Sarah Palin: False Narrative Exposed

Everyone in the blogosphere knows that Peggy Noonan believes McCain's choice of Sarah Palin represents "political bull shit about narrative" (See Noonan Video). What's the narrative? The "narrative" is that the McCain ticket represents fundamentalist christian "values" and "maverick" politics.

A "narrative" is a "story" and the McCain/Palin story is make-believe. It's a false narrative, an attempt to dupe the American public.

McCain isn't the champion against the powers-that-be that his Maverick false-image claims. One "story" is that McCain was "born again," becoming a crusader against Washington corruption, after he was caught trying to strong-arm savings and loan regulators in the 1980s to protect family friend, and criminal, Charles Keating (Keating Five Scandal). Not True. Keating eventually served time in jail and McCain didn't really learn his lesson.

Remember Vickie Iseman (Photos)? Most people don't realize that the Vickie Iseman intrigue involved much more than questions about a potential sexual tryst. It exposed a more recent attempt by McCain to strong-arm regulators while he was Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee responsible for telecommunications. In this case, an August 2000 investigation concluded that McCain violated rules by trying to influence a decision of the Federal Communications Commissioners (FCC) on behalf of Paxon Communications for whom Iseman was a lobbyist.

The narrative about Sarah Palin is also being exposed. She opposed the $400 million dollar US taxpayer funded bridge to the town of Gravina (pop. 50) after she supported it (Fact Check) - Bridge to Nowhere Video Montage - Wall Street Journal Article (Sept. 9, 2008).

Thanks, but no thanks, we don't buy the false narrative about Palin opposing the bridge to nowhere as evidence she is a "maverick" politician.

What about the claim that Palin enforces ethics, even against members of her own party? For example, Palin filed ethics charges against an oil commissioner who used an official e-mail account for political campaign activity. Unfortunately for the "narrative" Palin was caught sending campaign e-mails on her city hall account while serving as mayor of Wasilla. The real narrative might be ruthless politician who is a hypocrite.

It wasn't too long ago that vice presidential candidate Dan Quayle criticized the TV sitcom character Murphy Brown for having a child out of wedlock. It set a bad example. The christian right cheered Quayle, while the rest of the Nation rolled its eyes recognizing things like that happen. Now the christian right is cheering Sarah Palin, a national champion on abstinence-only birth control policies, for being normal saying, you guessed it, "things like this happen." If not "false" it's certainly a forced narrative.

OK, things like pregnancy out of wedlock happen. But what are we to think of the Palin "family values"? It would clearly be an embarrassment if the 17-year-old daughter of a conservative christian family became pregnant. Imagine how it would feel for a conservative christian girl to have friends and family you know she was unable to abstain and did ... well, "did the deed." Now imagine exposing that to the world? Everyone looking at her pictures, knowing what she did, wondering ... all sorts of things.

What kind of mother would subject her daughter to the kind of humiliation a 17-year-old conservative christian would predictably feel by having her situation splashed across the world? What kind of mother would bear a child with downs syndrome five months ago and run off to the campaign trail, and possibly Washington DC, knowing that this child will need a lot of... mothering? Perhaps a ruthless, power-hungry mother. Again, does that square with the "narrative" of Sarah Palin setting an example as the "family values" candidate? Sounds like another false narrative.

I could go on and on, but the corporate media, which craves such money-generating titillation, is well out ahead on this.

Sources:

Palin's Ethics Scrapes May Undercut Pledge to End Old Politics, Bloomberg.com, September 11, 2008.