Help, Help, I’m Being Repressed!
Digg 
Stumble Upon 
Newsvine 
Slashdot 
Mixx 
Diigo 
Delicious 
Reddit 
Facebook
Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama’s associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks [bold mine-DL]. Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate’s free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.
“If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations,” Palin told host Chris Plante, “then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.” ~Political Radar
If they’re not negative attacks, what are they? Charming compliments?
Having hidden behind every P.C. shield her defenders could think to set up around her (i.e., criticism of Palin is sexist, elitist, etc.), Palin has now adopted the most extreme victimization pose that equate criticism and news reporting with oppression and violations of her rights. This just seems silly at first and increasingly irrelevant as the election approaches, but since we are being informed on a regular basis that Palin is the future of the Republican Party it seems worthwhile to consider what this remark means. It seems to me that this dresses up contempt for accountability as zeal for free speech, and it remarkably makes the press the enemy of freedom of the press when the press has the gall to report accurately that a candidate is engaging in negative campaigning. There is an old tradition of “working the refs” in political campaigning, and it is actually a bipartisan practice, but here Palin is implying that accurate reporting of a candidate’s activities should be considered illegal. This is an elected public official saying that the press violates politicians’ rights by characterizing negative attacks as negative attacks–just imagine how oppressive it must be when journalists point out that you lie about or distort your record!
Of course, there is nothing necessarily wrong with negative campaigning, which is not the same as making false and dishonest claims about one’s opponent. Palin wants us to identify the two and then wants to claim that she is not engaging in negative campaigning, by which she means to say that she believes she is not launching scurrilous or misleading attacks. Even this latter point is debatable, but it is instructive that Palin’s instinct when confronted with media scrutiny and bad coverage is to wrap herself, the public official, in the First Amendment that is supposed to protect a free press from intimidation by and interference from the government. If that does not worry her admirers, particularly those who are journalists, it should.
Filed under: politics
11 Responses to “Help, Help, I’m Being Repressed!”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Daniel: Do you think her interpretation of the first amendment is one that she actually thought about and developed, or she just reads it that way because she is an idiot?
You seem to think it is something like the former. That she actually reads the first amendment as bestowing some sort of super-right on individuals (including politicians) to be protected from criticism because of the chilling effect it has on speech. I think this gives her way too much credit.
Her complaints reminded me of trolls you see in various internet forums who complain about their right to free speech being restricted after they are threatened with a ban for saying something offensive. I think my little brother made a similar complaint after my dad told him to stop mouthing off to my mother. Her comments come from more or less the same place, intellectually.
If she did actually develop this view after considered reflection, then that is really frightening. It is also frightening if she is just dumb and doesn’t understand the first amendment, but a little less so.
Caribou Barbie–the fresh, new face of fascism.
It’s fine for her to promote scurrilous rumors about Obama and his associations, but heaven forbid the press do its job and call her on it. I suppose she’d have no problem with the press if they all acted like the folks on Faux news, promoting only those “facts” and ideas that the Republican party thinks fit for the rest of us to hear. Sort of like Pravada.
I doubt she actually considered what she said before it popped out of her mouth–I simply don’t think she’s capable of any kind of deep thought or reflection. She just has an instinctive, gut-level appeal to the forces of stupidity.
It says a lot about Palin, but it also says a lot about the reporter. He or she really should have asked her a follow-up question. “Do you believe that the first amendment protects government officials from criticism by the press?” Something like that.
I don’t think it is a thought-out or developed interpretation of civil rights law, if that’s what you mean. No, this is the equivalent of someone disliking something that has happened and saying, “There oughta be a law…” The problem is that I think she is much more serious when she is saying this.
I’m not going to defend Palin’s interpretation of the 1st. However, the fact that almost all of the media is so heavily biased towards BHO should be extremely worrisome. Having a media that’s little more than an extension of one party and one candidate is verging on totalitarianism.
Also, BHO has several issues with the 1st; it would have been wiser for Palin to discuss those. And, the treatment of Joe the Plumber has a deep relationship to the 1st.
For the details on the last, see my list of nineteen non-partisan reasons to oppose Obama.
See #s 11, 13, and especially 14 at that link.
I think she believes that there is a law, and it’s called the First Amendment. She so believes that her views are the only acceptable American views that anything as quintessentially American as the Constitution must protect them. And any ideas expressed to advance those views must also be protected by the Constitution. The Constitution is a position paper of the far-right movement with which she is aligned.
Is that explanation of Palin’s worldview going to far? I don’t know, I think it is as good an explanation as any. You don’t have to be a particularly thoughtful person to end up there either. It’s gut-level stuff.
I don’t doubt her seriousness and I do understand how dangerous it will be if she is elected VP, or ever becomes President. This comment really drove that point home today.
And to think she mocked Obama for his comments about negative liberties.
Daniel: Do you think her interpretation of the first amendment is one that she actually thought about and developed, or she just reads it that way because she is an idiot?
You seem to think it is something like the former. That she actually reads the first amendment as bestowing some sort of super-right on individuals (including politicians) to be protected from criticism because of the chilling effect it has on speech. I think this gives her way too much credit.
I don’t disagree. However, look what happened when Palin said obviously wrong and nonsensical things about, to pick one example, the “Bush Doctrine.” She was immediately backed up by well-informed and intelligent people who are also dishonest partisans. They created complicated explanations for why, in point of fact, Palin’s remarks reveal a deep appreciation of the nuances of foreign policy.
So this is yet another case study of what might happen if Palin becomes the future of the GOP. Get ready to watch in horror as court intellectuals attempt to refashion Palin’s ramblings into coherent policy positions.
“Of course all the usual suspects in the anti-American liberal media are concerned that Palin believes the First Amendment protects politicians from criticism. But go to any Main Street and ask a real American whether the press has any credibility when it comes to defending its sorry record. Maybe we should think more about the responsibility these powerful media elites have to the country, and less about how they can hide behind a Constitution that they clearly disdain.”
Etc., etc.
It seems to be some kind of wierd hybrid of ‘the question needs to be asked’ and ‘I should have known better than to appear on that (MSM) news show’. She’s the love child of Malkin and Bachman!
I still haven’t found someone who tried to defend this comment. . .
“Having a media that’s little more than an extension of one party and one candidate is verging on totalitarianism.”
In the sense of having a state government apparatus that rounds ethnic minorities up without warrants, imprisons them without trial, tortures them for confessions used in post-hoc proceedings, and surveils its citizens in cavalier violation of the law? And which dismisses the Constitution as a “scrap of paper”?
Because that would be pretty awful.
There’s no doubt about it. She reads it that way because she’s an idiot. I’m still struggling to understand how McCain is still holding on to more than 40% of the electorate. 2012 looks like it’s going to be fun.