The meaning is clear: “Our soliders fought and died for freedom of the press, so honor that sacrifice by reporting only truth.” But what is not clear at all is what the media is being accused of making up. Yes, they may focus disproportionately on some matters, and have even reported on rumors* but I have not seen any case where Palin demonstrated that facts as reported in the press were not true.
*Frankly I can’t remember a time since WWII when our soliders fought to preserve our freedoms rather than our economic and political interests.
**But they report them as being rumors, like the rumor that her daughter was the real mother of her youngest child. Now there is a fine line between repeating *reporting *a rumor and *spreading *a rumor, and even though I am a Palin detractor I think that particular one was mean-spirited. But in the end, the press did not make anything up.
She was named after the town in Connecticut where ESPN is based. Palin had the idea that she was a candidate for an on-air position there when the kid popped out.
Bristol’s kid’s middle names are “Easton Mitchell” - two brands of hockey equipment.
That’s not true, and you know it. While her belief that the media has members who enjoy spreading lies may be overstated (and I doubt she includes in that number those who do so from her end of the political spectrum), it is clear from the context of the speech that she is making a simple point: soldiers fight so that we can have freedom of the press; in honor of that, use your freedom correctly: don’t lie.
It’s not the most awesome speechifying, but it’s a much more coherently made point than the effort she put forth when she announced her intention to resign.
She constantly employs a rhetorical strategy (which probably has a formal name, but I don’t know what it is), of invoking sacred cows in order to intimate that any criticism of her (or even an innocent question that accidentally exposes her stupidity, like “what do you like to read?”) is really a criticism of THAT. If you criticize her, you’re attacking the troops, you’re attacking her children, you’re attacking America, you’re attacking God. It’s truly a cuntish tactic, and it should be as transparent as cellophane, but her fans are stupid as she is, and really see her as being a personification of those things anyway, so it makes sense to them.
The more I see of this woman, the more convinced I am that she is a true narcissist, and probably a sociopath. She is not smart, but she has a psychopath’s cunning. She knows how to manipulate conversations so as to try to put critics constantly on the defensive, she has no capacity for any self-evaluation or accountability. She is obliviously hypocritical about attacking others in the most vicious ways possible, while simultaneously sobbing incessantly about the slightest question or critique of herself. She is pure good, all her critics are pure evil. When she says the media is “making things up,” she means saying negative things about HER. It’s not a statement about truth value, it’s about what’s good or bad for HER. Anyone saying anything bad about is a LIAR LIAR LIAR.
All her bullshit seems to work very well on stupid people, but not so well on anyone with an IQ above room temperature. Even the GOP intelligentsia rolls its eyes at her, but most of them are afraid to say what they really think because they don’t want to get their houses burned down.
This is a fair point to make only if she could point to 1) a clear and egregious incident where the media lied, preferably recently, about U.S. soldiers; or 2) a pattern of the media consistently lying about U.S. soldiers.
There is no evidence of either thing happening. She is scolding the media for doing something they do not do.*
Tell outright lies, that is. They do often miss the “real” story while pursuing trivial tangents, usually celebrity-related tangents.
She’s a troll. Why do people around here still feed her? Any questions that might be posted about her, whether in GQ, GQ, IMHO, CS, MPSIMS, The Game Room, ATMB, or the Pit can be addressed quite adequately with the response: She is not important enough to bother with. There are many other subjects that are far more worthy of your time and attention.
She loves mining Bartlett’s for semirelated quotes, how about some Voltaire, " I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
She doesn’t have the synapses for your interpretation. Her argument goes: I love the troops, if the liberal media doesn’t love me then they don’t love the troops.
The real question in my mind is, did our brave troops die so that Palin could accuse Obama of “paling around with terrorists?” Is that the standard of truth which she accuses the media of failing to achieve?
The lying doesn’t HAVE to be about sodiers, Duh. The point is: if you are going to be a reporter, then report. Don’t make stuff up. For extra emphasis, if you are not motivated for any other reason to do this, do this because after all, there are men and women who die to preserve your right to print/broadcast/publish your writings because it is important to have a strong, free press.
Now, I’m not saying that it’s a really STRONG argument to make, but it’s a CLEAR argument. And we all know that there are members of the media who DO lie to make points (Rush, you listening?); see the Birthers and their media fans. But you are right, it certainly would help her point if she could really point to the media, or any truly significant part of it, and identify where they have have been publishing untruths about Sarah Palin and her family.
I’m just going to say that this sort of statement puts you down at her level. The concept of trivializing/demonizing/devaluing people by dismissing them out of hand through rhetorical device or insult does nothing to elevate our national political discourse. If you truly dislike Sarah Palin’s rhetorical efforts, you should avoid supping at the same trough.
No, she’s not claiming the media lies about US soldiers. She’s saying that American soldiers fight and die to protect freedom of the press, and so journalists have a responsibility to tell the truth in their reporting in general (and in specific, I’m sure, their reporting on her), to be worthy of the sacrifices the soldiers have made.
She says, in paraphrase: some people are trying to tear this country down by being pessimistic, but our volunteers and military servicemembers are wonderful and protect our freedoms. The freedom of the press is also important, so the media should do a good job and not make things up, insult people’s intelligence or report things about governors that I don’t approve of.
And that’s leaving out a bunch of other disgressive shit that’s even less related to her mysterious point. The Constitution protects the press from government interference. That right has nothing to do with the media “making things up.”
Edit: okay, “making things up,” not “making up things.”
Oh man, the whole thing was hilarious. I was particularly fond of the bit on Colbert’s show where they showed a 30 second clip of her speech which appeared to be a string of words randomly put together.
In answer to the OP, nobody knows, including her. Hell, even Bill Kristol, one of Palin’s most slobbering proponents admitted yesterday on TDS that he didn’t know why she quit.
Which is funny, given the number of people I’ve seen insist that she was perfectly clear, it was just the Librul Media distorting things and making it sound like she was speaking nonsense.
Again, nonsense. And you should know it. You are usually a more rational person.
If a press is to be trusted with so-called “freedom of the press”, the reason for that has to do with the value of that press shining a spotlight on ugly truths for all to see. Else, government can simply keep its citizens in ignorance (as has happened in any number of places in recent history). But if the value you have as a member of the media is that you display ugly truths, then it is vitally important that the things you say ARE truths. It is imcumbent upon you to avoid spreading things you know are untrue, or strongly suspect are untrue, just as it is incumbent upon a police officer to always tell the truth so that, on the witness stand, the finder of fact can believe him in situations of “he said, she said.”
Now, in the process of shining that spotlight, you don’t have to be particularly nice. If you want to rant about how the President is going to socialize medicine, that’s fine. If you want to highlight irrelevancies about what is going on in our military actions overseas, fine. But continuing to spread the nonsense that the President is not a “naturally born citizen” because he really was born in Africa, or that Trig Palin’s mother is really Sarah Palin (note that one, it’s germane to the discussion ) is NOT fulfilling that role. And that is what Sarah Palin is talking about, though as I pointed out, I doubt that she’s really upset about media lying in a general sense, but rather as it personally involves her, in her viewpoint.
) is NOT fulfilling that role. And that is what Sarah Palin is talking about, though as I pointed out, I doubt that she’s really upset about media lying in a general sense, but rather as it personally involves her, in her viewpoint.