First They Build You Up?

CBS.com’s Jon Friedman has what must be the most bizarre analysis of why Palinpalooza is doomed:

The primary reason why the Palin bubble will burst is that the media will decide that they are bored with her. They’ll need to move to shine a light on a fresh issue or individual. This is how the world works in the age of 24/7 news cycles. Whether the subject is Britney Spears, Michael Jordan or Sarah Palin, we inevitably raise stars to mythic levels, out of all reasonable proportions. Then we knock them down. . . . I’ll be interested to see how Palin — not to mention McCain and the Republican campaign machine — reacts when the media’s disillusionment sets in for real.

I must have missed that first phase of the dialectical where the media endlessly puffed up Palin as a Next Big Thing. Maybe it’s because I was distracted by outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Atlantic as they relentlessly attacked her. You’ll recall that the Times, for instance, was so far out on a limb against Palin that they even had to retract one of its attack stories about her. Oh, and there was that the US Weekly cover hit that ran on the day after the GOP convention wrapped up. And some other somewhat negative stuff here and there with op-ed writers insisting that Palin wasn’t really a woman and was a really bad mother and was a hypocrite for not aborting her youngest child and . . . well, you get the picture. So maybe Friedman is living in an alternate universe. Or maybe he’s just warning Republicans that his brethren in the mainstream media have not yet begun to fight.

Related Content