Palin’s energy

She took on Obama’s energy in a WaPo op-ed piece yesterday.

For which the Boston Globe slammed Palin, saying she slammed Obama, and this type of sniping is, unfortunately, the norm in the media.

In her post-governor life, Sarah Palin apparently wants to be a serious policy analyst, as well as GOP heavyweight, mother, etc.

In an op-ed piece in today’s Washington Post, she critiques the energy plan that President Obama and Democratic allies in Congress are pushing through.

Complaining that “many in the national media would rather focus on the personality-driven political gossip of the day than on the gravity” of the recession and job losses, she declares that “at risk of disappointing the chattering class, let me make clear what is foremost on my mind and where my focus will be:

“I am deeply concerned about President Obama’s cap-and-trade energy plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy. It would undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage,” writes Palin, who stunned the chattering class by announcing July Fourth weekend that she is resigning at the end of the month with 18 months left in her term.

Anybody can write an op-ed piece, and many journalists and politicians do, regularly. Even Karl Rove’s frequent pieces in the press don’t tend to draw the snarky criticism Palin does, no matter what she does.

While she is very circumspect in talking about her political ambitions — she is in the conversation for the 2012 presidential race — a new CBS News poll found that most Americans believe she is resigning to boost her political career, not to help her state, which she said was distracted by her battles against the Democratic legislature and ethics investigations.

This is part of the Palin phenomenon that the media don’t recognize because it is about themselves. Because they don’t know what Palin will do or wants to do, they are speculating wildly about her intentions and her future and her qualifications for high office, driving and then criticizing impressions they have created. Note that this piece, like so many others, comes down to ‘what the surveys say’.

According to the survey, 24 percent accepted Palin’s explanation that she resigned because it was the right thing to do for Alaska, while 52 percent cited her political ambition.

The media are relying on polls now more than ever. But one wonders…..are the people polled just reflecting back the impressions they get from media coverage? Perception becomes reality, yes, but this reporting doesn’t quite ever reach the reality. Only what the polls say it is.

Let’s debate ideas and their merit, and leave the politics of personal destruction to…whoever gets something out of them.