Sarah Palin's 15 Minutes: Sour Grapes & The "Mainstream" Media

I’m not a very political person. I try to avoid political debates. But Sarah Palin is one person I can’t ignore. When Sarah Palin was introduced to the world I remember thinking, “Wow, this person has really charged up the Republican party. McCain might be able to take this election.” And then she began speaking.

I had pages of ranting sentences about why I didn’t like Sarah Palin and that she was one of the reasons I didn’t vote for McCain. It was making me tired, so I’ll spare you. I’m not going to rehash all the Palin criticisms that you heard during the campaign season because, if you’re like me, you had almost forgotten about the John McCain/Sarah Palin adventure. To be honest, I haven’t even heard McCain's name uttered in quite some time. But Sarah Palin doesn’t seem to want to go away. She keeps thrusting herself back into the spotlight and then complains that the spotlight is too hot.

A few days ago I read a couple of articles on CNN.com about Sarah Palin complaining that she hadn’t gotten a fair shake from the media. The articles are taken from an interview Palin gave on Jan. 5th. She was “perplexed” that Tina Fey had become Entertainer of the Year and Katie Couric’s ratings have risen, suggesting that these elements say "a great deal about our society," whatever that means.

During her most recent interview, Palin comments about how she knew the first Couric interview didn’t go well and couldn’t understand why they went back for more. She complained that the “mainstream” media continued getting the facts about her life wrong and refused to change them. She talked about the “hypocrisy” of the media and voiced her disappointment in it for relying on the “lies” of anonymous bloggers for its news sources. Palin mentions her naiveté, believing that the media would be nice her.

It’s the media for goodness sake. That's what they do. I once saw a headline on a newspaper at the grocery store that read, "Rednecks Shoot Down U.F.O." You better believe I bought that paper! The media is going to dig and dig for stories and mold that information in order to sell newspapers. They just didn’t have to dig that much with Sarah Palin. And I seem to remember her being irritated that the McCain campaign didn’t give her more opportunites to talk to the press.

Palin wanted to know if the media would treat Caroline Kennedy the same way. I don’t know Caroline Kennedy. I don’t know about her politics, but Caroline is running for a Senate seat not Vice President! I'm almost positive Sarah Palin would not be up in arms about all this had she won—I mean, had John McCain won. Hillary Clinton lost and I didn’t hear this much about the hypocritical mainstream media.

Palin didn’t like the questions that were asked of her by Katie Couric, but will she eventually complain about these new sets of questions? This newest interview smacks of sour grapes. She’s getting all poo-poo faced about these mean people making fun of her. Can she find nothing else to speak out about? Is there nothing else she can get fired up about? The economy? Jobs? Healthcare? Environment? Foreign Affairs? Poverty? Nope. Saturday Night Live. Mainstream media.

Sarah Palin seems to be scratching and clawing at just about anything that will extend her 15 minutes of fame, just like an old American Idol contestant. I’m waiting for her to shave her head and show up at the MTV music awards. I mean, take O.J. Simpson for example. We hadn't really heard from him in years and then bam!, he busts into a Vegas hotel room, heads back to court and back onto our T.V. screens.

Mrs. Palin, I know you seem disturbed by how cruel the media can be, but don't use the same media that you're shocked by to keep you out on the newstands. Especially when you don't have anything of substance to say. Yes, it's a media circus and it seems you're just the "mama grizzly" in the center ring again this week.

I didn’t feel like posting the video of the interview on my page, so if you want you can check it out yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-95wkCMeUkk

photos at top from left to right: American Idol contestant Willian Hung, Britney Spears, O.J. Simpson, and Andrew Meyer ("Don't taze me bro'")