LA Times Columnist Calls Sarah Palin a 'Special-Needs Case'

April 25th, 2011 9:32 AM

A day before the liberal website Wonkette posted a truly disgraceful piece about Sarah Palin's Down's syndrome son Trig, the Los Angeles Times published an article calling the former Alaska governor a "special-needs case."

Columnist Meghan Daum's "Why Sarah Palin Doesn't Get What She Deserves" was just another in a long line of hit pieces on the woman from Wasilla the elite media love to hate:

[B]ecause the Palin machine ingeniously rebrands any criticism — the nasty and the evenhanded alike — as bilious emanations of the "lamestream media" (this being code for liberal elitist, which is code for educated, which in turn is code for a pathetic disconnection from gut, a.k.a. moral, instinct), it's all but impossible to challenge her without being discredited as a biased and therefore unqualified source.

And that's not the only reason why we can't bring ourselves to take the gloves off with Palin. It's impossible not to feel like we're punching shamefully below our weight, which everyone knows is against the rules. Palin lacks the intellectual, analytical and rhetorical skills to have a competent discussion about policy or much else. She is handicapped not only by a lack of education, experience and curiosity about the world (wearing a Star of David in Israel doesn't count), but by a speaking style that often collapses under the weight of disjointed, undiagrammable sentences. She is, in terms of the political arena, easily outclassed.

Readers are advised that this came after Daum explained why she hasn't been harder on Palin:

I've bent over backward to be levelheaded about Palin's whole gestalt. I've made it clear I don't think highly of her politics, but I also allowed that her speech at the 2008 GOP convention was actually quite good, and I recognized that her version of the struggle to "have it all" had tremendous appeal (at least back when she seemed to be genuinely struggling). I even defended her right to call herself a feminist: As long as progressive-minded women lack the guts to claim the term for themselves, it is effectively up for grabs.

I meant it all. Palin has gumption, and for the record, I think she was the victim not only of sexism but ugly classism too. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't have gone after her harder on many fronts. I didn't do it because I didn't want to come across as a mean-spirited smarty-pants (I know, many of you think I did anyway; all I can say is that you should have seen the first drafts.)

No, Meghan - this was bad enough:

In "Big Girls Don't Cry," Rebecca Traister's book about women and the 2008 election, Couric says, "During the course of the interview I made sure I was as nonjudgmental as possible, that I had no facial affect, that I didn't even cock my head when I didn't understand what she was saying."

Even Traister, an unabashed liberal and feminist who writes for the left-leaning online magazine Salon, is evidence of the way thoughtful writers treat Palin as a special-needs case...If there was ever a candidate who brought out the worst in people, who encouraged hollow rejoinders but made honest analysis almost impossible, it is she.

"If there was ever a candidate who brought out the worst in people..."

Truer words may never have been written, for since she first hit the national stage on August 29, 2008, Sarah Palin has brought out the worst in just about every liberal media member in this country.

It makes you want her not to exercise her right to run for president, because the attacks on her if she did would be too gruesome for the squeamish.

Shame on you, Meghan. You should have listened to that voice in your head that's been telling you for years to lay off this woman.

America didn't need another liberal attack dog - it's already got plenty.

(H/T Mediaite)