Childless Bachelor Mark Shields: Sarah Palin is Cruel for Exposing Her Daughter to the Hatred and Slanders Which I and My Media Friends Must Now Inflict Upon Her

Really, Mark? How about you just observe the hands-off rules you observed with Chelsea Clinton?

Do we know the first time Chelsea Clinton had premarital sex? Of course it happened during Clinton's term -- and yet you weren't all hot to get that scoop, were you? You didn't dig to find out how many cocks she'd sucked before she gave up the cherry, nor if she ever tried anal.

Is she good in bed? This was a scoop that was out there, you know, and something Bill and Hillary had exposed her to... and yet they really didn't, because they knew the media would not assault their daughter. Because they liked the Clintons.

It's a whole different ball game when it comes to Bristol Palin. Or the Bush Twins.

Funny how we heard so very much about those crazy Bush Twins -- doing wild stuff like going to parties, puffing on a cigarette, drinking underaged as college students -- and yet the Gore Girls and Chelsea Clinton were permitted to enjoy their youths without intrusion.

When a Democratic candidate himself is caught engaging in bad behavior -- having an affair with an intern, siring an out-of-wedlock "love baby" while his wife dies of incurable breast cancer -- that candidate need only say "Please respect my and my family's privacy" and the media cools it on the overkill. Necessary stories come out, but only when absolutely necessary, and then the philanderer is let alone.

In order to spare his family.

On the other hand, if a Republican woman says "Please leave my daughter alone, she's 17 and not running for anything," the media seems to take that as a challenge, and sets out to destroy that child.

Funny how "Please respect my family's privacy" has stopped all reportage on John Edwards, even though John Edwards was saying Please leave me alone, and he was the bad actor. But the "family privacy" thing worked for him, despite being such an obviously self-serving pretext even the media called it such.

Here we have a 17 year old girl who didn't even technically do anything wrong, but her privacy can't be respected.

And you know whose fault that is?

Sarah Palin's.

She's making the media attack her family savagely.

After all, she's threatening their candidate.

Protect Elizabeth: Ah, remember the days when the media admitted (partly in order to avoid copping to straight-up partisan bias) they deliberately tanked the Edwards story to avoid hurting poor Elizabeth?

After all-- she was an innocent. She didn't deserve this.

Apparently the media don't like Bristol. We see how they treat people when they like them (by their own admission).

So here's what Bristol needs to do:

Begin posting unhinged partisan screeds on Daily Kos and Huffington Post, the way St. Elizabeth did. Voila! Suddenly the media will find a great and sudden need to protect this poor girl, who after all didn't do anything wrong, and certainly does not need the added pain of media scrutiny in her own delicate condition.

More: The WaPo's Gail Marcus also frets terribly at how she is now forced to attack Bristol Palin. And Geraghty notices the oddly yet predictably flexible rule the media has about attacking candidates children.

As a parent, I sympathize. But as a parent in the media, I also know that the Palins assumed this risk. Anyone who watched coverage of the Bush twins’ barroom exploits knew the avert-your-eyes stance towards candidates’ children has its limits.

Hey, Gail? Their "barroom exploits" consisted of quietly having a margarita in a Tex-Mex restaurant. We only know of their "exploits" because a nasty bitch of a partisan recognized them, dropped dime on them, and then alerted the media -- and you in the media ran with the story of those out-of-control Bush Girls (Margaritas! the "gateway drink" to 'Bama Slammers!) rather than asking what the fuck this little partisan Nazi whore was doing calling the press because she happened to see two college girls drinking in a college town.

Here's Geraghty:

That limit seems to hit the partisan line. You’ll never see the Saturday Night Live sketches that dealt with Chelsea Clinton ever again. There was cursory coverage of Al Gore’s sons troubles on the road, and Howard Dean’s son’s run-in with the law. Nobody’s dared look into the lives of the Obama girls, nor should they. But the media’s self-control seems to evaporate when it comes to Republican officials’ children – I'm thinking of several news outlets' decision that the voting preference of Giuliani’s daughter was newsworthy.

Beyond that, if Marcus is really that bothered by the media spotlight on young Bristol Palin, she could have, you know, found something else to write about.

The message being sent is simple: If you're a Republican, you had either be childless or not like your children very much, because we in the media are going to savage them.

Your call, Republican candidates. You "assumed the risk." Do you want to hold office, or do you love and wish the best for your children?

We in the media will not permit you to have both.

And I was wondering about this. Geraghty delivers:

Sarah Palin's husband, Todd, was arrested for DUI back in back in 1986.

It occurred about seven years after Obama's last use of cocaine, to the best of our knowledge, and five years after his last use of marijuana.

Todd Palin, the husband of someone running for office, had a DUI. A presidential candidate himself did "some blow" and smoked a lot of weed.

But only the former seems to be some sort of rap against the candidate. Bear in mind the media keeps repeating "...and there are all these questions about her husband..."

What's the question? He got a DUI. I don't see a question there, exactly. I see a simple fact.

Obama did blow. I don't keep hearing about "all of these questions about Obama's drug use..." now do I?

posted by Ace at 01:48 AM

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