When ABC's Barbara Walters deems Sarah Palin one of the year's "Most
Fascinating People," it's a back-handed compliment. Walters knows Palin
has an adoring fan base, and she's definitely not part of it. When the
December 2 special began, Walters greeted Palin with, "Many people find
the thought of you as president a little scary."
This is not what
Walters asked President Obama in yet another gooey Barack-and-Michelle
hour-long ABC interview on Thanksgiving night. Clearly, a large,
energized chunk of the American electorate believed - and continues to
believe - the idea of Obama as president to be horrifying. Instead,
Walters lobbed softballs like this:
"When we come back, we'll
hear about family life in the White House, just who slept through the
midterm elections, the importance of SpongeBob SquarePants, and the
night the Tooth Fairy didn't show up. Stay with us."
Liberals
like Barbara Walters always assume that if you're liberal, you're
smart; if you're conservative, you're either evil or stupid. Or both.
It
was Michelle Obama who claimed she went to bed early on Election Night,
like she always does (so much for Walters being a skeptical
interviewer). And it was Michelle Obama who tried to make excuses for
the Democratic fiasco by sounding remarkably uninformed.
"I mean,
my understanding is that, number one, every president in history has
lost Congress at the midterms," the First Lady claimed. "Maybe that's
overstating it, but it's happened for every president in my lifetime."
The president tried to clean it up: "It's the norm."
Barbara
Walters just sat there, lost in her adoring gaze, accepting these
assertions which were flat-out wrong. Even the last president didn't
lose Congress in the 2002 elections (Republicans kept the House; Senate
Democrats had captured the majority earlier that year with the switch
of Sen. Jim Jeffords). Neither did the first George Bush in 1990
(Congress was firmly Democrat), or Ronald Reagan in 1982 (when the
Senate stayed Republican, and the House stayed Democrat).
Is Barbara Walters that dumb? Or is it blind loyalty to one party matched by equally blind hostility to the other?
It's
the never-ending problem for Sarah Palin. There's a certain malice in
the implication that she doesn't read books or newspapers. There's a
certain catfight quality as well when the inquisitors are Katie Couric
and Barbara Walters. These are female journalists who felt
discriminated against when people suggested they didn't have
the same heft as the male anchors of the evening. Never let them talk
about a "glass ceiling" while they throw mud at Palin.
Walters
suggested "many people" (read: her liberal friends over cocktails the
night before) find you "a little scary" (read: you're an anti-abortion
Jesus freak). Then she added: "You hear, 'She's very charming, but
she's uninformed.' What are they afraid of?" Palin expressed amazement
Walters didn't add the word "polarizing," and noted the media "shaped
that persona."
Walters kept pushing: "What about the accusation
that you're uninformed?" Palin kept pushing back: "That, too, I think
is something that's been pretty much ginned up by the press."
The
diva Barbara huffed with disbelief: "Well! Let me try this," and re-ran
the Couric quiz. "Would you like to tell us what newspapers, magazines
or books you are reading right now?"
Palin said she was reading a
book on ultra-marathoners, and reads the Christian apologist C.S.
Lewis, news sources like The Wall Street Journal and Newsmax, and the
local papers. And then there was an edit. Palin said she mentioned Mark
Levin's book "Liberty and Tyranny," a book that sold over a million
copies without a single broadcast media interview or story. ABC kept
the censorship alive by leaving the book title on the cutting-room
floor.
Walters kept throwing hardballs. "Some Republicans are
angry you threw your considerable weight behind inexperienced
candidates, and as a result, it's your fault the Republicans didn't
take the Senate."
Palin went right back to whacking the press,
and how they love anonymous Republicans who trash Palin while hiding
behind the media's curtain: "A lot of those accusations, though, came
from anonymous sources....They want to be known as such powerful
characters, but they are impotent and limp and they are weak. They hide
behind somebody's skirts, and they won't even put their name to the
accusations."
There's no guarantee that Palin will run for president. But there's absolutely a guarantee that the media deeply hate her.
