Yuval, I agree that Roger strikes the right note, as usual. But only after he observes, in what might be an answer to your question, “Of course it was a reference to Sarah Palin’s line about the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull was that the hockey mom wore lipstick; and of course Obama intended some of that porcine unpleasantness to rub off on S. Palin, Governor of Alaska.” For anyone who doesn’t think so, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in buying.
I’m sorry to say your question put me in mind of the Alan Colmes/Bob Beckel/You-Name-The-Democrat-Strategist TV demagoguery play-book, in which, for example, Ted Kennedy says Bob Bork wants to force women into back alley abortions and blacks to segregated lunch counters, then, when we point out how moronic that is, Alan gets that oh-please look on his mug and sneers, You don’t really think our Ted would intentionally lie about a federal judge’s record at a United States Senate hearing, do you? At which point we, of course, are expected to melt and say, oh no, of course not, I would never accuse such a distinguished public servant as Senator Kennedy of lying — I mean, you’re right, we just don’t need that in our politics. After all, everyone’s just doing his best, blah, blah, blah.
News flash: Everyone is not doing his best. Kennedy was lying. Yesterday, Obama was a jerk. And everyday, the press is playing favorites. That’s the way it is. Last week, you said that “shameful, out-of-control, frenzied, angry, condescending, and pathetic journalistic malpractice” about Palin was an epiphany of sorts for you, suddenly changing your view that “conservative complaints about the media are a little exaggerated.” For most of us, though, they’re no exaggeration at all — it’s just the way things are and have been for a very long time.
That’s the hand we’re dealt. There’s no point being a wuss about it. But it’s important to notice and document it — preferably, as is the Palin style, as a happy warrior, not a whiner. It’s very nice to want to think the best of the other side, but it’s also very naive. Do we really have to assume (pretend) that everyone is acting in good faith when a battalion of lawyers and “investigative journalists” lands within 48 hours on Alaska, to scrub every jot and tittle of every gubernatorial expense voucher when, after two years we know almost nothing about swaths of Obama’s “journey” — and Stanley Kurtz is subjected to a virtual mugging for having the temerity to ask some questions?