Palin gets the Hanson sneer

Thanks to Andrew Bolt

*  Once again, the media are feeding what they seek to destroy, by insulting the readers they’re meant to inform

WE saw Pauline Hanson get this treatment from the media, too. So it’s no surprise that the sneering at Sarah Palin is backfiring in exactly the same way. When Hanson rocketed into politics a decade ago, she couldn’t win a single friend in the media.

* EXCERPTS: Charlie Gibson Interviews Sarah Palin

Television viewers saw for themselves – most notoriously at a press conference on Hanson’s immigration policy – journalists literally jostling each other for a chance to jeer, heckle and shout at her. So fierce was the campaign to belittle Hanson that some reporters, years later, blushed in shame.

(I doubt that. The swine from the MSM wouldn’t know how to spell ‘shame’ let alone feel any- but anyhow, its a good read….)

The ABC’s Maxine McKew, now a Rudd Government frontbencher, conceded to “crossing the line” by asking “smart-alecky questions” to make her seem stupid. Channel 9’s Ellen Fanning admitted she’d “never intended to be fair to the woman”. These attacks went far beyond the hits a politician should expect for saying dumb things. Hanson was also savaged for being of the wrong class. The new independent member for Oxley was instead the mere “fish-and-chip shop” owner. The “Oxley moron”. The woman with the flat accent. The redneck who asked: “Please explain?” Demeaning her became chic. A Mental As Anything guitarist threw wine over her. The Cue clothing chain told staff not to sell her stock because it “can only do our image great harm”. And here’s where the media and the rest of the Left got it terribly wrong. By sneering at Hanson, they were sneering at the many Australians who shared her background, and shared her perfectly reasonable dismay that we were being divided by race. It was that which led so many people much like Hanson to rally around an inarticulate woman of no great gifts other than courage. A million Australians voted for her at one election – or, rather, voted against the elites who’d vilified her, jailed her unjustly, spat on her supporters, and laughed when the threats against her grew so bad that she made a video to be shown should she be assassinated. Sarah Palin is no Hanson. She is far smarter. She’s sharp enough to have beaten the corrupt mates network that dominated her own party, and to have run Alaska well. In many ways, Palin, now chosen to run as the Republican Party’s nominee for vice president, is the candidate the feminists dreamed of – the mother of five children who could yet run for one of the most powerful jobs on earth. Yet hear once again that snobbery of so many in the Left-leaning media. Ah, the Left says it loves the poor and forgotten, but see the lips curl when a woman from that class actually stands up for herself and demands power. And so Palin is belittled not for anything she’s done, but for the people she represents. People who live in small towns. Who go to church. Who have little cash. Who hunt. Who don’t travel in the pointy ends of planes. She’s a redneck! Trailer trash! Crikey’s Guy Rundle sniggers that her 17-year-old pregnant daughter “has a face that says yes”. Salon.com’s Cintra Wilson suddenly hates strong women, declaring Palin “a power-mad, backwater beauty-pageant casualty” who has “me and my friends retching into our handbags”. Prada? Famed film critic Roger Ebert dismisses Palin as “a hopeless provincial”, and “anyone who wears glasses that look weird is telling me something I don’t want to know”. Video Music Award host Russell Brand even jeers that Palin “is pro-execution so she is going to give her (daughter) the electric chair for being a little slut”. This is not about policies, but class. Observed the New York Times’ David Carr: “In the press galleries at the (Republican) convention, journalists wrinkled their noses in disgust when Piper, Ms Palin’s youngest daughter, was filmed kitty-licking her baby brother’s hair into place. But to many Americans, including some I talked to in the convention hall, that looked like family church on Sunday, evidence of good breeding and sibling regard.” This gut hatred of the small-town people Palin represents has triggered a campaign of vilification to makes Hanson’s treatment seem sweet. Palin has been falsely accused of calling Democrat candidate Barack Obama “Sambo”, of wanting creationism taught in schools, of banning books in libraries, and even of only pretending to be the mother of her youngest son, to cover up for her eldest daughter. Of course, she must be a racist, small-minded, book-hating, lying matriarch of hillbillies. But, as we saw here, the public has picked up on the media bullying. A Rasmussen poll this week reported 51 per cent of voters surveyed thought the press was trying to hurt Palin. And guess whose side they then took? Other polls show droves of voters , especially women, have switched their support from Obama to Palin and the Republican ticket. Once again, the media have fed what they tried to destroy, by insulting the readers they’re meant to inform. Hanson would understand.