'Dimwitted' and In Need of a 'Chaperone': Palin Has Press at Point of Panic

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"I’ve gotten the scary feeling, for the first time in my life, that dimwittedness is not just on the march in the U.S., but that it might actually prevail." -- Bob Herbert, NYT, 9-13-08

Bob Herbert's item in today's New York Times, She's Not Ready, is not so much political analysis as a howl of MSM shock and outrage. No-o-o-o-o!, Herbert seems to cry. I can't believe this is happening to us!  Meanwhile, with condescension worthy of his ABC stablemate Charlie Gibson, certified Obama fan David Wright suggests that Palin has been in need of a "chaperone" on the campaign trail.

Annotated excerpts from Herbert's "She's Not Ready':

How is it that so much of the mainstream media has dropped all pretense of seriousness to hop aboard the bandwagon and go along for the giddy ride?

The MSM has hopped aboard the Palin bandwagon? PDS has obviously affected Herbert's faculties.

Ms. Palin looked like an unprepared student who wanted nothing so much as to escape this encounter with the school principal.

Could Bob be a little more condescending?

[I]t staggers the imagination that we could have someone no further than a whisper away from the White House who doesn’t even know what [the Bush Doctrine] is.

Wouldn't you have loved to have lined up a cross-section of 10 MSMers, including Herbert, before the Gibson pop quiz, and asked them to define the Bush Doctrine?

[S]he told the audience of soldiers that they would be fighting “the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans.” Was she deliberately falsifying history, or does she still not know that Iraq and Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks?

No; she was telling the truth.  Our soldiers in Iraq are fighting al-Qaeda, “the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans.”

[T]here is a profound double standard in this country. The likes of John McCain and George W. Bush can do the craziest, most irresponsible things imaginable, and it only seems to help them politically.

The MSM complaint, the thing driving them around the bend, in a nutshell.  Yes, how crazy and irresponsible to choose a good, smart, principled woman instead of someone with the profound maturity and wisdom of a  . . . Joe Biden. They thought this election was theirs, and are now going through the stages of pre-emptive mourning.  For the time  being, they seem stuck on rage.

Meanwhile check out certified Obama-fan David Wright of ABC, reporting on GMA today. After airing the Obama slur about McCain being unable to send email, without providing the explanation, Wright continues.

DAVID WRIGHT: Sarah Palin will be out on the campaign trail herself today, for the first time without her running-mate as a chaperone.

A sitting governor, wife and mother of five, in need of a "chaperone"? Imagine the howls of outrage from MSM/feminist circles if such had been said of a Dem woman VP nominee.

The smell of MSM desperation in the morning.

Bonus Coverage: Don't miss the beginning of the video clip, where Barack Obama wanly attempts to reassure the crowd that "we are going to be hitting back." Scary!