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MSNBC’s Chuck Todd is certainly doing his bit to expose the tired "liberal media" myth as the lie that it is. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Todd admitted that he and his establishment media buddies were letting McCain "get away with" false claims about national security because everyone knows McCain is so darned experienced. Todd conceded at the time that if Obama or Clinton made a similar misstatement, the media would be on them like tea partiers on Sarah Palin.
It turns out that there is a media double standard–but it’s one that benefits right-wingers. Even as Sarah Palin rails against the insidious liberal media that’s out to get her, Chuck Todd has her back.
Palin got caught using crib notes scrawled on the palm of her hand — ironically, during a speech when she mocked Obama for using a teleprompter. On MSNBC this morning, Andrea Mitchell called attention to Palin’s latest effort to demonstrate her lack of qualifications to serve even as junior high school class president, and Chuck Todd tried to move past the trainwreck, muttering that "we’ve all done notes." Indeed we have. Palin recently compared herself to George Washington, who surely had his own crib notes at Valley Forge or when crossing the Delaware.
Todd was forced to back down from his courageous efforts to defend Palin against the latest unfair liberal media onslaught–he ultimately admitted that Palin "has different rules", just like her former running mate. How long will it take Todd to realize that he’s helping to enforce those different rules when he tries to pretend it’s no big deal that supposed presidential hopeful Palin needs to write notes on her hands, like some unprepared high school student, in order to remember her vacuous talking points?
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Todd “we have all used notes” Written on their hands?
Every time Sarah speaks we all feel smarter.
I just heard Jim Hightower speak in Boulder. Hightower “When Sarah moved from Alaska onto the Fox program she raised the I.Q. of both places”
YYYAAAAAAA, different rules for Palin. Funny how MSNBC thinks they make the rules.
yes, I think he’s right. Now that I think of it, all presidential hopefuls scrawl notes on their hands. It’s a tradition that goes back at least to Lincoln and, as I noted, I heard Washington did this at Valley Forge (his notes were: endure privation, defeat British, stay warm). Chuck Todd is a towering intellect and keen observer and I’m glad he reminded us that, even though Palin’s antics seem high-schoolish, in fact she is merely continuing to prove how well-qualified she is to be president. Thank you Mr. Todd, and keep on applying those different rules to Palin.
sadly, I think they do. That’s part of what bothers me about this. If one had the opportunity to speak to Chuck Todd, my guess would be that he would argue he is simply “reporting” the “fact” that different rules apply to Palin. He ignores the fact that he helps make these rules. They certainly don’t write themselves–even if you have a ballpoint pen and a clean palm.
and let me suggest a few ways to mock the ridiculously unqualified Palin:
(1) how’s the whole writing on your hand thing working out for you?
(2) is it cheating if no one sees your crib notes?
(3) how many other times has the esteemed ex-Governor scrawled crib notes on her hand when giving speeches or interviews?
(4) what advice would Palin have for high school students preparing for exams when it comes to the best technique for keeping a cheat sheet close at hand? (or maybe she’s not the best one to ask about this…)
(5) as President, would you prepare for meetings with foreign leaders in the same way you prepared for your Tea Party speech? what happens if you ever have an important event when it’s raining out?
(6) can you please tell us exactly how that blasted liberal media forced you to stoop to these juvenile tactics? did Katie Couric pen the notes on your hand for you?
For a $100k fee she could have at least used an index card.
Also, Chuck Todd is most generously a tool, most likely just another useful idiot.
you’d really think so, right? Maybe someone needs to create an Index Cards for Palin fund. as for your assessment of Chuck Todd, that sounds right, though I’d add that he is contributing to the problem by helping to give Palin a pass and implementing these preferential “different rules” he speaks of, as if they were created in some other universe, not by the establishment media of which he is a part.
Fox News offers this Orwellian explanation for Palin’s embarrassing prep work: it was all a clever way to call attention to Obama’s use of a teleprompter http://thinkprogress.org/2010/02/08/fox-palin-telepalmer Yeah, that’s the ticket. And when Palin couldn’t think of a single Supreme Court decision she disagreed with other than Roe v. Wade she was making a post-modern point about “otherness” in judicial decisionmaking. Does Fox News really think its viewers are that stupid/gullible/uncritical? Perhaps–and perhaps they’re right: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/02/large-portion-of-gop-thin_n_445951.html
There are many, many ways to criticize Palin, but this isn’t one. As a minister, I preach from a written manuscript, and I don’t think that makes my sermons less meaningful.
Instead, let’s take to her task for dangerous statements such as calling for an invasion of Iran.
The handnotes issue is a win for Palin as few people have experience with teleprompters, yet most have written a note on their hands at one time or another. Faux populism can spin this one in its sleep.
But I watched that speech and she continually and very obviously peered down as if reading from a text. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, provided of course you are not slamming the president for using a teleprompter while reading said slam off your speech text at the lectern in front of you!
Irony is indeed dead. And well putrified.
Thanks for the comment Jim. I agree that using notes is not a problem in the abstract. But when you give a speech that focuses on putting down the President for using a teleprompter even as you have notes secretly written on your hand, that is hypocritical. Also, it reinforces the reality that Palin is simply unprepared to be a presidential candidate. It’s one thing to have notes for a speech, another to need reminders of basic talking points like “lift American spirits” and cut taxes. It’s hardly the first time she’s looked amateurish, unprepared and in over her head. Also, imagine the reaction if Obama referred to crib notes on his hand during a speech or interview.
right you are. as noted, it’s hypocritical to criticize the President for using a teleprompter even as you’re reading notes off the palm of your hand.
in addition, the media response is instructive–I’d like to see someone ask Chuck Todd why he thinks different rules apply to Palin, whether he thinks that is, and how he sees his role in enforcing these rules
I agree that we’ve all used crib notes when giving speeches and talks, but beyond the hypocracy of Palin reading hand notes while dissing the POTUS for using a telepromtr, she’s just plain in over head, unprepared as usual, and completely unsuited even for the role of a Fake “Nooz” commentator (well… maybe she can be that, but even that’s a stretch).
I was willing to cut her some slack in the very, very beginning because I didn’t feel she had enough time to “prepare,” etc. But, seriously, at this point: WTF? She QUIT her job as governor (which, apparently, the first Dooood did most of the heavy lifting for her) in order to “prepare” herself. And THIS is the best she can do? I mean: really? That’s it?
Not that I expected anything different, but this last go-round puts paid to any hype that “Palin just needed more time.” If this grifter con-artist cannot be any better prepared than this at this time, then she ain’t gonna get any better. Stick a fork in her, folks, cuz she’s done. To attempt to pretend that she could be POTUS is like: ohmigawd… run for your lives. Insane, completely totally nutty.
I want to know who’s paying off Chuck Todd to give her a pass at this point. That’s just ridiculous (but we do know how pathetic Todd is, so no big surprise there).
Really sick of the double standard, lies and hypocracy.
agreed–she is a walking SNL sketch as a Fox News commentator. I just watched her commenting on what the presidential field looks like in 2012. Of course, she is a disinterested observer on such things.
To me, the hand notes underline Palin’s amateurishness–the fact that, as you say, she’s simply in over her head. It looks like she was using the hand notes to answer questions in a Q and A after the speech. as I mentioned before, can you imagine the reaction if Obama did this? if any elected official above the high school level did this? and, as mentioned before, and as you say, she was standing at a podium putting down the President for using a teleprompter with crib notes on her hand (and,according to Keith Olbermann, her own speech notes on the podium–nothing wrong with speech notes either, of course, but it’s hypocritical for her to mock Obama when she of course doesn’t exactly let fly off the cuff herself).
Palin depends on a double standard. Under any reasonable litmus test for basic competency as an elected official, at any level, she’d be disqualified. as you said, she’s proving that she just doesn’t care about being prepared. and she may be right–if the establishment media keeps giving her a pass, it won’t matter if she has a basic understanding of policy, the Constitution, or anything
They’re calling it the “redneck teleprompter”.
good one–of course, I am only applauding your comment as you meant “redneck” satirically