In his September 16 commentary “Sara Palin has completely changed the game”, Dan K. Thomasson, of the Daily Camera’s parent company Scripps Howard, offers up a completely transparent analysis of the Sarah Palin “hysteria” we’ve all been subjected to of late. He reprimands the media for their “hammering away” at Palin (using Charles Gibson’s interview as his example), and he throws in a few digs at Democrats for good measure.
Does anyone doubt that this narrative was completely planned out by the McCain campaign strategists when they recommended the Palin pick? This is a VP choice that comes with endless possibilities for playing the victim, creating straw man “issues”, and declaring “sexism” at every turn.
Sarah Palin is a shiny object introduced by the Republicans to distract the media from the real issues facing Americans. This is not “changing the game”, but rather perpetuating the cynical framing of our presidential elections as merely a game to be won at any cost.
When not berating the media and the “drawing room intellectuals” (whoever they are) for their treatment of Palin, Thomasson distorts a quote by Joe Biden to suggest that democrats think Obama should have picked Hillary Clinton as his running mate. What a tired divide-and-conquer strategy this has become.
Meanwhile, the Obama campaign is staying on message by talking about the things that really matter to Americans. What were those again? Oh yeah, health care, education, the economy, energy, national security, and the environment, to name a few. Here’s a newsflash, Thomasson: the voters are going to expect more than shiny objects from the candidates before they go to the polls in November. Scripps Howard columnists should be doing a better job of covering the issues that matter to their readers.
David Ensign Boulder
Does anyone doubt that this narrative was completely planned out by the McCain campaign strategists when they recommended the Palin pick? This is a VP choice that comes with endless possibilities for playing the victim, creating straw man “issues”, and declaring “sexism” at every turn.
Sarah Palin is a shiny object introduced by the Republicans to distract the media from the real issues facing Americans. This is not “changing the game”, but rather perpetuating the cynical framing of our presidential elections as merely a game to be won at any cost.
When not berating the media and the “drawing room intellectuals” (whoever they are) for their treatment of Palin, Thomasson distorts a quote by Joe Biden to suggest that democrats think Obama should have picked Hillary Clinton as his running mate. What a tired divide-and-conquer strategy this has become.
Meanwhile, the Obama campaign is staying on message by talking about the things that really matter to Americans. What were those again? Oh yeah, health care, education, the economy, energy, national security, and the environment, to name a few. Here’s a newsflash, Thomasson: the voters are going to expect more than shiny objects from the candidates before they go to the polls in November. Scripps Howard columnists should be doing a better job of covering the issues that matter to their readers.
David Ensign Boulder
2 comments:
Hey, thanks for posting this!
Signed, the author :-)
Thanks for your letter.
Like any shiny object, the viewer will lose interest once they realize how 2-dimensional it is. The only thing that can keep the attention of the public (and media) is a real subject. Like our failing economy. Global Warming. The end of oil. The invasion of Iraq...
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