BOOK REVIEW: Facing a conservative star

THE PERSECUTION OF SARAH PALIN

By Matthew Continetti

Sentinel HC, $25.95, 256 pages

Reviewed by Roger Lott

Can you imagine Newsweek magazine putting a picture of Bill Clinton in running shorts on its front cover after the release of his memoir? Of course not, but for its Nov. 23 issue, that’s exactly what Newsweek did with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who just happens to be an attractive woman, pro-life, outdoorsy, a mother of five, and a gut-level conservative.

In the past couple of years, Mrs. Palin has seen her teenage son deployed to Iraq, given birth at age 44 to a child with Down syndrome, learned that her 17-year-old daughter was pregnant, been placed on the Republican presidential ticket, had her personal e-mails hacked into, was straitjacketed by Arizona Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign team, lost an election, returned to Alaska to find it impossible to do her job and spent $500,000 in her own money on legal defense in the aftermath of the presidential campaign. To top it all off, the media have treated her extremely unfairly every step of the way.

Matthew Continetti, associate editor of the Weekly Standard, tells this story in “The Persecution of Sarah Palin,” relating how the media reached new levels of dishonesty and double standard in its treatment of Mrs. Palin during and after the 2008 presidential campaign.

The fact that many still believe Mrs. Palin didn’t know Africa was a continent, couldn’t say which countries participate in the North American Free Trade Agreement, didn’t read any newspapers and claimed she could see Russia from her house, is a reflection of just how good a job the media have done of spreading falsehoods about Mrs. Palin. In the book, Mr. Continetti rejects these claims one by one in convincing fashion.

One striking example is the following: Mrs. Palin’s chief foreign policy aide, Steve Biegun, was walking Mrs. Palin through various free trade agreements in preparation for an interview with Spanish-language media. Mrs. Palin and Mr. Biegun were in a noisy hotel room with the television on, and when Mr. Biegun had finished, Mrs. Palin said, according to Mr. Continetti, “OK Steve, one more time. Go from the top: who’s in NAFTA, what are the key issues, etc.?”

Fox News, the Los Angeles Times, the Huffington Post and MSNBC all construed this as Mrs. Palin not knowing who’s in NAFTA. MSNBC, to its credit, later retracted its claim.

Mr. Biegun has since said the accusation that Mrs. Palin doesn’t know who’s in NAFTA convinces him that “somebody is acting with a high degree of maliciousness.” Mr. Biegun, who talked to Mrs. Palin about a range of issues relating to Africa, from failed states to Sudan, also insisted that whoever is saying she didn’t know Africa was a continent must be distorting “a fumble of words,” as Mr. Continetti says likewise in the book.

Mrs. Palin never said she could see Russia from her house. She said one could see Russia from an island in Alaska, which is perfectly true. It’s also relevant, as the proximity of Alaska to Russia has raised international issues on the use of waterways and drilling for oil on the seafloor. Alaska, as isolated as it is from the 48 contiguous states, has to deal with many of the same issues as an independent sovereign country would.

Listen to Mrs. Palin’s interview with Katie Couric, though, and you’ll find her qualifications treated with little respect. Would Ms. Couric have asked any other governor in the country what newspapers and magazines they regularly read before being tapped for the job? Maybe it was Mrs. Palin’s - in the words of David Letterman - “slutty flight attendant look” that led Ms. Couric to treat Mrs. Palin with less than the respect deserving of the chief executive of a state.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has spent more than 30 years in Washington, gets slightly different treatment. “When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed.” The market crashed in 1929, when Herbert Hoover, not Roosevelt, was president. Television wasn’t released to the public until 1939. But of course, Ms. Couric let it slip by.

The media were out to get Mrs. Palin, and one of the biggest “gotcha” moments in the campaign came when, as Charles Gibson stared down his nose at the pupil before him, it became clear that Mrs. Palin didin’t know the single, correct definition for “The Bush Doctrine.” As Mr. Continetti points out, however, there is no correct definition.

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