Sunday, January 17, 2010

The Right-Wing's Culture Of Crazy

I have been reading some reviews of Sarah Palin's debut on Fox. While most discussed that she was more of a political critic of Obama's then an "analyst," throwing around campaign trail rhetoric, there were a few articles I had read that praised Sarah Palin, and to no surprise, they came from the right. I found in particular interest an ">article Bill O'Reilly wrote for Townhall.com, as well as comments made by Glenn Beck on another. I read these posts and I scratch my head wondering how some people do not see the insanity, but then I also find myself finally understanding how Glenn Beck feels when he wonders why nobody understands what he is saying. What I do not understand is how everybody criticizes Palin but guys like these defend Palin and point to her own comments, but her own comments are not that strong in her defense.

In his article, Bill O'Reilly asserted that she started "knocking President Obama around" on standard "right-wing stuff," and then points to her response as to why people say her frame of reference is weak. When asking Palin about charges made on "60 Minutes," such as she not understanding why two Koreas exist, Palin went her classic response stating that the author, John Heilemann, "is a liberal who simply is not telling the truth." While one would want to elaborate, O'Reilly backs up Palin by writing "so there," which is hardly a comeback for some pretty serious allegations. O'Reilly then goes to call television critic for The Baltimore Sun, David Zurawik, as well as any other person on the left "soul brothers and sisters," which considering the racist comments made by Rush Limbaugh recently, only makes me believe more that this was O'Reilly's way of saying that Obama and the blacks are worried of losing power because Sarah Palin will have a mouthpiece to voice her awfully wrong opinions.

While on O'Reilly's show, Sarah Palin had said some things that I found funny, like when discussing Harry Reid's "negro dialect" comment, she stated that she comes from a "very diverse state," but if you look at the demographics, Alaska is not that diverse at all. While whites make up roughly 75% of the population, the next largest ethnic group are American Indians or Alaskan Natives. I assume that Palin referenced her State's diversity as a way of saying she understood African-Americans, but blacks only make up about 4% of the population, with Asians and Pacific-Islanders outnumbering them. While I would agree it is diverse, I would say it is not as diverse as Palin would like to think (unless she is trying to brush under the rug those comments made about how uncomfortable she felt surrounded by other ethnic groups).

Then there is this comment made by Glenn Beck regarding Sarah Palin, where he is discussing how nobody knows the real Sarah Palin. He said that while on his show, she was Googling, doing some last minute homework. Was it on health policy or foreign diplomacy or Wall Street? No. It was about "25 windows." This is a level of crazy that apparently Glenn Beck was unfamiliar with because he did not know. According to Palin, "Statue of Liberty…25 windows…There are 25 windows. They each represent different minerals." Glenn Beck's response to that was simply that "[Palin's] suspicious of everything." Where was she going with that information? Did she believe is is some Socialist conspiracy?

All in all, I just don't understand how people can have a positive thing to say about Sarah Palin the public figure, not to be confused with Sarah Palin the person, if they are indeed separate...

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please share your thoughts and experiences in relation to this post. Remember to be respectful in your posting. Comments that that are deemed inappropriate will be deleted.