Sarah Palin said goodbye to Alaska as governor yesterday, and she didn’t let the occasion pass without shooting a couple of well-deserved zingers at the national media. Via John Ziegler, we have the key moment in her speech, in which she tells the media to stay away from the children of her successor, and to “quit making things up”:
It’s difficult to recall a time when the national media treated two candidates so differently in an election than in 2008 with Palin and Barack Obama. I’ve seen nothing like it, not when Geraldine Ferraro ran as the first woman on a major-party ticket, not when George W. Bush ran against Al Gore or John Kerry, not even when Ronald Reagan — who the media intensely disliked at the time — ran against Jimmy Carter. For that story, see John’s site and his documentary, How Obama Got Elected.
As for not making things up, I’d just be happy if we didn’t see her daughter’s ex-boyfriend appearing on talking-head shows ever again, with the shows treating the 19-year-old as though he was an eminence grise on all things Alaska and Palin. How many teen-age boyfriends become experts on their girlfriends’ families, anyway?
Alllahpundit linked to a mostly fair CBS report in the Headlines on Palin’s speech, which made this good point:
Yes, Palin’s poll numbers have tanked since the heights she achieved after her resounding speech at the Republican National Convention in August of last year. Forty-four percent of Americans viewed her favorably in the CBS News poll taken then, while in the July 12, 2009 CBS News poll, only 26 percent had a favorable view.
But there is another number that should give Palin and her supporters hope that she may yet have a second life in national politics. A whopping thirty-nine percent of those polled in the most recent CBS News survey said that they were undecided or had not heard enough about her.
If a run for president in 2012 is in her future, and don’t be so quick to count her out, she must focus on those 39 percent. After all, her most ardent backers will continue to support her no matter what.
Whether or not the resignation turns out to be a mistake, it’s now done and over. Even if she doesn’t run for office, Palin’s going to be a major force in activist politics, and we’ll see where the road takes her.
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