Palin had this message to the media in her “Today, I become a quitter” speech:
“So how about in honor of the American soldier, you quit making up things.”
What in blazes was she talking about?
I either missed something in the 24/7 news cycle, or I’m just flunking Palintology 101.
Can someone enlighten me?
She doesn’t know.
The answer to such a question is a matter of opinion so probably belongs in IMHO. My take on it is that she is trying to simply link herself, with no justification, to our troops and somehow claim that lies about her (her endless whining about her treatment by the media) hurt our troops. It’s the age-old technique of politicians to wrap themselves in the American flag.
You know, politics as usual. 
She randomly name-drops the US military a lot. From her statement on Letterman’s apology, for example: “She also thanks “our U.S. military women and and men putting their lives on the line” to protect Letterman’s right to “joke””. There are probably few groups that had less to do with the Letterman/Palin spat then the members of the US military, but she appears to think that merely by mentioning them, she gains some sort of moral high ground.
She’s hardly the only politician who does this, but she really seems to have taken it to a new level.
I don’t see any factual answer to this. Since this is political, it’s probably best for GD.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
You’d probably have gotten more colorful answers had you posted outside of GQ, but since we’re here:
Put yourself in Palin’s position. This means that everything she says gets maximum benefit of the doubt. Read about a scandal? Read it with facts and assumptions most favorable to her, and consider everything she’s said to be either completely honest or fully believed to be honest. Also, consider the number of stories that went nowhere — Trigger as her grandson, for example.
Regardless of who made up those stories—and however they came about they were necessarily invented—it was the media that carried them, and the media that gave them credence. Furthermore, irrespective of what others think the reality was, to her it was the media who painted her as X, Y, and Z — maybe she made a misstep or two, but there was a lot of gotcha journalism involved.
If it helps the imagination, consider things from the opposite political spectrum’s point of view. Or take it back to a full belief that the Swift-Boating of Kerry was wholly unfounded and unjust (you don’t have to believe this per se, but it’s just a thought experiment). Stories were planted and reported on that hurt her/his credibility and polling numbers. Even the whisper of it will last longer than the basis.
Can you imagine yourself — if not, just read some of the Fox news Pit threads — yelling at the media to knock off all this partisan shenanigans? Palin aside, wouldn’t it be better if the media was less sensationalized and cared less about the gaffe of the week? Do you think that after the last campaign, Cronkite was unabashedly proud of the job the media did? Again, whether or not you personally agree, I’m approaching this in a GQ-like answering for her frame of mind.
If one does extend this degree of benefit of the doubt, she makes sense (no comment, in keeping with GQ).
As for the troops bit, I think that given her background and familial relationship with the military, it is a natural interjection. It’s a “For the love of all that’s holy!” or “Won’t someone think of the children!” type phrase, meant to invoke some solemnity in what follows or secure a modicum of discrete attention to what comes next.
Alternately, you can cast all the above in a bucket and go with a more mercenary view: she is about to embark on an ostensible political king-maker career (i.e., campaigning) and a lucrative book writing and talk-showing stint. Funding for all this is going to come from a solid base, a base that reacts strongly to mentions of troops. Furthermore, she has learned from the past decade or so of media marketing (see Fox, Rush, etc.) that positioning yourself as an alternate, truthful source of news against the monolithic and nebulous “mainstream” media is a successful niche. “Us against Them” works wonders for keeping an audience.
That’s fine, of course. I originally picked General Questions because I thought there was a chance her comment was making reference to a specific, concrete, reality-based incident.
I was wrong.
No wonder she resigned! :eek:
Somebody had better tell Roy Rogers.
Her son Track is in the military. I think that’s as close as you’re going to get. I haven’t seen the speech but I don’t think she was talking about a specific lie, just reiterating her statements that the press is out to get her.
She sounded like someone doing a bad impression of Tina Fey doing an impression of Sarah Palin.
Trigger? Track? Where do they come up with these names for their brood?
horses.
Bristol.
Not Trigger, just Trig. Trigger is a word.
I’ll take “Subjects Sarah Palin failed in high school for $400, Alex”.
If you read it in context of the speech it seems pretty straight forward to me:
But not to me.
Explain it to me as if I was a five-year-old.
A full transcript does not make it clear what some in the media are making up. Presumably she means that anything she is accused of doing is made up. The speech in general and this part in particular is a true Palinesque jumble of ideas, and the bit about the media does not follow at all from the statements about volunteerism and the military.
I had forgotten that. My interpretation was that she supports the troops therefore any criticism of her is by default critical of our military. It seemed more a desperate grab at anything that might get the criticism to stop.
She’s simply invoking a sacred cow in order to make her careerist, self-serving aim of asking the media to lay off reporting nasty stories about her seem more virtuous.
How about, in the name of the sweet baby Jesus, you just agree to shut your stupid yammering pie-hole for a few consecutive minutes, Ms. ex-Governor, okay?
See how that works?
I was going to say, “In before the reflexive Palin apologist brigade!” but Sinaijon got here first. 
Palin is a stupid, small person who resonates with the stupid, small people of the Republican Base. The party has shed the smart people and only the most radical, angry and ignorant remain. She’s playing drummer boy for the retard regiment and they’re comin’ for teh libs!
It is amazing that she was shown to be uneducated and unthinking during the campaign. She doesn’t read, she doesn’t know about SCOUTS decisions, she doesn’t understand the VP’s job, she doesn’t understand the Department of Law (lulz), shit, I could go on. She’s pretending the media has it in for her, because the media talks about how someone who wants to rule the civilized world is clearly subnormal!