It's becoming quite clear that there's no rock some members of the media won't crawl from under to trash Sarah Palin.
Case in point - MSNBC's Martin Bashir used his final segment Thursday to eulogize Apple's Steve Jobs as "the very best of American exceptionalism" while in the same breath attacked the former Alaska governor as "the very worst form of American opportunism" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
MARTIN BASHIR: Today, we’ve marked two important stories. The tragic and sad passing of a true creative genius at the age of just 56, and hopefully the end of a charade that’s been going on for three years. One individual represents the very best of American exceptionalism: brilliant, determined, creative. The other represents the very worst form of American opportunism: vacuous, crass, and according to almost every biographer, vindictive, too.
He played himself to the very end, casually dressed and solely focused on producing product after product that would literally transform culture, information, and our social interactions. Over the last three years, she created nothing, produced nothing, and served no one but herself.
And while the vast majority of consumers have expressed high levels of satisfaction with the products he produced, imagine how her most ardent followers must feel today. They were misled into buying ghost-written and vainglorious books that attempted to create the illusion of leadership and character. They bought tickets to see a documentary that ignored facts and was a celluloid whitewash of her life. Even on the day she confirmed what all of us knew, that she wouldn’t be running for president, she still dropped a video asking for more donations. Amazing.
What kind of a person mixes his admiration for a dead man with his contempt for another human being that had absolutely no connection to one another?
Exactly what has Palin done to folks like Bashir to make them completely lose all sense of decency and morality when her name comes up?
He claimed that over the last three years Palin's created nothing. But her first book "Going Rogue" was number one on the New York Times best seller list for six weeks eventually selling over two million copies. Her second, "America By Heart," hit number two on that list eventually selling about one million copies.
Is that nothing, Mr. Bashir?
As for television, this pompous commentator could only dream of getting the five million viewers Palin did for the debut of her show on TLC.
And maybe that's at the heart of all the media's hatred of this women: it's not her politics, but how so many more Americans are interested in her views than theirs. Because her opinions are so diametric, these insecure souls somehow feel better about themselves by tearing her apart on national television.
This certainly was not the first time Bashir took petty swipes at Palin. As NewsBusters previously reported, he went after her in May:
Vindictive attacks, conspiracy, paranoia, and a single-minded ambition. It's all part of daily life as a Sarah Palin staffer, according to a scathing new tell-all. Some 60,000 e-mails are the basis for a book in which a former aide portrays Palin as incompetent and ethically compromised during her tenure as Alaska governor.
Now, over four months later, with Palin's presidential candidacy announcement coming coincident with the death of one of the greatest inventors in decades, Bashir chose to honor Jobs in virtually the same breath as he attacked her.
I'd register my shock and dismay, but nothing that happens on this joke of a network or is uttered by its stable of faux pundits is at all surprising anymore.
As for Bashir, he told Jobs to rest in peace. This would have been far more heartfelt and respectful if his eulogy didn't include contempt for someone the Apple creator probably never met and likely had absolutely nothing to do with.
Makes you wonder how he looks himself in the mirror when he brushes his teeth.
