hogwash

The Sarah Palin Trojan Horse – with lipstick

The Trojan Horse metaaphor may have a new name after the 2008 election season, as the McCain campaign has set Sarah Palin outside of the American peoples’ doorsteps.  The Sarah Palin Trojan Horse is a perfect example of regressive deception politics, where a political machine will construct an imaginary “perfect” being for a given election and then set out to try and find the right person to fill that role.

The McCain campaign did not find Sarah Palin first and then bring her in to the campaign, they first devised their imaginary creature and then found Sarah Palin.  What is becoming apparent to me is that for several reasons, it did not matter to them that she was not thoroughly vetted.

First, there is only two months to the election.  Even though the religious idea of Sarah Palin being a real creature in the minds of regressive Republicans is only a shell for the contents of the real Sarah Palin biography, the McCain campaign is betting on the idea that it will take longer than two months for most American’s to ascertain the truth.  (Think Al-Qaeda/Iraq connection and Obama/Muslim falsehoods)  As a matter of fact, large percentages of Americans still believe those falsehoods to be true and this election will be over before the insides of the Palin Horse are discovered, or so the McCain campaign is hoping.

Basically, in politics, it doesn’t matter if it is true, all that matters is what Americans believe to be true.

Second, as the specs were developing for the Sarah Palin Trojan Horse, the McCain campaign most likely took his historically favorable relationship with the press, as well as their reaction to Hillary’s playing of the gender card in to consideration.  As soon as McCain unveiled his strategically placed Palin Horse to the American people, the press entered a state of confusion.  They did not really appear to know what to do.

Comments ranged from, “What a strategically brilliant move,” (William Kristol – Fox News) to Juan Williams, also of Fox News saying, “From this point on, I don’t ever want to hear conservatives complain about affirmative action.”  But for a couple of days, the press really dug in to do their jobs.  They began to investigate Sarah Palin’s biography, to find out what makes her tick and what her policy history is.

At the outset, the goal of the McCain campaign was to define Sarah Palin before anyone else could, and in doing so, Palin was presented to the American people, and the press, as your everyday Hockey mom, government reformer, who had rejected the bridge to nowhere, sold the governor’s private jet on eBay, and wants to open Alaska for drilling.  But, when the press began to dig, they started to find numerous inconsistencies in the McCain presentation of their Palin Horse.

Palin did not reject the “Bridge to nowhere” until it garnered national attention, and even campaigned for it as part of her platform to be elected governor, yet still kept the $200+ million.  Sarah Palin did not sell Alaska’s private jet on eBay, she tried, but after months and months on the site, she turned it over to a private aviation company to sell it.  Palin did not refuse federal earmarks as an elected official in Alaska, as a matter of fact, she hired a law firm to help her lobby the federal government for even more pork barrel monies, ending up on John McCain’s own “pork” list, and eventually leaving her town of less than 9,000 people more than $20,000,000 in debt.

And here is the kicker, at this moment, the McCain campaign is presenting the Palin Horse as real change, but at the same time, at this very moment, the Troopergate investigation is taking place in Alaska.  It is an investigation in to whether or not Sarah Palin abused her power in trying to get her ex-brother-in-law fired.  And now, the police union has filed a complaint that Palin and/or her aids may have illegally accessed his employment files.  That charge is not a slap your wrist kind of charge.  If true, it has the consequence of being an actual criminal act.  The investigator expects to be done by the end of October, but the McCain campaign is doing all it can to delay the results.  That is not reform and change, it is the epitome of everything that has been wrong about the last eight years in Washington.  It is straight out of the book of the Bush Administration.  Abuse of power.  How is that change?

But what has the press done with this readily available information?  Nothing, and the reason why is because the McCain campaign has played the same gender card that worked so effectively towards the end of Hillary Clinton’s run at the Democratic nomination.  The reason why it worked, and this is mostly a topic for another time, is because the press is full of personalities instead of hard-hitting reporters.  They are totally ratings and advertising driven, and quite frankly, when you insult them, they don’t have thick enough skin to deal with it, no matter how right they might be.  CNN’s Anderson Cooper appeared to be on the verge of tears during the analysis of the John McCain speech.  His self-consciousness manifested itself over and over with his self-effacing, sarcastic jokes about how he and Wolf Blitzer are apparently part of the “elite” media.

McCain gambled on his relationship with the press, as well as their thin skin, to see if he could insert his Palin Horse right in to the middle of this presidential race, and as of right now, he is winning.  There is little to no coverage from the mainstream media right now on Sarah Palin’s biography, nor the McCain campaign’s unwillingness to allow Palin to “Face the Nation” or “Meet the Press.”  It is exactly the same kind of press-release, mouthpiece, hands off coverage of American government that allowed the Iraq War wool to be pulled over the unsuspecting and politically naive eyes of the everyday American, the lie that made the so-called “surge” necessary in the first place.

It is one thing to win an election based on merit and policy; it is another thing completely to win an election based on a regressive deception.  The press, as the only institution specifically mentioned in the Constitution, has a duty to get to the bottom of the story and present the truth to the American people.  The success and long-term health of the great American Democracy depends on it, and the American people need to know what kinds of possible dangers are lurking inside of McCain’s Sarah Palin Trojan Horse.

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