Today's Media Narrative: Barack Obama Totally Kicked Sarah Palin's Ass

It's always a challenge for PR types to come up with a fresh new angle on the same old, same old. You can only hawk a product with the same sales pitch so many times before people tune out.

Yesterday the media and the left (bit I repeat myself) spent the day complaining that Sarah Palin "inserted herself" into the Arizona story. They failed to mention they were the ones who dragged her by blaming her for the shooting before the bodies were even cold.

Today's fresh new narrative is, Palin's speech was awful by itself but it was positively wretched compared to the wonderful and masterful job done by Obama. My personal favorite in this category is by Jonathan Martin who is masquerading as a reporter at Politico but he's really auditioning for Robert Gibbs' job with this piece.

In the span of a single news cycle, Republicans got a jarring reminder of two forces that could prevent them from retaking the presidency next year.

At sunrise in the east on Wednesday, Sarah Palin demonstrated that she has little interest—or capacity—in moving beyond her brand of grievance-based politics. And at sundown in the west, Barack Obama reminded even his critics of his ability to rally disparate Americans around a message of reconciliation.

Palin was defiant, making the case in a taped speech she posted online why the nation’s heated political debate should continue unabated even after Saturday’s tragedy in Tucson. And, seeming to follow her own advice, she swung back at her opponents, deeming the inflammatory notion that she was in any way responsible for the shootings a “blood libel.” (See: Shooting presents 2012 test)

Obama, speaking at a memorial service at the University of Arizona, summoned the country to honor the victims, and especially nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green, by treating one another with more respect. “I want America to be as good as Christina imaged it,” he said.

And then it gets really sickening.

Mind you, Martin is listed as a "Reporter", there's nothing IDing this story as Opinion (or more accurately "Propaganda").

Martin and others fail to note it's not Palin's job to bring the nation together or that Obama hadn't spent four days being held responsible for a despicable crime he had nothing to do with.

If Palin had given the speech hacks like Martin are now demanding from her, they would have simply attacked her for overstepping her bounds (Who is she too upstage Obama!? She's not the President) or for ignoring her "responsibility" for the shooting (Sure it was elevated in tone but where was the apology?)

I thought Palin's video was fine. No one should be expected to take the crap she took with out setting the record straight. I'm not sure how long Jonathan Martin would keep quiet if he were falsely blamed for the deaths of people for days on end.

Personally, I thought Obama's speech was very good. We can argue about his motives and how much more emphasis certain parts should have gotten but on the whole it was far better than I had hoped for or thought he had the ability to deliver.

In the end though, no one ever compares well with a President. Think of the State of the Union and the response. The poor bastard who gets stuck with that always looks small by comparison. It's not the man who is President that is big (the current occupant is pretty small for the gig) but the Presidency is huge. You either are speaking from the podium in the House of Representatives or the White House. If it's a road trip, you show up in your own 747, motorcade and have thousands of people hanging on your every word.

A responsible press might point out all these differences but today's media isn't beholden to the truth or their audience, the overwhelming majority have simply and unabashedly tied themselves to the success or failure of Barack Obama and the destruction of Sarah Palin.

Comparing Palin's and Obma's is simply unfair and irrelevant. As I said, their involvement and roles are simply to dissimilar to expect

Added: About Obama's speech. We spent 8 years ridiculing the fact that the left wouldn't say a nice word about George W. Bush if he rescued an old lady and her cat from a burning building. I'm not sure what it's suddenly a great idea to adopt that attitude because we don't like Obama.

I don't blame Obama for the raucous nature of the crowd (made up primarily of college kids being college kids). You could tell that he was annoyed with the interruptions and the overall tone at the start of his speech. I think he actually did a very good job for the most part of imposing the proper attitude on the crowd. That's not an easy thing to do.

As for the overall message...some people are going after him for even mentioning the political climate saying there was no point in bringing it up since it was a non-factor while others are saying he didn't go far enough in making it clear only the gunman was responsible for the crime.

I thought he did a fairly good job of navigating that divide. His ad-libbed "it did not" when acknowledging the talk about whether or not harsh rhetoric played a role in the shooting was an important statement. No, the left will not take up that statement but it was important that he make it. Could he have gone further? Of course but that's a question of degree. It was important that the statement be made and it was.

I honestly thought Obama would go the Clinton/OKC Bombing route and directly blame his opponents for the shooting, he didn't. In fact, he went the direct opposite way. It seems that's worth acknowledging.

posted by DrewM. at 11:25 AM

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