HUFFPO: Why the Palin “Hate Affair” Will Backfire
November 21, 2009
by The New Agenda
|The following op-ed written by The New Agenda’s Amy Siskind is now featured on the home page at The Huffington Post. The piece among the most commented on HuffPo: feel free to leave a comment there. This piece is bumped up from earlier posting.
I’ve been watching with great interest as of late the amount of hate stories written about Governor Palin. Oh yes, we are a country that loves our drama. And we are certainly a country that can, at times, be accused of going to extremes. But one thing is certain about our Palin Hate Affair — the biggest winner will be: Sarah Palin.
With Palin’s public re-emergence today on Oprah, the media’s Palin Hate Affair got fully underway. Sarah is, amongst other things, a cancer of the GOP, dumb, and heck, even fodder for a musical. Newsweek sees nothing wrong with using a picture from Runners World for their cover story. MSNBC is well, being MSNBC, and showing their inner-misogynist so familiar to us from 2008.
And somehow the extremism of the Palin Hate Affair reminds me of another recent political extreme: the media’s love affair with candidate and then President Obama. The problem for Obama, as I recently wrote at The Daily Beast, is that all great love affairs come to an end. And quite inadvertently, our media set up Obama for an epic fall from grace. How could Obama possibly live up to the branding image that our media was so willing to propagate? Simply impossible.
There is another side to the Palin Hate Affair that also feels quite familiar — it’s called misogyny. This should also be familiar territory after the way Secretary Clinton was treated in 2008. As Katie Couric noted just after Hillary dropped out: “Senator Clinton received some of the most unfair, hostile coverage I’ve ever seen” and undoubtedly this hurt her chances at becoming the Democratic nominee. Sound familiar?
And just like with Hillary, the Palin Hate Affair would not be complete without a gang up by a group of women who consider themselves to be “feminists” (whatever that term connotes these days). These “feminists” are contributors to an “antidote” to Going Rogue called Going Rouge-Sarah Palin, An American Nightmare. If you read the list of women experts contributing here’s what you’ll find: most of them hated Hillary too. Check the list and Google their writings for 2007 and 2008 and you’ll find every excuse possible as to why supporting the DNC’s first viable woman candidate for President was not the right thing to do. Who’s crying now?
Here’s the thing about extremes — what they lack in longevity they make up for with excitement. Sure our media is having one heck of a time turning Sarah Palin into a modern day Sarah Good; but at some point there will be period of examination and discovery. A mea culpa of having stepped over lines whose consequence will be a judgment of keystrokes. As as Sarah Good’s final words to her accuser would predict his demise, so to, will this extreme come to an end. And the unwitting winner of the sympathy vote will be: Sarah Palin.
The left’s obsession with Palin is a testament to her power, present and future. Add in the sexism and the class derision.
Palin’s cheerful defiance resonates very well with women who have had to ignore everything thrown in their way. She doesn’t need an election to be in a battle – look at the last week. Hence, she emerges as a persistent combatant – a stance that only deepens her ties to many Americans who believe themselves to be fighting back in a increasingly harsh country.
Well said Marie. The women who collude with the misogynist liberal Democrats and Media are just women who have carved a niche for themselves in the patriarchy and aren’t about to give it up. They are not friends of women voters or media consumers. We should not look to them for leadership in changing the misogynist culture they enjoy. I still wonder about how these liberal Democrats and Media don’t see how extremely off and arrogant and ignorant they appear to everyone outside their select group. I guess they don’t care what the majority think of them since they are so above us, however they still need us to vote for their candidates (not going to happen) and tune in to their channels.
My, my Huffpo huh? I’m not sure, but is this the first time?
In any case, congratulations to The New Agenda for getting this up there.
But just a word of caution, since they have been awfully biased against Sarah Palin (and Hillary Clinton for that matter): at the end of the article you warn about a “sympathy vote” for Sarah. They might be “telling” this to their readers so that they harden their views against any sympathy for a woman who is attacked with misogyny. Sorry to be this cynical, but the primaries and the GE opened my eyes. I could be wrong, but it’s better to keep eyes open. If they have an agenda, it will emerge. And right now there is a strong push to make Sarah look like a “whiner” and a “liar”.
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