President Palin’s Administration Will Be A Great Success
Monday, September 8th, 2008Glenn Greenwald points out that the “when will Palin face the press?” issue is beneficial for Palin:
When they decide in a couple of weeks that Palin is ready to do so, she’ll go and sit down with Brit Hume or Larry King or Charlie Gibson or some other pleasant, accommodating person who plays a journalist on TV and have a nice, amiable, entertaining chat about topics that are easily anticipated. Having been preceded by all sorts of campaign drama about her first interview and the excitement that she’s not up to the task, her TV appearance will be widely touted, score big ratings, and will be nice entertainment for the network that presents it. It will achieve many things. Undermining propaganda isn’t one of them.[...]
Moreover, Sarah Palin isn’t Dan Quayle. She is extremely smart — much smarter than the average media star who will eventually be interviewing her — and she is very politically skilled as well. She didn’t go from obscure small-town city council member to Governor to Vice Presidential nominee by accident. She’ll be more than adequately prepared for the shallow, 30-second, rote exchanges that pass for political interviews in our Serious mainstream discourse.
That’s pretty much it. Palin is smart, telegenic, and driven; she also seems to have absolutely no compunction about lying morning, day and night. Our media culture is perfect for her. She’s like a dog being challenged to eat an enormous steak; and when she wolfs it down, this will be spun as a terrific victory.
Right now it seems ludicrous to say that someone unable to face Larry King is prepared to be President. But in our media atmosphere, what on earth does being “prepared to be president” mean anyway?
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