Rmj at Adventus on the millions Sarah Palin has made from resentment and discontent:
It's an interesting, perplexing, and finally sad kind of resentment that while not particularly American, certainly seems peculiarly American. Sarah Palin has achieved more in less time than most of us will achieve in a lifetime. I understand she's made $12 million since she left the governorship of Alaska. She's famous. Her tweets and Facebook posting makes national, if not international, news. And still, apparently, she is not happy. Or, at least, she's not content.
Sarah Palin embodies the Zeitgeist in a way that is amazing to me. The longer the Sarah Show runs, the more I am astonished. Have I been transported and plunked down in alien territory without at all being aware of the transition?
Photo from Stand Up For Our Nation.
Why are Sarah's tweets always big news? She is a half-term former governor and a failed vice presidential candidate. Would the words of anyone else with those credentials be endlessly reported? Journalism ain't what it used to be.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, if being a failed presidential candidate should preclude people being reported by the media, Walter Mondale's recent observations should have been ignored too.
ReplyDeleteI dunno. Mondale was an important public figure for a long time before he ran for office. Palin was the unknown Gov. of Alaska, and she quit that job.
ReplyDeleteHer Facebook postings were famous almost immediately, and everybody wanted to know what she was gonna do after she and McCain lost. I've never figured out why.
BTW, Grandmere, I wish I'd found that picture!
Cathy, Rmj covered what I was going say in answer to your comment. What Bex says is true. Sarah was a nobody until the presidential campaign of 2008.
ReplyDeleteFair enough (though I was under the impression Mondale's recent comments were made under the banner of his having run for president once - perhaps that was wrong?). To put it another way then, some people do take hold of the public imagination, for good or ill, and she seems to have done that. Love her or hate her, the public has a strong reaction to her. She's big news over here too. As to why, your guess is as good as mine.
ReplyDeleteCathy, Mondale had a rather distinguished career in the US Senate before he served as vice-president under Jimmy Carter. Then he ran unsuccessfully for president - a whole different kettle of fish from coming-out-of-nowhere Sarah Palin.
ReplyDeleteokey dokey, then, I was unaware of the full history (my excuse being that I was a child when Jimmy Carter was about. In fact, I remember being asked a question about Jimmy Carter when my high school principal interviewed me and my parents when I was 11 or thereabouts to see if I was a suitable child to be taken on by the school. I got the question wrong, too. It was something about peanut farming. I think I took against Carter after that.) Nevertheless, I know there are loads of people who hate Palin, but for some reason she has had huge impact and I suspect her every tweet will go on being reported.
ReplyDeleteCathy, I don't hate Sarah Palin. She remains a continuing source of amazement to me, but so do a good many other people in the world. I expect that I'm the odd one.
ReplyDeleteGrandmere Mimi, I think not :-)
ReplyDeleteI actually have a letter from Walter Mondale, somewhere in a keepsake box, along with one from Jimmy Carter. I wrote them when I was a child.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of Sarah Palin, and her fans, I'm reminded of a story I read some years ago in National Geographic.
ReplyDeleteIt was about a religious sect in Mexico. They'd originally come from Northern Europe in the 19th century, emigrated to North America, and ended up in Mexico (at the time the article was written: 1980s I think?).
Anyway, they were a sect of (IIRC) Anabaptists: the "Radical Reformation."
You all remember the Reformation, right? Gutenberg and the Bible, and Sola Scriptura?
Well, that's how this group had started, too.
Only something had happened. They got "purer" and purer, and splintered and splintered---always about who was Most Orthodox. Had the purest, simplest beliefs. "Plain". Not putting on airs. Above all, not "elite."
And thereby, they had purified themselves...
...from literacy! :-0
Yup, the group (living in squalor, dependent on hand-outs from native Mexicans) was completely illiterate (in ANY language), and could no longer READ that Bible their ancestors DIED to translate/print "in the vernacular."
But hey: "The lamestream media, they just get on Sarah, cuz she refudiates the elitists!"
Let s/he who has, um, eyes to read...
Granmere,
ReplyDeleteIf it is any comfort, I voted for Jimmy and Walter. Doesn't age have its privileges anymore?
JCF, the group in Mexico may have been "pure", but if they lived in squalor, they were probably not clean. That's an amazing story.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't age have its privileges anymore?
Fred, sadly, no.
Palin has had an impact because even the "serious" media tend to cover the flash and not the substance. While that in itself is nothing new, it has become the dominant model in the age of sound bites and shrinking attention spans.
ReplyDelete... it has become the dominant model in the age of sound bites and shrinking attention spans.
ReplyDeleteAin't that the truth, Bex?
It is indeed the truth, Grandmere, and now for your reading pleasure, Palin has been interviewed by Barbara Walters for Walters' most fascinating (?) people of the year. Guess what? Palin is contemplating running for president! Wow, Walters is reporting a "dog bites man story" as non-news used to be called by journalists back in the day. Real news was "man bites dog."
ReplyDeleteGuess what? Palin is contemplating running for president!
ReplyDeleteNo! I am shocked, I tell you, shocked!
She ought to try running just to lose about ten pounds of conceit.
ReplyDeleteGood one, Fred.
ReplyDeleteDidja hear her today? (book leak) "The Obamas spent 20 years in Jeremiah Wright's church, listening to his rants against America and white people."
ReplyDeleteShe came right out and said it! :-0 "white people"
Well, now that we know WHO she's running to be President of...
[Yes, know it should be "whom". But WHO just sounds better there, y'know? ;-/]
JCF, no doubt Sarah wants to be president of the white folks.
ReplyDeleteJeremiah Wright didn't pastor a church with 6000 members, many of whom were white, by constant rants against America and white people. The media selectively chose the bits and pieces from his sermons over 20 years that would gain attention and generate the most controversy, because, as media types see it, when there is no controversy, there is no news.