(World News Trust) -- Amazing what a difference a week makes.
Something has changed since Sarah Palin burst into the Republican
Convention and started living it up by the stiletto. It still stings to
look back over her mean-spirited, scornful, barb-laden speech. Whoever
once said sticks and stones might hurt but names would not, has
obviously never met the new Republican Annie Oakley wannabe. But it’s
not just the nastiness anymore. Now it’s the wall-to-wall lies.
Evidently she hasn’t yet bothered to visit the now-fabled “Straight
Talk Express.”
I’ve noticed an interesting new yeast beginning to leaven the Sarah
Palin story. Her acid tongue has pierced through a wall that seemed
unassailable for years. The near-adoration of her by a ridiculously
fawning media a few days ago now has some strings attached. For a
nauseatingly long time, Republicans in general and the Bush
administration in particular have enjoyed a singular freedom from
vetting by the media. The most we’ve ever had when one of these people
bore false witness was a lipstick-on-pig
vocabulary of delicate
wordings and phrasings such as “misleading,” “misstating,”
“misspeaking,” “misrepresenting,” “stretching the truth,”
“exaggerating,” “prevaricating,” and other verbal tidy-wipes.
Sarah Palin’s statements have apparently pushed this tolerance
threshold just a bit too far. Seems someone has finally noticed -- and
doesn’t mind saying so -- that the lady has trouble telling the truth.
For the first time, I’ve actually heard some mainstream media people
using that other “L-word” -- lie -- in all its derivations, when
discussing her. That attests to the power of the blogosphere that
decided not to wait for the mainstreamers to fact-check her claims. I
guess their due diligence dug up so much pay dirt so quickly that the
conventional media couldn’t afford to remain so willfully blind or
deferentially on their knees any longer. Previously, there never would
have been heard a discouraging word -- after all, we are talking about a
Republican here.
I think it might be a case of “it’s the magnitude, stupid.” It would be
one thing if the issue were a single boo-boo, or one teeny tiny tall
tale that gets a nice laugh and then fades. But with Palin, it keeps
coming and coming and coming, over and over and over again. Not just
one inadvertent omission or exaggeration. Multiple statements she made
in her speech, and repeated on campaign stops, have not passed the
smell test. At such a high level of regularity, it shouldn’t be
surprising that somebody somewhere started to notice. That heightened
awareness has bloomed from such blogs as Talking Points Memo, DailyKos,
and ThinkProgress to Newsweek, the Associated Press, the Wall Street
Journal, ABC News, MSNBC, NBC’s Nightly News, CBS, the Washington Post,
even Chris Wallace on Fox Noise, and CNN’s Wolf Blitzer wondering aloud
“is she telling the whole truth?” We’re finally seeing the media at
least attempting to be completely impartial and start questioning again, rather than dutifully funneling whatever
any GOP celebrity said, directly from tongue to TV screen and news
print without regard to whether that tongue might be forked.
Now there’s a growing awareness of the need to correct both Palin’s and
John McCain’s statements repeatedly, because these two have provided so
much material to work with. In her case, it’s about the Bridge to
Nowhere, earmarks, pork-barrel spending, the executive jet that may or
may not have been sold on EBAY (maybe for a profit and maybe not), how
innocent and occasional was her questioning of the employment of her
ex-brother-in-l
aw, and what she personally pocketed in travel expenses
while living at home. For McCain, there’s the whole side show regarding
who said “lipstick on a pig” about what or whom, complete with multiple
video clips of his own (pardon the pun) liberal use of that phrase.
Is it time, yet, to declare that the McCain/Palin bloom fading from the
rose? Has the blanket free pass finally been revoked? Richard Wolffe
went so far on MSNBC’s “Countdown” to say that the McCain/Palin
campaign may well have “jumped the pig.” I’ve watched over several days
as the coverage of the campaign has changed ever so slightly in timbre.
It looks as though they’re not just swallowing Republican talking
points whole, or mindlessly anymore. As much time seems to be spent,
now, dissecting the content of a stump speech or a campaign commercial
to examine what’s misleading or flat-out false, misquoted, or taken out
of context. Nobody ever seemed that interested in such meticulous
autopsies before. Perhaps the news media has decided, at least
partially, that lapdog time is old news, and watchdog time is back on
the clock.
Which brings us to the lip service about “lipstick.” Is “lipstick” the
exclusive property of the GOP? Both Sarah Palin and John McCain would
have you believe it is. Why else would McCain relish using the
“lipstick on a pig” phrase about Hillary Clinton’s health care plan
during the primaries, and peppering his public comments with it on any
number of occasions, only to take great umbrage when Barack Obama uses
the same phrase to describe McCain’s policies?
Palin attempted to assert claims of exclusive ownership of the word
“lipstick” in her convention speech. Sarah, dear, let me help you here
at the cosmetics counter. You do not own that word. You never did. No
one woman unilaterally does. Nor do Rudy Giuliani, Kiss, or RuPaul.
Tammy Faye Bakker certainly didn’t -- and she might actually have had a
reasonable claim. Connie Francis didn’t, even while singing “Lipstick
on your collar told a tale on you” in 1959. Nor did Margaux Hemingway
in the film “Lipstick” ten years later, or more recently Alesha Dixon
in her “Lipstick” video, or Brooke Shields on TV’s “Lipstick Jungle.”
Max Factor doesn’t even own that word. No one ever issued Palin a
trademark for it.
What’s next? Might we soon see Palin suing for copyright violation if
Obama or another Democrat uses the word “lipstick” in a sentence from
here until Election Day? And if so, shouldn’t it be John McCain who
might take such legal action? After all, the video clip of Obama using
the words “lipstick” and “pig” in the same sentence featured him
mentioning only one name: McCain’s. Not Palin’s. Maybe we’re getting a
little touchy?
There’s one other point to make here. At the convention, Palin herself
declared that she was ready for a good fight. She proved that she can
throw a punch, and she seems eager to keep doing so. Anybody who struts
around a stage boldly likening herself to a “pitbull in lipstick” is
spoiling for some sort of dust-up, or at least talking like it. Those
are fightin’ words. If you adopt such a belligerent posture, you lose
your right to object when and if some of the punches coming at you
start landing a little too hard. For the McCain/Palin campaign to start
whining and yelling “No Fair!” now, when they were the ones who started
waving their lipstick at America is tantamount to smearing that
lipstick directly into the Looking Glass. Besides, it’s the P.O.W.
griping on behalf of a running mate who’s presently M.I.A., which makes
him look small and rather pathetic. She’s more than capable of
defending herself. After all, this lady painted her
own face with war paint, in the first place. Nobody forced her hand.
What’s encouraging is that the mainstream media is now no longer
pulling its own punches. It’s MORE than fair to ask questions, and
challenge phony and off-base claims, especially when you have a record
AND the video tape to underscore the validity of that challenge. Let
the full media vetting surge ahead. As voters we have the absolute
right to know whether McCain and Palin, who would govern our land and
our lives, are lying and fudging the facts when they make their case
for our support. It’s long past time when only Democrats should be
subject to a political proctoscope while Republicans get a mere
skin-deep overview. It’s good, finally, to see that press people aren’t
willing to take much at face value from either party any longer -- with
or without lipstick.
***
Mary Lyon
is a veteran broadcaster and five-time Golden Mike Award winner, who
has anchored, reported, and written for the Associated Press Radio
Network, NBC Radio "The Source," and many Los Angeles-area stations
including KRTH-FM/AM, KLOS-FM, KFWB-AM, and KTLA-TV, and occasional
media analyst for ABC Radio News. She began her career as a liberal
activist with the Student Coalition for Humphrey/Muskie in 1968, and
helped spearhead a regional campaign, The Power 18," to win the right
to vote for 18-year-olds. She remains an advocate for liberal causes,
responsibility and accountability in media, environmental education and
support of the arts for children, and green living. In addition to
World News Trust, Mary writes for Huffington Post, OpEdNews, Democrats.us, WeDemocrats.org's "We! The People" webzine. Mary is also a parenting
expert, having written and llustrated the book "The Frazzled Working
Woman's Practical Guide to Motherhood.