Payback

Sarah Palin and her amen chorus are an endless source of free entertainment.
 
In the increasingly incomprehensible interviews she has given since her incomprehensible announcement that she would resign as Alaska’s governor, she has loudly complained – and her acolytes on the right and on Fox News have loudly echoed – about how badly she has been treated.
 
Ethics complaints have been filed against her, media organizations have investigated her and her family’s private lives, bloggers have said mean things about her, commentators have criticized her, political opponents have attacked her, she has run up big legal bills defending herself and late-night television comics have mocked her.
 
In other words, all the things that happened to Bill Clinton for eight years – and Hillary Clinton for eight more.
 
Certain things are a given in life. Play in the NFL, and you get tackled. Drive the lane in the ACC, somebody flops and tries to take a charge. Go into big-time politics, get treated rough.
 
Maybe we could blame Newt Gingrich for starting it all back in 1994. Or the Democrats for attacking Judge Bork. Or James Carville savaging Poppy Bush. Or Lee Atwater shredding Michael Dukakis.
 
Or maybe Tom Ellis and Carter started it in 1984.
 
Or maybe it was 1950, when Frank Porter Graham and Claude (“Red”) Pepper got beat and Richard Nixon got started in politics.
 
In truth, it’s the way American politics has always been. Go back to FDR’s enemies – or to Lincoln’s. Or read what was said about Thomas Jefferson and John Adams in 1800.
 
Every politician who has ever been attacked acts like he – or she – is the first one in history to have to put up with such treatment.
 
Get real, Sarah. If you really want to play this game in the big leagues, get ready. And stop whining.
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Gary Pearce

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Payback

Sarah Palin and her amen chorus are an endless source of free entertainment.
 
In the increasingly incomprehensible interviews she has given since her incomprehensible announcement that she would resign as Alaska’s governor, she has loudly complained – and her acolytes on the right and on Fox News have loudly echoed – about how badly she has been treated.
 
Ethics complaints have been filed against her, media organizations have investigated her and her family’s private lives, bloggers have said mean things about her, commentators have criticized her, political opponents have attacked her, she has run up big legal bills defending herself and late-night television comics have mocked her.
 
In other words, all the things that happened to Bill Clinton for eight years – and Hillary Clinton for eight more.
 
Certain things are a given in life. Play in the NFL, and you get tackled. Drive the lane in the ACC, somebody flops and tries to take a charge. Go into big-time politics, get treated rough.
 
Maybe we could blame Newt Gingrich for starting it all back in 1994. Or the Democrats for attacking Judge Bork. Or James Carville savaging Poppy Bush. Or Lee Atwater shredding Michael Dukakis.
 
Or maybe Tom Ellis and Carter started it in 1984.
 
Or maybe it was 1950, when Frank Porter Graham and Claude (“Red”) Pepper got beat and Richard Nixon got started in politics.
 
In truth, it’s the way American politics has always been. Go back to FDR’s enemies – or to Lincoln’s. Or read what was said about Thomas Jefferson and John Adams in 1800.
 
Every politician who has ever been attacked acts like he – or she – is the first one in history to have to put up with such treatment.
 
Get real, Sarah. If you really want to play this game in the big leagues, get ready. And stop whining.
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Gary Pearce

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Archives