDENTED. You can’t probe a woman like that because, well, it’s a war on women!” Palin sarcastically wrote in her Facebook post. “America, you deserve fair and consistent coverage of relevant issues before deciding a Presidential/Vice Presidential ticket, so have faith the agenda-less media will refuse to push whispers and wildly inaccurate information about a partisan politician’s body part.”
Roller, though, seems to buy into the incompetence myth a bit by praising Julianne Moore’s performance in a movie that was based on proven and documented lies from disgruntled and incompetent campaign consultants and misinterprets Palin’s comments about liberals, in general, not having brains as being specifically about Hillary Clinton.
Last week on Fox News, Sean Hannity referenced referenced Palin’s remarks that were dripping with sarcasm on the media’s double standard, and Palin said it also applied to race.
“A liberal can attack a conservative women, but it’s a war on women if you were to question a liberal women,” Palin said on Hannity last week. “And it’s not just gender though. It’s race also.”
She noted that liberals can attack black conservatives like T.W. Shannon and Allen West “and some of these good guys that are out there fighting for the right reasons.”
But she said, “heaven forbid, you’re going to be called a racist if you question Barack Obama’s failed policies.”
Palin said the left cannot argue for their failing policies and will “grasp anything you say that can be perceived to be racist or sexist” so that the “conversation is stopped.”
“They can’t win on arguing policies,” she said.