Governor Palin: Lean into the curve

Just got through doing a long in-person interview about populism and the contemporary political landscape, sat down to find out what had been going on in the blogosphere for the past few hours, and at Memeorandum saw this headline:

Newsweek Photo of Palin Shows
Media Bias and Sexism

"Sexism" is an ideological pejorative coined by feminists and, as such, a term I disdain -- actually, I make a point of jabbing feminists at every opportunity.

Grant that the editors of Newsweek hate Sarah Palin. We have every reason to believe that the choice of photo of Palin in shorts represented an attempt to diminish and belittle Palin, to portray her as a cheesecake bimbo, the political equivalent of Lindsay Lohan. Palin herself writes:

The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now. If anyone can learn anything from it: it shows why you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, gender, or color of skin. The media will do anything to draw attention - even if out of context.

That this is "sexist," OK. Gotcha. But does Sarah Palin want to assume a feminist victimhood posture, to say that she is being oppressed by the patriarchy?

No, I think not. Excuse me for suggesting that the way for Palin to leverage this -- to "re-brand" herself as they say -- is to lean into the curve. The better response would be along the lines of:

"Yes, I am a woman. Yes, I have legs. And, yes, I've been told they're very nice legs. Exactly why the editors of Newsweek decided that showing me in shorts was appropriate for the cover of their magazine is for them to explain -- and good luck with that. I guess I'm trying to figure out what side of the double-standard applies here. Levi can get naked for Playgirl and still be taken seriously, but Newsweek thinks it's something scandalous to show me in running shorts? Just wait until I grant my first in-depth foreign-policy interview to Maxim!"

Or something to that effect. The governor signifies her self-awareness that she is something of a political and cultural novelty -- a conservative woman who is a viable presidential prospect. She is aware that her good looks are both an asset and a potential liability, and that liberals want to portray her as a trailer-trash airhead, the "Caribou Barbie," etc.

She gets the joke, and she turns it back against them. Nothing disarms an attack so well as self-deprecating humor. It's like the way Reagan joked about his own extremist reputation: "The Republican Party needs both its right wing and its far-right wing."

To use the word "sexist" against Newsweek is to accuse enlightened liberal elitists of violating their own egalitarian standards -- which is all fine and good. But "sexist" also sounds like one of those grim, humorless Women's Studies professors ranting at a campus "Take Back the Night" rally.

Ick. Don't go there, governor. You are a happily married Christian conservative pro-life woman who -- oh, glorious coincidence! -- looks good in shorts. Your husband is a certified USDA prime slice of hunkalicious beef, your son is a soldier in Bravo Company, and your daughter is a single mom with a selfish douchebag ex-boyfriend.

All of which is to say, you are the 21st-century all-American woman, a symbol to which a lot of moms can relate. Just think of the enormous untapped electoral potential in the "My Daughter's Ex-Boyfriend Is A Selfish Douchebag" Coalition.

Lean into the curve, governor. Be yourself. Relax and have fun. Avoid the humorless feminist victimhood pose. If Hillary Clinton couldn't make that work against Obama, the media sure as heck won't let you use it, so let it go.

When you wish to call attention to the media's double standard -- both the male/female thing and the liberal/conservative thing -- always do so in a way the displays confidence and good humor. Invite the audience to laugh with you, and give them an opportunity to laugh at the media. And let the media laught at themselves. You might be surprised how many people in the press corps think their peers take this Serious Journalism stuff a bit too seriously.

Don't ignore your critics, governor, but don't let them undermine your confidence, either. You are winning. Just don't forget: Lean into the curve.

UPDATE on the Kentucky Killing: 'We Don't Even Know What We Don't Know'

Because law enforcement officials are being extremely circumspect in discussing the death of Bill Sparkman -- whose nude body was found Sept. 12 in the Hoskins family cemetery near Arnetts Fork Road in Clay County, Ky. -- the absence of information has led to extremely irresponsible speculation.

I'm working on a very long, detailed account of the case based on my trip to Kentucky, but I had to lay that aside for a while today when I saw a grossly misleading story in Newsweek. This prompted me to whip out a quick 861 words for The American Spectator:

"He knocked on the wrong door," was the way one resident described what most locals familiar with the case consider the most likely scenario for Sparkman's killing. As the Newseek story notes, eastern Kentucky is known as a haven of marijuana growers. The weed growers plant their crops in Daniel Boone National Forest, which sprawls across the mountainous region and encompasses half of Clay County.
What would be proven if we knew (as we do not) that Sparkman was engaged in Census work at the time of his disappearance -- most likely Sept. 9, three days before his body was discovered in the Hoskins family cemetery some 30 miles east of his home -- and "knocked on the wrong door"?
If the fatal door he knocked on was at the home of a marijuana grower or a drug dealer (methamphetamine and other drugs are also problems in the region), who killed him after mistaking Sparkman's federal identification as evidence that the stranger was a narcotics agent, is that an "anti-government" or "anti-Census" motive? Or is it merely a criminal seeking to prevent detection of his crimes -- the kind of killing that happens with unfortunate frequency in America all the time?
That, however, is strictly a hypothetical scenario. The haste of some journalists and bloggers to attribute Sparkman's mysterious death to a particular motive -- to give it a political meaning -- based on speculation and assumptions, is irresponsible in the extreme. . . .

Read the whole thing. A smart reporter never burns his sources, so I can't identify the Kentucky journalist who this past week exclaimed to me in exasperation: "We don't know anything. Hell, we don't even know what we don't know."

Which is why it was perhaps a fortunate coincidence that a "top Hayekian public intellectual" drove more than 500 miles to spend three days gathering information about the Sparkman case. Students of Friedrich Hayek know how the Nobel Prize-winning economist emphasized that information is diffused widely among the population, so that no "expert" or group of experts can ever claim to have complete knowledge in any given field. The failure of intellectuals to recognize the limits of their own expertise leads to harmful preconceptions and myths, as Greg Ransom has explained.

The Hayekian insight has utility far beyond the field of economics. Appreciating the value of unknown facts -- information beyond our immediate knowledge, which may actually be more important than the facts we do know -- is essential to a genuinely objective pursuit of truth.

The lazy assumption that we know all we need to know, that there cannot be any unknown facts that contradict the beliefs we form on the basis of partial information, is the basis of far too many mistaken beliefs. I've already reported how stereotypes of rural Kentuckians as backward, ignorant and impoverished have resulted in a misleading portrayal of the decent, hard-working, law-abiding citizens of Clay County. (Let's don't even get into the Kelsee Brown angle.) And now we see how a too-eager desire to cast Bill Sparkman's death as a political symbol is leading to assumptions that may be equally misinformed.

It's a free country, which means everyone is free to speculate how and why Bill Sparkman died. But ill-informed speculation and assumptions are no substitute for facts, and there are still too many unknown facts for anyone to pretend to know the motives of whoever put Sparkman's body in that cemetery.

If the editors of Newsweek don't want to pay for solid, sensible, accurate reporting, they need to grab themselves a fresh, hot cup of delicious STFU.

Hit the tip jar, y'all. My wife won't like this one bit, but if I can collect another $500 in the Shoe Leather Reporting Fund, I'll go back to Kentucky and keep after this story until folks in Clay County award me honorary hillbilly status.

UPDATE: Jimmie Bise at Sundries Shack calls the Newsweek story "Another Steaming Pile of MSM Journalism," and we've got ourselves a Rule 3 opportunity with a Memeorandum thread.

UPDATE II: Yehuda the Rhetorican:

Newsweek -- like much of the Legacy Media -- needs to become re-acquainted with the importance of shoe leather to quality journalism. And I don’t mean it needs a kick in the @$$, although it certainly does.

Speaking of which, how about some kicking rock 'n' roll?

UPDATE III: Linked in Left Coast Rebel's roundup and . . . Well, the Tampa Tribune had an interesting profile of Bill Sparkman. I didn't want to "go there," but as Dan Riehl points out, the speculation that Sparkman was gay has been bouncing around all over the 'sphere for days. Dan e-mailed to mention this to me, and I replied that many people in Clay and Laurel counties suspected that, at the very least, Sparkman had homosexual tendencies. NTTAWWT.

As I told Dan, the problem is that we have no idea whether Sparkman's sexuality (whatever it was, and all I know is what people in Kentucky told me) had anything to do with his disappearance and death. It might be relevant or not. At any rate, that Tampa story is full of very strong suggestions that my Kentucky sources have reasonbly accurate "gaydar."

We await Andrew Sullivan's next hysterical post claiming that Sparkman was a victim of hillbilly homophobia.

UPDATE IV: Paco points out exactly why the Newsweek story sticks in my craw: While I'm driving more than 1,300 round-trip in a 2004 KIA to report this story, Eve Conant gets paid a full-time salary to sit around writing a 1,700-word essay that concludes:

The Census Bureau field-training manual advises employees on everything from walking only in lighted areas to staying away from political issues, especially when someone is hostile: "Do not defend yourself or the government with respondents who say they hate you and all government employees. Indicate that you regret this opinion and express a desire to provide them with a positive experience." Perhaps Bill Sparkman wasn't given the time to follow that sage advice.

Perhaps. And perhaps the staff of Newsweek could take up a collection at their office, so they could buy a clue as to why they're losing credibility.

UPDATE V: Speaking of "losing credibility," Charles Johnson and the few remaining unbanned denizens of LGF Lizardland are going bonkers over Dan Riehl and "the ghey."

Thanks to Bob Belevedere for his latest aggregation.

If it was OK for Ted Kennedy to joke about killing Mary Jo Kopechne . . .

Shouldn't everyone emulate the Lion of the Senate?

Newsweek’s Ed Klein (told interviewer) Katty Kay about Kennedy’s love of humor. How the late senator loved to hear and tell Chappaquiddick jokes, and was always eager to know if anyone had heard any new ones.

More at Newsbusters, Hot Air, Memeorandum and thanks for the linkage from Paul Zummo at Southern Appeal. In case you folks haven't heard, the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy just hired me to provide entertainment as a stand-up comedian at Kennedy's wake.

God bless him, but ol' Teddy was the life of the party, even if he was also the death of partygoers. Hey, did you folks hear this one yet?

Q. What's the difference between Ted Kennedy and Ronald Reagan?
A. As a young man Ronnie saved girls from drowning!

Oh, I got a million of 'em, folks. I just swam in from Chappaquiddick, and boy, are my arms tired.

I tell, ya, Ted Kennedy gets no respect, no respect at all. Why, when Ted Kennedy came out in favor of abortion, his own mother said, "Oh, now he tells me!"

But really, we need to respect this man's great legacy as a legislator. For instance, in one of his final acts of progressive humanitarianism, even from his deathbed Teddy ordered a staffer to insert an earmark into the stimulus bill, giving a major Democratic campaign contributor a lucrative contract to provide scuba training for congressional aides.

Seriously, folks, appropriate tributes to Ted Kennedy's legacy are a bipartisan obligation. As a matter of fact, the Republican National Committee is now raising money to fund the Edward M. Kennedy Memorial on the national mall in Washington. A leading sculptor has already been commissioned to create a monumental statue of an inverted Oldsmobile . . .

Oh, yeah, and my good buddy Van Helsing offers this thoroughly appropriate suggestion:

C'mon, don't I even get a rimshot from my drummer for that? The name's "Shecky" McCain, folks, and I'll be here all week. Remember to tip your bartenders and waitresses. Try the veal.

ENCORE: Thank ya, folks! It's great to be back here at Teddy's wake, I tell ya. But it's hard work, because everybody's a comedian nowadays, y'know what I mean? Take that Richard McEnroe at Three Beers Later . . .

Hey, give me a fourth beer, Richard, and I might take your wife up on that offer. Wait a minute, I just got another look at her. Better make that five beers, Rich.

But seriously, folks, isn't time we paid Ted Kennedy the kind of respect he deserves? Think of all he's done for the American people. And the Vietnamese people. And the Cambodian people.

Really, I mean this sincerely, from the bottom of a mass grave of innocent Cambodian civilians slaughtered by the Communists with Ted Kennedy's help.

Speaking of help -- and Rich McEnroe's wife -- I tell ya folks, my wife, she gives me no respect at all.

"Why are you always doing that blog stuff?" she says.

"Because people hit the tip jar," I tell her.

"You mean they give you money?" she says. "Why would people give you money for telling tasteless jokes?"

"Tasteless jokes?" I said. "Really, honey, why do you have to bring Rich McEnroe's wife into this?"

Ba-da-bing! I'll be here all week, folks . . .

INTERMISSION . . . but there's more Shecky to come. Please tip your waitresses, as we keep telling Shecky.

Right-wing kooks spread 'misinformation' that Newsweek's Sharon Begley is ugly

Newsweek's incredibly attractive science editor, Sharon Begley, says that " some of the loudest opposition" to ObamaCare "is the result of confirmatory bias, cognitive dissonance, and other examples of mental processes that have gone off the rails":

Obama's opponents also need to find evidence that their reading of him back in November was correct. They therefore seize on "confirmation" that he wants to, for instance, redistribute the wealth, as in his "spread the wealth around" remark to Joe the Plumber -- finding such confirmation in the claims that health-care reform will do just that, redistributing health care from those who have it now to the 46 million currently uninsured. Similarly, they seize on anything that confirms the "socialist" label that got pinned on Obama during the campaign, or the pro-abortion label -- anything to comfort themselves that they made the right choice last November.

Well, there you have it, folks: It's science, and only crazy people argue with science.

Borderline schizophrenic Jeff Poor of the Media Research Center accuses the stunning Sharon Begley of having an "elitist persona." Obviously, Jeff is suffering from cognitive dissonance, and this derogatory comment is an effort to comfort himself for the feelings of inferiority caused by his recognition that he'll never be worthy of a sexually magnetic woman like Sharon Begley.

Another pathetic example of "mental processes that have gone off the rails"? Ace of Spades, whose pathological obsession with the irresistibly alluring Sharon Begley leads him to "seize on confirmation" that she's hot for him:

• Sharon Begley, May 2007: Bush is mentally ill, suffering from delusions due to deep denial.
• Sharon Begley, June 2007: Democrats lose elections because they target the rational side of the brain, while Republicans target the irrational side.
• Sharon Begley, October 2007: Those who deny global warming are kooks and cranks like those nuts who deny the moon landing.

All of which is clear scientific evidence that Ace of Spades suffers from dangerous erotic compulsions toward Sharon Begley. But then again, don't we all?

Remember, denial is part of the problem. If you think President Obama's modest health-care reform agenda is "socialized medicine" or if -- like Ace -- you refuse to acknowledge your overpowering attraction to Sharon Begley, you have already begun losing touch with reality and should seek professional treatment immediately.

Shocking report uncovers U.S. abuses

The torture of Filipino guerrillas 1899-1902! German POWs roughly manhandled by doughboys in 1918! Eyewitness accounts of GI atrocities against innocent residents of the Solomon Islands in 1942!

Yes, all this and more, coming soon from Newsweek, which today features this dramatic summary:

A long-awaited report on post-9/11 interrogation tactics will reveal harrowing new details about treatment of suspected terrorists.

This sort of stuff is not surprising if you are old enough to remember the post-Watergate era, after Democrats won a huge congressional majority in the 1974 mid-terms and proceeded to "expose" misdeeds of the FBI, CIA and the Pentagon, and impose various "reforms" that had the effect, in combination, of nearly destroying our nation's ability to fight crime, prevent espionage or win wars.

Disapproving of torture is one thing. Emasculating America's anti-terrorism capacity is something else entirely. And it is always wrong to fret over the "rights" of a bloodthirsty animal (e.g., Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, mastermind of the USS Cole bombing) for whom there could be no legitimate complaint of injustice if one of our troops had put a 7.62-mm slug through his skull.

Headline of the Year

Newsweek's Obama Correspondent
Joins Administration

First thing Daren Briscoe did? Collect his back pay.

Colbert editing Newsweek

by Smitty (h/t Rhetorican)

  I can nearly get into the idea of Stephen Colbert editing Newsweak. As much as I enjoyed his wonderfully titled I Am America (And So Can You!), I look forward to not reading this with added pleasure.
While I don't advocate wanton cruelty to people, saying "Newsweak, I hope you die in a fire" types quite comfortably.

Newsweek: 'Counterintuitive'Is the New Stupid

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reports on the new "strategery" at sister publication Newsweek:

Jon Meacham admits it is hard to explain, even to his own people, why chopping Newsweek's circulation in half is a good thing.
"It's hugely counterintuitive," the magazine's editor says. "The staff doesn't understand it." . . .
Newsweek, owned by The Washington Post Co. . . . is bleeding red ink, losing nearly $20 million in the first quarter. Newsweek, whose circulation was as high as 3.1 million in recent years, plans to cut that to 1.5 million by the beginning of 2010, in part by discouraging renewals. The magazine will begin charging the average subscriber about 90 cents an issue, nearly double the current rate.
"If we can't convince a million and a half people we're worth less than a dollar a week, the market will have spoken," Meacham says. The newsstand price will also jump from $4.95 to $5.95, a buck more than Time.

(Hat-tip: Hot Air Headlines.) Raise the price and discourage subscriptions? Brilliant! And check out their "innovative" idea for revamping content:

Meacham, an admirer of the Economist, is fashioning a serious magazine for what he calls his base, with a heavy emphasis on politics and public policy.

Right. You're going to turn a mass-circulation news magazine into some sort of highbrow policy journal . . . weekly! And then watch the money roll in! If this isn't the stupidest business strategy in the history of journalism -- that's a pretty tough competition -- it's certainly in the Top Five.

Notice that Meacham's idea is to publish a magazine resembling a magazine that he likes to read. Call it the Narcissus Reflecting Pool Theory of journalism: If the top editor admires a certain publication, then trying to imitate that publication must be a good business strategy. What you are doing, therefore, is producing a publication for your own editors, rather than for the readers.

This is all very good if the editor is a visionary with a sense of what the reading public wants. But if your editor is a clueless dingbat like Jon Meacham, you're screwed.

My advice to Newsweek staffers: Update your resumes.

UPDATE: Welcome, fellow AOSHQ Morons! You might also enjoy my take on MoDoGate, and my most recent American Spectator column, "The Republicans Who Really Matter."

UPDATE II: Allahpundit loves me again!

It smells like they're trying to remake themselves into a lefty rag like the American Prospect albeit with a bit more populist appeal and investigative journalism. Not quite as highbrow as TNR, not quite as lowbrow as MSNBC, but extra "serious" and willing to charge a bit more for their new supposed prestige.

Now if I can just get him to front-page my Green Room post about the cowardice of the elite . . .

UPDATE III: Welcome NRO readers! Perhaps you'd like to sample some delicious lesbian cookies?

Obama Ethics Rules: Bug or Feature?

by Smitty

Newsweak, by way of the Puffington Host, is aflutter because the Obama Administration has

hundreds of top government posts stand empty. One reason: over-the-top ethics rules are disqualifying or driving away some of the best and the brightest

Are we allowed to float the question of whether setting over-the-top ethics rules might, itself, be unethical because it leaves positions unstaffed, and could lead to impropriety?

It's the old law of unintended consequences: in order to satisfy a public desire for squeaky-clean government, elected officials have put at risk a more critical goal: dealing expeditiously with the financial crisis.

Couple of questions for the poor, victimized Administration:

1. Does anyone, anyone, think that government is, was or will ever be "squeaky clean"?
2. Does the person in the vegetative state you found in the previous question think that the 111th Congress or the Treasury has been dealing ethically with any of this?

Towards the end of the article we get another taste of "That Darn Technology Done Me Wrong Blues":

Times have changed, of course. There was no cable TV in the 1930s, and government is much more transparent today—not a bad thing. The Obama team has become more than a little sensitive to criticism. "The idea that government is at a total standstill is just ridiculous," says a White House aid speaking under the usual rules of anonymity. "We deserve some credit for what we've gotten done in the little time we've been here, especially considering the environment we're in."

Deserve? Only the Almighty knows what you or the Administration's members deserve, buddy. That the scope of my judgement is limited to the ballot box is surely a feature.