On common ground with a Palin fan
A conversation with a Christian conservative from Northridge yields more points of agreement than might be expected.
My trip to Sarah Palin country seems to have worked quite a few readers into a lather.
I'm a dunce. I'm a heathen. I'm a liberal hack carrying water for the publisher, the editor, the devil (none of whom I personally know to be a liberal, by the way).
The one e-mail that stood out for me, though, was from a Northridge resident. Mike O'Donnell, who once worked in the Nixon White House, began by calling himself a fan. Then he went on to say he was disappointed in my "slanted" dispatches from Alaska.
"Your disdain for Sarah Palin, her views which are strongly based upon her Christian faith, and her actions as a conservative legislator came through loud and clear," O'Donnell wrote. "Can I and your other readers who are conservative . . . ever expect you to write a political piece that is fair and balanced?"
A fair question, I suppose. I admit to having put a few Republicans on the rotisserie in my time. In my defense, though, I've also taken batting practice on the likes of Gray Davis, Fabian Nuñez, Antonio Villaraigosa and Al Gore, to name just a few Democratic targets.
But O'Donnell sounded like a reasonable man, so I asked if we could meet.
Over the course of a two-hour chat at the Starbucks near Reseda and Devonshire in Northridge, I'm not sure either of us changed the other's mind about anything. But our conversation was much more civil than the back-and-forth John McCain and Barack Obama are having.
To be honest, I am biased, and I admitted as much to O'Donnell. I'm biased against unknown candidates being added to presidential tickets two months away from a wartime election and then kept away from the media for the most part.
It's difficult not to think McCain's running mate has been on a short leash because her handlers aren't sure she can ably answer questions on national and foreign affairs, and her interview with Katie Couric validated those concerns.
Did I go overboard in lampooning Palin for her comments on Russia, community organizers and the value of her experience as mayor of Wasilla?
O'Donnell certainly thinks so. Might it have been better to spend my few days in Alaska focusing on what she really knows about energy policy or climate change?
Perhaps.
But as for the claim that the "liberal media" are out to get Palin, my colleague James Rainey pointed out the other day that some of her harshest critics include conservative all-stars George Will, David Brooks, Charles Krauthammer, Ross Douthat, Kathleen Parker and Stephen F. Hayward.
