HYPROCRI-MOOSE, IT'S ON THE LOOSE

When the media doesn't pay enough attention to Sarah Palin's antics (her book tour, her holiday Facebook manifestos, her show on TLC, her daughter on Dancing With The Stars), it's because we have a "liberally biased media that can't handle a strong female Republican media figure."

So when the media does pay attention to her, it's because they're obsessed with her, see.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: I should explain again as I do every week to the viewers as a kind of a viewer's guide that this is the weekly Sarah Palin segment in which the impression is given that the whole of conservatism in America is encapsulated in this one glorious woman?

PETERSON: Why do you oppose her candidacy if she has one?

KRAUTHAMMER: I never took a position on her candidacy. I am making a comment on the editorial judgment of this show in which she is prominently figured week after week, which is I think in the liberal imagination she is and will always be the only representative of conservatism of any importance.

COLBY KING, WASHINGTON POST: She is the most significant Republican, conservative around. She brought this your party back from oblivion to this wonderful state that it is in now...

NINA TOTENBERG, NPR: (Laughter)

KING: ...where the nation’s Democrats are quaking in their wake.

KRAUTHAMMER: You see what I mean?

KING: You ought to be proud of her. The elites, the elitists in the Republican Party puts this poor woman from Wasilla down. I think it’s a shame.

KRAUTHAMMER: Perfect evidence of how liberals are obsessed with Sarah Palin.

And it's the perfect no-win game.  The media cannot win either way when it comes to Palin.  If they report on her, it's evil bias against her.  If they ignore her, it's evil bias against her.  No matter what happens, Palin wins and the media loses, because Palin and the Republicans change the script to fit every time.  If the media bites on her self-serving narcissism, they're consumed with trying to destroy her.  If they take the high road and ignore her obvious news-generating gambits, they're misogynist "lamestream media".

The great part is the Village media is doing it to themselves.  She drives copy.  They can't not cover her, but if they do she rails against them.  She's grown too powerful to dismiss out of hand as a result.  They can't turn her off, so it becomes a mutual feeding frenzy instead.

She gets to sit in the eye of her hurricane and watch the damage around her.  And yet common sense would dictate that it's Sarah Palin obsessed with her own constant efforts to be newsworthy, outrageous, and omnipresent.  The Village is glad to enable her.  Krauthammer bemoans the media's obsession, and yet Palin refuses to stay out of the news for even 24 hours with her family's spectrum-saturating shenanigans, designed to create as much news as possible.

He's right in a sense that the media is enabling this behavior, in which case Krauthammer might want to see if he can convince her to tone it down.  Good luck with that.  The love/hate relationship will continue until one of them decides they don't need the other anymore.  Sadly, that won't be until at least early 2012.