Day: 7/3/2009

The Sarah Palin Show Set To Premiere On Fox News?

Posted by on July 3, 2009 at 1:53 pm. 13 Comments :

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has just announced that she will not seek reelection. Even more surprising, she also says that she will be resigning from the office that she has held for less than one term.

Were this merely a politician choosing not to run again, there could be several explanations including, most likely, an intention to run for higher office. But the resignation throws that theory right out the window. Either she has some serious scandal about to erupt, or she got an offer from Rupert Murdoch.

The timing is suspect as well. It seems like an odd choice to make a significant statement like this on the day before the fourth of July. Especially when competing with other sensational stories like Michael Jackson and Gov. Sanford. Why couldn’t this have waited a week? Fridays are generally considered to be news graveyards – where stories go to die. Why make an announcement that has any positive content at a time usually reserved for bad news? Could it have anything to do with the fact that many of the opinion-casters are on vacation this week? Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, even Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are not around to comment. Coincidence?

Remember, she was a sportscaster before going into politics. She studied journalism in college (but must have forgotten much of it because she couldn’t tell Katie Couric a single newspaper that she read). And her appeal in last year’s campaign was mostly connected to her alleged personality – it certainly wasn’t her experience or intelligence. Since folks like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity have proven that those qualities are irrelevant to a career as a Fox pundit, Palin may believe that now is the time to cash in. Her resignation speech even included a reference to the $500,000 dollars in debt that she has accumulated defending herself against criminal and ethics complaints. So it’s fair to say that she could use the money a broadcasting job would provide.

A Palin show on Fox News has always been a good fit for both her and Fox. Neither have an interest in, or reputation for, honesty or accuracy. And both have profited from exploiting controversy and sex. Plus, she wouldn’t be the first potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate with a show on Fox, would she, Mike Huckabee?

What more could Fox ask for than a former beauty queen who cheerfully calls the President a Socialist who pals around with terrorists? And what more could Palin ask for than a network gig that allows her to spew nonsense and practice her fancy pageant walkin’?

[Update 7/4/09] Foxnews.com got around to reporting the Palin news with a story mainly cribbed from the AP. In addressing Palin’s future they wrote…

…she will have a variety of potential platforms, from writing books to hitting the public speaking circuit to working directly with the Republican Party to get candidates elected.

In the process, she’ll also have the ability to make a lot of money — far more than the $125,000 or so a year she has earned as governor. She already had a deal with publisher HarperCollins to produce her memoirs, with publication planned for next spring.

They left a couple things out of that report. First, they failed to mention the possibility of a role on Fox News. Second, they didn’t think it worthy to note that HarperCollins is owned by Murdoch’s News Corp.

The Tea Party Tea Baggers Really Have Balls

Posted by on July 3, 2009 at 12:13 pm. 1 Comments :

Last April’s Tax Day Tea Party was by all objective accounts a massive failure. Estimates of national attendance hovered at something below 300,000. To put that in perspective, twice as many people went to see “The Hangover” last Saturday.

The dismal showing of Tea Baggers was achieved after having received millions of dollars worth of free publicity and promotion from Fox News. The network executed a wall-to-wall campaign promoting these events and their own participation in them. They shamelessly recruited viewers to take up the cause and sent their biggest stars out as enticements. And still they underperformed the expectations of their own organizers who predicted crowds in the millions.

So capitalizing off of that disaster, the Tea Partiers are back with a new sense of excitement and hope. Unfortunately, other than the most rabid disciples, the excitement is shared by very few. Even Fox News is offering tepid support. They have made a few mentions, and hosted a few interviews, but it is nothing comparable to the far-flung campaign they orchestrated last spring. Without the support of Fox’s mass media megaphone, it is unlikely that this ersatz movement will make much of a splash.

A story in the Washington Independent provides some interesting (and hilarious) details about the July 4, version of the Tea Parties. Organizers seem to have accepted the reality that prospects for the revolution they dreamed of have receded. One of the national organizers for the Tea Party Patriots is expressing her joy that a followup to Atlanta’s Tea Party in April (which she said drew 20,000 people) brought out only 70 TPers. This way, she feverishly rationalized, she could talk to every participant. Perhaps all sponsors of public protests should implore people to stay away so that this benefit could be enjoyed more often.

The organizer of the Dallas Tea Party is taking a different approach. He seems to want people to attend, even if that means he won’t be able to speak to all of them individually. To that end he is pulling out all the stops:

“We’re using the fireworks and the Monkees and the rest of that to attract people who never though they’d be at a Tea Party.”

Actually, it is just one Monkee, Mickey Dolenz. That should guarantee at least the 70 people that the Atlanta Tea Party pulled in. More interesting is the admission that he intends to dupe potential attendees with fireworks and celebrities on the Fourth of July holiday to get them to show up for a Tea Party that they likely would not have otherwise attended. How much you wanna bet that Tea Party organizers across the country will try to take credit for every municipal fireworks display, every holiday concert, and even every tailgate party and backyard barbecue, in an attempt to validate their movement?

The funniest part of all of this is the campaign by radio talker Phil Valentine to “Give the Senate Some Balls.” Inspired by those who thought sending members of congress tea bags was a good idea, Valentine is encouraging his listeners to send balls to senators. No, I swear, he really is. So after being mocked relentlessly for having chosen to engage in tea bagging, Valentine is compounding that unfortunate imagery with the vision of people sending their balls to the senate.

I am now officially speechless.