Palin hubbub leads Republican delegates to target 'liberal media'
ON THE MEDIA
The questions raised about Sarah Palin and her daughter Bristol allow those attending the convention to attack a familiar enemy, trying to score political points in the process.
ST. PAUL, MINN. — Delegates to the Republican National Convention whirled in their seats en masse and called out from the floor: "Tell the truth! Tell the truth!"
The chants and finger-wagging were directed toward the sky boxes. Their target: the television networks and the rest of the "liberal mainstream media."
It happened 20 years ago, as the GOP gathered in New Orleans, Times political writer Mark Z. Barabak recalled this week.
But the scene could have come from the convention floor Tuesday in St. Paul, where the Republican faithful began working out once again on a favorite punching bag. Their goal: to lessen the burden on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, five election cycles after the media were lambasted because it dared to question the credentials of another would-be vice president, Dan Quayle.
The GOP deployed its principal spokespeople, elected officials, delegates and cable television surrogates with one essential message: Mess with our gal, Sarah, or her pregnant 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, and we will mess with you.
That's a point worth heeding. (Even Barack Obama said that "people's families are off limits, and people's children are especially off limits.") But only to a point.
I personally don't need to know a lot more about Bristol and her hockey-playing, salmon-fishing, snowboarding beau, Levi. So the kids got a little crazy and Alaska will be populated by one more premature hockey mom.
I'm willing to wait for the People magazine photo spread of the new family, when the youngster, as the evangelicals are saying this week, delivers her "blessed" bundle into the world. (And that, by my calculation, should occur right around Inauguration Day.)
But in the meantime, questions can and should continue to be asked about how much the McCain campaign knew not only about the premarital pregnancy but about Palin's evolving position on the "bridge to nowhere," her actions regarding the firing of the state trooper who was once her brother-in-law and . . . well, who knows what other morsels are yet to emerge.
In some of those cases, like the pregnancy, the information is more significant for what it shows about McCain's thoroughness and deliberations. Did the man who would be president get all the information? Did he review it thoroughly before he decided?
