This is LOOOOONNNG -- but it breaks down many of the issues with the Vanity Fair hit piece on Sarah Palin.
Oh, the liberal media is so scared of our Sarah! In a nasty, albeit beautifully-written, hit piece in the August 2009 Vanity Fair, barely-hidden misogynistic statements and not-so-subtle innuendo color Sarah Palin frivolous and crazy -- or try to. Some of the real gems:
[W]hat Alaska’s charismatic governor wants the public to know about herself doesn’t always jibe with reality.
Really? Where are the point-counterpoints? The only specific charge I could find where Sarah said one thing and the unbiased record says something (slightly) different: that she said early in their marriage she, Todd, and baby son Track had not been able to afford any health insurance, but Todd said that he did indeed have catastrophic health insurance. Any woman who has been in that position knows that with the rounds of shots, well-baby checkups, hospitalization for childbirth, birth control pills, and the inevitable family illnesses that only catastrophic health is roughly equal to no insurance at all -- because unless something terrible happens, you have to pay out of pocket for everything anyway.
Anyway.
As Palin makes her way slowly across the crowded ballroom—dressed all in black; no red Naughty Monkey Double Dare pumps tonight
Nice. So she'd better not wear red high heels? Of course, Michelle Obama would NEVER wear red high heels, right?
Or sexy Jimmy Choo shoes, right?
(Mrs. Obama does often wear flats -- but I suspect that's because she would tower over her husband if she wore higher heels on a regular basis. He's 6' 1.5", she's 5'11". Notice that generally when she's wearing heels, she's appearing solo?)
Next one:
In a typical liberal whine, the writer wonders why John McCain would "ever have picked a person whose utter shortage of qualification for her proposed job all but disqualified him for his." Holy cow. Again? So, Barack Obama's extensive experience lying about his law professor credentials (an INSTRUCTOR, not a professor!) and kissing butt in the Senate for all of four years, two of those spent campaigning, made him somehow plenty qualified for his position? Good grief. Sarah Palin has had administrative experience from City Hall to the Governor's Office. Obama -- not so much. And, um, wasn't Palin up for veep, not the big job? And didn't she have more administrative experience than McCain, Obama, AND Biden? When will they stop already with this tired meme?
Let's try this: Where Are Obama's Administrative Credentials? (crickets chirping)
Next one:
Her singular refusal to have in-depth conversations with the national media—even Richard Nixon and Dick Cheney, among the most saturnine political figures in modern American history, each submitted to countless detailed interviews over the years—has compounded the challenge of understanding who she really is.
Oh -- my -- god.
What constitutes in-depth? The Katy Couric interview, which was grossly mishandled by the McCain campaign, does not? Ms. Couric had carte blanche to ask what she wanted. If she failed to take things in depth enough to satisfy the media, I'd lay that one on Ms. Couric -- who, BTW, won the Cronkite Award for this one.
Or how about the unflattering Charles Gibson interview, also mishandled by the McCain campaign?
Sean Hannity did a great interview -- but he of course does not count, because the media does not count him as a real media figure. Greta van Susteren -- same thing.
Then again, what about the hard-hitting interviews with Obama? Where is the interview asking him about his drug use, how he made it through college, what his childhood was like kicking around the world and speaking in Arabic?
Let's make one more point: Nixon and Cheney were both in the public eye for DECADES. Sarah Palin? NOT EVEN A YEAR. You wanna give the lady a break?
Next one (this could take all day):
and the post-selection spending spree in which she ran up bills of $150,000 on clothes for herself and her family at high-end stores.
Really? According to Rick Davis, the McCain campaign manager, the Republican National Convention did that for her because she had not been able to get back to Alaska to pick up her own clothing. In addition, she never left the hotel during this time; instead, a stylist, a seamstress, and the clothing were all brought to her right there in her room while she was being prepped for the convention -- she certainly didn't go on a mad spending spree. It is more fair to say that the McCain campaign was in charge of the whole thing, the whole time.
Oh, and later the writer cites "strained relations" between Palin and Nicolle Wallace, one of the aides assigned to her; could that be because Wallace was indeed, as alleged, the mastermind behind the clothing of Sarah? Hmm.
By the way, how much did Obama spend on his suits? Or Joe Biden? Or Mitt Romney? Or John Edwards? Does anyone ever focus on how much a dude spends on his clothes? No, only on those frivolous spendthrift women and their Jimmy Choos.
Oh, wait, the Jimmy Choos belonged to Michelle Obama. And the $540 ugly-ass sparkly sneakers she wore to serve food to the homeless. My bad.
Next one:
All the while, Palin was coping not only with the crazed life of any national candidate on the road but also with the young children traveling with her. Some top aides worried about her mental state: was it possible that she was experiencing postpartum depression?
Again, those reliably anonymous "top aides." Now, wasn't Obama traveling at least part of the time with his "young children"? Not a word about that, though. But then, Michelle was there to care for them, you know, the traditional woman role of mom. Wink, wink. Who did Sarah have? Why, just that husband of hers. And her daughter. And a trail of staffers.
And the "postpartum depression" innuendo: really? So because she's a woman who has recently borne a child, she's crazy. First, there's no evidence that Sarah Palin has ever had a problem with any kind of depression, ever. Her extremely fit lifestyle would help to preclude any kind of depression as well. And in the list of postpartum risk factors -- the only one she arguably had was life stress, very low on the scale of factors. The fact that she was breastfeeding even undercuts the notion that it was, you know, those darned female hormones making her crazy.
My conclusion here: anyone who wrote something like this about a liberal candidate or public figure would -- fairly -- be accused of sexism. For shame.
Next one -- and sorry, long quote:
The first thing McCain could have learned about Palin is what it means that she is from Alaska. More than 30 years ago, John McPhee wrote, “Alaska is a foreign country significantly populated with Americans. Its languages extend to English. Its nature is its own. Nothing seems so unexpected as the boxes marked ‘U.S. Mail.’” That description still fits. The state capital, Juneau, is 600 miles from the principal city, Anchorage, and is reachable only by air or sea. Alaskan politicians list the length of their residency in the state (if they were not born there) at the top of their biographies, and are careful to specify whether they like hunting, fishing, or both. There is little sense of government as an enduring institution: when the annual 90-day legislative session is over, the legislators pack up their offices, files, and computers, and take everything home. Alaska’s largest newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News, maintains no full-time bureau in Juneau to cover the statehouse. As in any resource-rich developing country with weak institutions and woeful oversight, corruption and official misconduct go easily unchecked. Scrutiny is not welcome, and Alaskans of every age and station, of every race and political stripe, unself-consciously refer to every other place on earth with a single word: Outside.
Okay, that's fair. I live in Hawaii, you know, that place where Barack Obama was raised? And I can tell you, in Hawaii the most important thing is "local." If it ain't local, brah, it's not good. (And what an odd campaign it was, that the two most striking figures in it were from our 49th and 50th states, both relative newcomers to the political scene -- but that's beside the point.)
Corruption here in Hawaii, as most residents will tell you, is pretty darn bad. In many areas, it's as common to hear Japanese, Korean, and Tagalog as English; in other places, pidgin is the lingu franca. The culture here is VERY different from the mainland. Much of Hawaii can only be reached by air or sea. Politicians who are not kama'aina, born here or long-time residents, can forget about getting elected to dogcatcher. Yeah, not that much different from Alaska, really, except the weather is generally better.
So -- your point?
Next one:
It is in this Alaska—where it is possible to be both a conservative Republican and a pothead, or a foursquare Democrat and a gun nut—that Sarah Palin learned everything she knows about politics, and about life. It was in this environment that her ambition first found an outlet in public office, and where she first tasted the 151-proof Everclear that is power.
W-T-F??? Really, what are you trying to imply here? that Sarah Palin is a pothead and a gun nut who can't keep two coherent thoughts in her own head, that all she is is a scenic empty vacuum drunk on power? Oh, god. Really? Really? And of course, Barack Obama was not influenced by his childhood, in a state well known for Maui Wowie, in a country best known for its staunch Muslim infrastructure, educated in a madrassas where he learned the Adhan, a Muslim call to prayer that praises Allah. From the New York Times:
Mr. Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated (it’ll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.”
So Palin's upbringing in Alaska irrevocably tainted her, but Obama's childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia left him -- untouched? Really. Now who can't keep two coherent thoughts in his head?
Next one:
More than once in my travels in Alaska, people brought up, without prompting, the question of Palin’s extravagant self-regard. Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of “narcissistic personality disorder” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—“a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy”—and thought it fit her perfectly.
Once again, the closet diagnostician decides Governor Palin is -- nuts. This is beginning to be a pattern. Oh, and the other closet diagnosticians: all unnamed sources, again. Where are your named sources that haven't already been cited in other old news articles?
Next one (and as a mom, I LOVE this one):
After multiple paragraphs detailing the ex-fiance Levi Johnston and his mother's sordid public issues, the writer says:
Because Palin had taken particular umbrage in the fall campaign at any effort to criticize her children or invade their privacy, her willingness to mix it up in public with an 18-year-old, who is after all the father of her only grandchild, struck many in Alaska as odd.
Hm. I am a woman with a daughter. I'll tell you now, if some little punk fathered a child on her, dumped her, and then trash-talked me and her in public (and isn't that a fatherly thing to do?), I'd be mixing it up as well. It's a shame Sarah Palin's daughter fell for the square-jawed bad boy. It was a hard lesson to learn, and now all the Palins have to live with it -- largely because of their admirable anti-abortion position. (because you can't tell me that if Meghan McCain or one of the Obama children or Biden children were in the same position, the family wouldn't be talking about a quick abortion to take care of the "problem".)
This is nothing but a juicy tabloid story, unworthy of the Vanity Fair that used to be and unworthy of anyone who calls himself a serious journalist.
Next one:
None of McCain’s still-loyal soldiers will say negative things about Palin on the record.
Has anyone speculated as to why? I can think of an awful lot of reasons, none of them flattering to McCain's erstwhile staffers. But the best one I can come up with: if your name is attached to a statement, then it is up to you to defend said statement -- with facts.
How about some sources who have the guts to be named - or who were not made up wholecloth? Our writer's sources include:
Palin’s supporters in the Republican establishment
Some of her handlers
One person familiar with the situation
a range of people from the McCain-Palin campaign, including members of the high command
one person who occasionally advises Palin
The only sources I saw who were named in the piece: those who had nothing to lose and a grudge against Sarah Palin, and those who had already been named in the press. Not a single named or unnamed source had anything nice to say about Sarah Palin. Not one. Apparently in Vanity Fair's world, everyone hates Sarah.
__________________
Ultimately, Vanity Fair's trash piece on Sarah Palin is an elegantly-packaged rehash of rumors, innuendo sexist and otherwise, and old, old news. Once upon a time, glorified scandal magazine fare like this would have been beneath Vanity Fair; today, with the National Enquirer and TMZ breaking big stories that the once-vigilant media is missing or deliberately overlooking, I suppose it can be forgiven for dipping into the trash heap of breathless rumor and pop culture that used to belong exclusively to supermarket tabloids.
Kudos to VF for giving center stage to such a remarkable article. 
Randy Inman
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