The gang at "Fox News Watch" had some very interesting things to say about how media members who absolutely despise former Alaska governor Sarah Palin just can't get enough of her "One Nation" bus tour.
The best line came from liberal commentator Kirsten Powers who said of the former vice presidential candidatee, "It’s actually kind of refreshing to see somebody who just says screw you to these people who treat her like garbage" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
JON SCOTT, HOST: Sarah Palin going on the record there with Greta Van Susteren. The Palin family is on the “One Nation” tour of historical sites, and the media trying to keep up with her along the way. So Judy, what do you think, is she just toying with the media here?
JUDY MILLER, FOX NEWS CHANNEL: I think she is having a wonderful time with, turning us in to paparazzi as one commentator noted. You know, the other thing that strikes me about Sarah Palin is how much the media, some in the media really do hate her. I mean, the commentary, Gloria Borger saying, “Okay, get on with it already and stop tweeting trying to tweet your way into relevance.” I mean, there’ve been some really, really nasty comments about her.
SCOTT: There have been some nice ones, too, like this one from Michelle Malkin who wrote this week: “In the 1970s, “The Boys on the Bus” exposed how a clubby pack of male political reporters ruled the road to the White House and shaped the news. Four decades later an outsider gal from Alaska has commandeered the 2012 media bus and left beltway journalism insiders eating her dust. We have come a long way, baby." Does that sum it up?
KIRSTEN POWERS, NEW YORK POST: Yeah, but I don’t think it’s that surprising that Michelle Malkin is saying nice things about her. I think if you look at the mainstream media there’s just a lot of hostility towards her, and, you know, pretty much everything she does makes them angry. And I think what she says is exactly right. She owes them nothing and does not have to play by their rules. It’s actually kind of refreshing to see somebody who just says screw you to these people who treat her like garbage.
SCOTT: The, the media, Jim, have been saying to her that she is not respecting them because she wasn't, you know, letting them know her schedule, her itinerary in advance and so forth. And they are warning that that’s going to hurt, yeah, hurt her with voters. But the question is, I mean it's not the voters who are angry with her. It's the media.
JIM PINKERTON: Right, and so Chris Matthews who says she is the most divisive politician since the civil war. She’s got a long way down, she can go lower than that in Chris Matthews’ eyes, right? I got to tell you, I saw the sneak preview of a new movie by Steven Bannon called "The Undefeated." It’s about Sarah Palin, it’s this documentary coming out later in the summer, and in there there’s a brilliant quote from Andrew Breitbart saying that the thing the media hate about Sarah Palin is that she refuses to cooperate with her own demise. That is she refuses to play ball with reporters while they try to kill her. Good for her.
SCOTT: You’re nodding in agreement I guess?
MILLER: How do you get elected president - if she is running, and we still don't know - how do you get elected president with such hostility on the part of the lame stream media as she calls us?
SCOTT: Are you saying she couldn’t do it, she couldn’t overcome that?
MILLER: I’m saying it’s really hard to overcome dislike and intense hatred of that kind.
POWERS: Yeah, it’s true. It's very difficult. I mean, when the media turned on Hillary, you saw what happened. You know, they were behind her and they decided, “No, we're going to go with Obama.” Hard to fight that.
Pretty interesting to have four media members of differing political persuasions all agree on how poorly Palin is and has been treated by their colleagues. If it's so obvious to these four, why don't the rest of the press get it?
Or is there something else in play?
Are the media just furious that after almost three years of tearing this woman apart, they haven't been able to finish her off? Rush Limbaugh commented on this Friday:
They hate her, they despise her, they are frustrated that they haven't destroyed her. They can't believe she's still smiling. They can't believe she's still drawing crowds. They can't believe that she's enjoying life. They can't believe her family is still together. They can't believe her husband hasn't walked out on her. They can't believe any of this. Folks, you know this as well as I do: When they set out to destroy you, they mean just that -- and Palin's not playing along with the script. She's not acting destroyed. She's not asking for forgiveness. She's not begging them to leave her alone. She's not changing in order to make them lighten up or anything. She's just looking at 'em and smiling.
Indeed, and it's galling the lot of them with the exception of the precious few that are willing to be honest with themselves and the public.
