Forgetting Sarah Palin

Over the last two weeks, "news" about Sarah Palin has saturated the airwaves, thanks in large part to her "One Nation" bus tour. During the bus tour, which wrapped up its east coast leg this past week, cameras caught the former Alaskan Governor doing her best Easy Rider impersonation at a Rolling Thunder event, staring at the Liberty Bell, and proclaiming her belief in an alternate American history in which Paul Revere warned the British that the colonists were armed and dangerous.

Amusing? Yeah. Newsworthy? No.

The truth is, the media has no legitimate reason to be covering her every move and utterance so extensively. Although she was asked repeatedly by reporters if she was planning a run for the Presidency, she consistently dodged the question and insisted that her bus tour was a personal trip for herself and her family. No announcement of her candidacy appears to be imminent, and the bus tour will be traveling to the nation's heartland and west coast later this summer. It isn't hard to figure out why Palin wouldn't want to become Commander in Chief either. Ever since she resigned as Governor of Alaska in 2009, Palin has written two books, appeared as a regular commentator on Fox News, and given numerous speeches, bringing her net worth to an impressive estimated amount of $14 million. Palin knows what she is doing. Her political skills are sorely limited on a national scale, as shown in her bumbling and inefficient 2008 Vice Presidential bid on John McCain's ticket. However, her image and political convictions have morphed her into a money making brand of small town conservatism that is unmatched by any other pundit or politician. Palin is quite happy sitting on her stack of cash, and can only be more pleased that the "lamestream media" is giving her brand free publicity.

Granted, as much as Palin enjoys being in the spotlight, the media is more than enthusiastic to shine that light on her. Because Palin is such a polarizing figure, anytime she makes a statement or expresses her opinion, it is repeated ad nausem on cable news channels for days on end. In fact, many legitimate news stories end up morphing into stories about Sarah Palin. Take, for example, the shooting spree in Tucson back in January that left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords critically wounded. Instead of focusing on the victims of the shooting, or the shooter himself, many media outlets began linking the shooting to inflammatory maps produced on one of Palin's websites. The maps, which put cross hairs over districts being "targeted" for Republican takeover in the 2010 midterm elections, included Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' district on the targeted list. When Sarah Palin responded to those accusations by saying that the media had placed a "blood libel" on her. The media countered by suggesting that Palin's remark may have been anti-Semitic. Soon many people forgot about the real issues relating to the shooting, such as mental health treatment and gun control, and were solely focused on Sarah Palin, of all things.

It's high time that we realize that Sarah Palin's fifteen minutes of fame ended on November 4, 2008. It is highly unlikely that she will ever again seek public office. Her days as a politician are over. Now, she is on the same plane as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Ann Coulter. Today, Palin is a product, one with a lofty price tag that is sold by the GOP establishment and bought by gullible right wing lemmings, as well as most media outlets. Supporting or attacking Palin in the media is not about conservative or liberal bias. Primarily, it's about ratings and controversy, and the two go hand in hand. Liberal outlets, such as MSNBC and the New York Times, portray her as a senseless pariah who is helping to stifle critical thinking and civil debate in America. Conservative outlets, in turn (particularly Fox News) portray her as a victim of the hated liberal media, rallying the conservative base around her. Each of these entities, Palin, liberal media, and conservative media, are all feeding off of each other for their own gain.

The Palin Industrial Complex is also taking away valuable airtime from viable, legitimate Republican presidential candidates. Mitt Romney learned this a couple of weeks ago. When he officially announced his candidacy at a farm in New Hampshire on June 2nd, the "One Nation" bus tour rolled into a nearby town. What event do you think got more attention in the news?

That's right, Sarah and the gang stole the spotlight from the person who is arguably the GOP front runner.

Other candidates, such as Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich, complain that they are not taken seriously, in large part because of a lack of media attention given to their respective campaigns. Palin, however, is a pseudo candidate, and she gets more attention than any of the declared candidates officially running.

There are so many pressing issues that we could be discussing: The economy, the wars, the energy crisis, or the wacky positions of some the GOP's real presidential contenders. We,along with the media, need to start giving those topics the attention they deserve, and stop acting as the marketing agents for the Palin product. Or, we could sift through 24,000 Palin e-mails only to find out that Piper Palin wanted a new cell phone in 2008, and Palin couldn't "flippinbelieveit" when she was chosen to be John McCain's running mate.

The choice, ultimately, is yours.