SAVAGING SARAH – AT 7:03 P.M. ET:  Like her or not, Sarah Palin is a serious woman, was a respectable governor, and has a large audience.  But for some of the foot soldiers of mainstream journalism, she is a threat to the universe and must be stopped.

Gov. Palin made her debut on Fox News last night.  It was pretty good.  Nothing spectacular or defining.  But get this "review" from TIME, once a weekly newsmagazine:

It's been said before, but let me say it again: Fox News creator Roger Ailes is a genius. His peers in the executive suites of rival networks, newspapers and media conglomerates still hire talent for their abilities. Ailes knows you can also hire talent for who they anger, who they unite and what they represent.

Oh how cute.  Yes, we've seen the vast abilities of some of the competitors.  Why, that deep analyst, Keith Olbermann, recently a sports reporter, always moves me.  Or Chris Matthews, whose thoughts come from tingles in his leg. And the CNN anchor who referred to the World War II battle of "eye-woe Jima."  What scholarship.

Fox has a journalistic staff as good as any in broadcasting, and better than most.

Ailes had not hired another talking head in Palin. He had hired a mascot for Fox News, a living breathing symbol of all that the network hopes to be: a place for the forgotten, besieged, suburban and rural American middle, long victimized, often dismissed, beset on all sides by elites and liberals, haters and foes.

Can you imagine the reaction of "feminist" organizations had a right-wing writer referred to a female as a mascot?

[Before I continue, I must make a disclosure: I am not, as a member of the professional media, qualified to describe Sarah Palin's debut appearance as a Fox News analyst. As Fox pundit Monica Crowley explained on the network after the former Alaska governor left Tuesday night, Palin “was actually talking over the heads of the media to the American people.” This, explained Crowley, is Palin's great talent—a rare ability to connect directly with Americans through television. “Nixon did it,” Crowley added, driving home her point. Lacking access to Palin's most important frequencies, therefore, I must ask that you take this analysis for what it is—an incomplete rendering.]

This writer is absolutely precious.  Don't you think?  It's about me, me, me and me.

The sins of Sarah:

The Palin that followed on Fox was the Palin that America has long come to know, at once skittish and confident, sing-songy in elocution, repetitive in substance and Palinesque in diction. (As H.L. Mencken once described Warren Harding's use of English, “It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it.”)

Translated:  I, the reviewer, am so smart and she is so dumb.  Invite me to your party.

At this point, Palin's performance reached its crescendo, not as news analysis or reporting, but as a restatement of the very mission that has made Fox News so successful. “The American people are immediately neutralizing outlets like 60 Minutes,” Palin explained. “More and more Americans are looking at some of these networks, that biased journalism, and saying, ‘Nah, that gig is up. We're not believing that stuff anymore.' That's why they are tuning into Fox News.” She had become the message. Her mission was accomplished. Her future at Fox is bright.

She committed the sin of boasting about Fox News.  So when CNN advertises itself as the first name in TV news, I should write them a protest letter?  Come on.

This is what passes for a review.  Pretty disgraceful.

January 13, 2010