McCain advisor Rick Davis bestowed that colorful description on the nation’s press. He told Fox News the Republican campaign is reluctant to throw “Palin into a cycle of piranhas called the news media that have nothing better to ask questions about than her personal life and her children?” He wants to be sure that Palin is going to be treated with “some level of respect and deference.”Davis is wrong on two fronts. The “deference” remark smacks of sexism. Deference was neither expected nor courted when Geraldine Ferraro ran for VP on the Mondale ticket or when Hillary Clinton took a shot at the White House. The press was all over Gerry’s personal life (e.g., her husband’s business dealings). As for Clinton, enough said.
Those media piranhas represent the American people and have every right to grill somebody who may soon have the second most important job in the U.S. Palin isn’t running for the PTA anymore—or at least for the immediate future. You don’t hear Joe Biden squawking about the media.
Conservatives are more than hypocritical when they demand kid glove treatment for Palin, while they work to Swift Boat Obama via publishing trash books or conjuring up outward lies about the Democrat being a closet Muslim.
Speaking of religion, Palin may soon have her own Rev. Wright problem. The Talk to Action blog, which chronicles the evangelical movement, has a nifty piece on Palin’s Assembly of God membership of more than two decades.
The piranhas may soon be asking about the “third wave of the Holy Spirit” and something called “Joel’s Army,” which seeks dominion over the U.S. and the world. The third wave has been declared “unbiblical” by other evangelicals and fundamentalists, which may toss a monkey wrench into support of Palin by the Republican “base.”
More media piranhas are bound to ask for more details about a McClatchy report that Palin may have used state funds in June to travel to her hometown of Wasilla to attend an Assembly of God “Masters Commission” graduation ceremony and a multi-church event called “One Lord Sunday.”
Let the media games begin. They are good for democracy.