Monday, September 22, 2008

In a Nutshell...

I am constantly asked about Palin and I am simply tired of the attention that she is receiving from a media that is so damn concerned with creating a tight race rather than reporting the facts.  Because for the media it is far more important to make a better news story than truly examine what she actually may or may not contribute to the GOP ticket.

Regarding Palin, my assessment is that she is an undereducated, small town conservative and a religious ideologue who has not been burdened with the complexities of the larger world. Her own family experience should cause her to rethink some of her religious ideas such as "abstinence education".   She exudes the kind of simple minded certainty that the public interprets as strong conviction.  But it is a conviction coming from a place of ignorance rather than out of knowledge and depth.

Time Magazine last week had an article about Palin which describes her as representing the popular myth of the moral superiority of small town America. It is a mythology, often shown in Hollywood films and is essential to the GOP's vision of itself, that is hard for Obama to counteract with the media displaying it 24-7 on cable news programs that must generate something to "talk about" rather than simply deliver the facts and allow others to determine what they think, feel, and believe.  Whether or not the mythology is real is unimportant to the media.  People want the simulation not the reality.

The problem for McCain is that this myth is a hard sell during massive corporate welfare, military adventurism, fast creeping inflation at the stores and pumps.  So, in the end, Palin and her mythology becomes meaningless if her effort at a "real person" Reagan-like attempt at mythology dies on the vine.

No comments: