The former Governor of Alaska took too the safe, unquestioning, air of Fox News Channel yesterday to respond one more time to the controversy that erupted in the days after the shootings in Arizona, as well as the controversy that erupted after her video message last week:
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin insisted Monday that she did know the definition of, and correctly used, the term “blood libel” in recently striking back at her critics.
“Blood libel obviously means being falsely accused of having blood on your hands,” Palin said in a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity.
It was Palin’s first interview since the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and the political fallout that followed. After catching flak for rhetoric that led some to pin blame for the shootings partly on her, Palin released an eight-minute video statement last week that denounced the mainstream media for having manufactured “a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn.”
That led to reprimands from Jewish leaders for her use of the term, which has its roots in false, anti-Semitic charges from centuries ago that Jews would use the blood of Christian children to make Passover matzo.
Asked to respond to critics who questioned if Palin really knew what she was saying, the former governor responded: “I don’t know how the heck they would or wouldn’t know” if she understood the definition.
“It goes back to the Jewish people being falsely accused,” she said. “A group of people being falsely accused of having blood on their hands.”
As Palin defended the term by insisting that she has been unfairly targeted, the former governor declared that her response to the tragedy was not “about me.”
“My defense wasn’t self-defense, it was defending those who were falsely accused,” she insisted. “I was puzzled as to why, and before facts were even gathered, why the mainstream media was pointing fingers.”
And her sometimes inflammatory rhetoric, Palin said, has not crossed a line. “When I talk about being up in arms, I’m talking about getting to the voting booth,” she contended.
The question then becomes, of course, why she doesn’t just fire people up about getting out to vote instead of putting the entire thing in the context of references to guns, and violence, and confrontation. While I reject the notion that Palin’s rhetoric had anything to do with what happened in Arizona, I do have to wonder about the psychology of a movement that is so obsessed with this kind of imagery, and whether it is really an appropriate way to bring about political change in a pluralistic, democratic, society.
You can watch the three-part video, which I’ve embedded below, for yourself, but I think Frances Martlet at Mediaite pretty much hits the mark here:
Sarah Palin may be known as “Mama Grizzly,” a political lightning rod, a published author, and a reality TV star, but tonight on Hannity she was a woman scorned. Pupils shaking and voice struggling to remain steadfast, the former Alaska governor gave defending herself post-Tucson (and post-controversial video response) to Sean Hannity the old college try, but at some point it was hard to remember whether it was Palin or Rep. Gabrielle Giffords who took bullets two weeks ago.
(…)
Palin’s course of action during this interview was a perfect strategy from the perspective of a Fox News contributor- she sold her story, played the victim, and equated her suffering with that of the people she claims to represent (Hannity viewers among them). For the rest of America, however- especially swing voters- wallowing in self-pity when six people are dead and a Congresswoman is in the hospital cannot be expected to go over well. Her task tonight, should she be interested in the presidency, was to prove that in times of crisis she could keep her cool and address the situation while looking beyond herself and not getting in the way of the tragedy. Instead, she stood front and center before it, reminding Americans that she- and, vicariously, they- were the true victims of this massacre, not the people that were shot two Saturdays ago. As brilliant as her argument may be as a sales pitch for herself, it was far from presidential, and her enemies are not likely to resist the temptation of chewing on her political remains tomorrow morning.
As we’ve seen in the polling that has started to trickle out in the wake of the Arizona shootings and the controversy that followed, it is fairly clear that Palin did absolutely nothing to help herself over the past week, and may have actually fatally hurt any chance she might have had to redefine herself for independents and Republicans who are, to say the least, unsure about her.
No doubt, her interview with Sean Hannity will be lauded by her supporters, but, as David Zurwaik noted at The Baltimore Sun, the appearance was really more pep rally than serious journalism:
Hannity doesn’t really do interviews with her. He plays defense attorney asking about “criticisms” made of her, and then setting her up with graphics and loaded questions so she can attempt to refute the charges made by hateful people against her. He questions nothing, no matter how contradictory or screwy her answers might be.
Here is her answer when he asked her about allegations that she took down the image of crosshairs targeting the district of U.S. Rep Gabriel Giffords after the congresswoman was shot. The image was on the website of her PAC.
“You know, I believe that someone in the PAC — in fact, the contrac
“criticisms” made of her, and then setting her up with graphics and loaded questions so she can attempt to refute the charges made by hateful people against her. He questions nothing, no matter how contradictory or screwy her answers might be.
Here is her answer when he asked her about allegations that she took down the image of crosshairs targeting the district of U.S. Rep Gabriel Giffords after the congresswoman was shot. The image was on the website of her PAC.
“You know, I believe that someone in the PAC — in fact, the contract graphic artist — did take it down,” she began.
My goodness, I thought, almost a straight answer from Palin, even if she was distancing herself with the “contract graphic artist” language. But she was only beginning.
“And I have no problem with it being taken down,” she continued. “I don’t think it was inappropriate [that it was taken down] if it was going to cause much heartburn or even more controversy…. Knowing that it had nothing to do with an apolitical or perhaps even left-leaning criminal killing these innocents….I didn’t have a problem with it being taken down, if in fact it has been taken down.”
(…)
But a responsible interviewer might have asked her about the seeming contradiction between “it was taken down” and “if in fact it has been taken down.” He might also point out that folks are not interested in whether she had a “problem” with it being taken, they want to know why she or members of her team DID take it down. Was it because they were ashamed of it after the shooting?
Instead, Hannity showed an old bulls-eye map that the Democrats once had up and then offered a statement about how Bill Clinton had a “war room” and how “war analogy is very common in politics.” All of it was preamble to asking, “So, why do you think the left singled out you out, Governor?”
Again, this isn’t journalistic interviewing, it is what a defense attorney would do while questioning his client in an effort to refute charges against her.
There is much in an “interview” like this that is worthy of being mocked, and those people who aren’t already Palin (and Hannity) fans are unlikely to be impressed by her performance here. Palin ends the interview by saying she isn’t going to “sit down and shut up.” The thing is, most people aren’t saying that’s what she needs to do. Instead, they’re asking that she think about what she says before she says it, and that she realize that, most of the time, the story isn’t really about her.
Video:
