And by base I mean the mainstream media. They are coming to Johnny Mac’s rescue to save poor beleaguered Sarah Palin from the likes of that bitchy mean old liberal CNN reporter, Campbell Brown and hateful liberal blogger nutcases like yours truly. Think I’m crazy? Well then take a perusal of some of the mainstream outlets this morning to see what they are saying about the Palin nomination. In general, they are giving it a pro-Republican spin, folks. McCain’s “base” is carrying his water for him once again. Here’s a good example from the The Boston Globe this morning about what a great choice she is to be one heartbeat away from the Presidency:
(cont.)
Palin provides a striking alternative
VP pick defies archetypes of women in politics
… Sarah Palin, the Republican governor of Alaska and John McCain’s unexpected choice for vice president, represents a striking alternative to the female archetypes that have long dominated American politics. She is a sharp departure from traditional Republican wives such as librarian Laura Bush and heiress Cindy McCain, but she is also very different from the Democrats’ pair of urbane working mothers, Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, who are strongly identified with the pro-abortion rights feminist movement.
For some conservative women, Palin’s sudden arrival at the pinnacle of American politics is both welcome and long overdue.
“It’s so great to have a strong female role model,” said Emily Zanotti, a 26-year-old conservative political strategist from Chicago who writes the political blog American Princess. “We don’t really belong anywhere, women like me. In the Republican Party we’re not really welcomed because we don’t fit the traditional model, and we’re not welcomed by the Democrats because we’re pro-life.” […]
And after decades of hearing women who favor abortion rights argue that the male-dominated Republican Party could not possibly understand the plight of women facing an unwanted pregnancy and have no business regulating abortion, women who oppose abortion say Palin is a living validation of their point of view.
Yep, she’s all pro-life mavericky goodness. A point of view supported by Clive Crook (that really is his name) at The Atlantic who thinks Palin was a great choice for McCain, pregnant teenage daughter or no:
I was unsure how the pregnancy of Sarah Palin’s daughter would affect social conservatives’ view of the governor’s nomination for VP, but they seem to be taking it in their stride. If anything they are seeing it as a positive–more proof that Mrs Palin is a good and supportive mother. At any rate, they say, it is nobody’s business but the family’s.
The other good news for the McCain campaign is that many Democrats are mishandling the issue as badly as they mishandled the nomination in the first place. There is a tone of exultation over the Palin family’s difficulties that will strike many centrists, and decent people regardless of ideology, as repellent. Again, to his enormous credit, Obama himself was the exception. What a class act he is. He reminded reporters that he is the son of an unmarried mother, said the families of candidates and especially their children should be off-limits, and told the press to drop the story. It won’t of course: it will mine it for all it is worth. But Obama said the right thing and gave every sign of meaning it.
Yes, Democrats (and the liberal media — Crook goes on to tear Campbell Brown of CNN a new one for daring to question the choice) are so mean spirited about poor Governor Palin. What great news for John McCain!
Here’s the AP chiming in with more McCain talking points about how “honest” and forthright Palin was, and how she really was vetted before she was chosen:
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Sarah Palin voluntarily told John McCain’s campaign about her pregnant teenage daughter and her husband’s 2-decade-old DUI arrest during questioning as part of the Republican’s vice presidential search, the lawyer who conducted the background review said.
The Alaska governor also greatly detailed the dismissal of the state’s public safety commissioner that has touched off a legislative investigation, Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr. told The Associated Press in an interview Monday.
Palin underwent a “full and complete” background examination before McCain chose her as his running mate, Culvahouse said. Asked whether everything that came up as a possible red flag during the review already has been made public, he said: “I think so. Yah, I think so. Correct.”
Yep, full and complete vetting. No question about it. Hey, rube, wanna buy a bridge in Ketchikan, Alaska? I can get it for you cheap!
And what about our good friends at the New York Times? Well here’s their very own cuddly conservative David Brooks to tell us all what to feel about the Palin choice:
John McCain is not a normal conservative. He has instincts, but few abstract convictions about the proper size of government. He’s a traditionalist, but is not energized by the social conservative agenda. As Rush Limbaugh understands, but the Democrats apparently do not, a McCain administration would not be like a Bush administration. […]
The main axis in McCain’s worldview is not left-right. It’s public service versus narrow self-interest. Throughout his career, he has been drawn to those crusades that enabled him to launch frontal attacks on the concentrated powers of selfishness — whether it was the big money donors who exploited the loose campaign finance system, the earmark specialists in Congress like Alaska’s Don Young and Ted Stevens, the corrupt Pentagon contractors or Jack Abramoff.
. . . . Like McCain, Palin does not seem to have an explicit governing philosophy. Her background is socially conservative, but she has not pushed that as governor of Alaska. She seems to find it easier to work with liberal Democrats than the mandarins in her own party.
Instead, she seems to get up in the morning to root out corruption. McCain was meeting a woman who risked her career taking on the corrupt Republican establishment in her own state, who twice defeated the oil companies, who made mortal enemies of the two people McCain has always held up as the carriers of the pork-barrel disease: Young and Stevens.
Many people are conditioned by their life experiences to see this choice of a running mate through the prism of identity politics, but that’s the wrong frame. Sarah Barracuda was picked because she lit up every pattern in McCain’s brain, because she seems so much like himself.
The Palin pick allows McCain to run the way he wants to — not as the old goat running against the fresh upstart, but as the crusader for virtue against the forces of selfishness. It allows him to make cleaning out the Augean stables of Washington the major issue of his campaign.
Isn’t that great! Palin is just like McCain, only younger and with good female Christian ovaries. If she could have been a POW I’m sure she would have. The Fundies love her, she fights corruption, she hunts and fishes for real (not like that windsurfing French guy or Hillary), and she’s got the Commander in Chief experience Obama never has had.
So what does this mean to me? Palin will stay the GOP’s Veep nominee. To borrow Arthur Gilroy’s signature line: Bet on it.