If Obama's bow has become a thing, why hasn't Palin flag fiasco?
November 17, 2009 9:11 am ET by Eric Boehlert
If the press is going to robotically follow the lead of the right-wing media and spend time actually dissecting Obama's bow over the weekend before Japan's Emperor Akihito, and if the press is going to legitimize the notion that perhaps all kinds of (evil) motives can be interpreted by the common act of protocol, and that maybe Americans can learn all sorts of things about how Obama views America's role in the world from the passing action, than why hasn't the press turned its attention to this week's Newsweek's cover which features Sarah Palin in an apparent breach of protocol?
This is just Boy Scout/Girl Scout 101: you simply do not use the United States flag as a casual prop draped over a chair and lean up against for a photo shoot. Ever. And for a politician to do it, and an overtly stars-and-stripes one like Palin, is really rather shocking.
Yet here where are in the media's unofficial Palin Week when all-things Palin are deemed to be hugely significant, and Palin's apparent etiquette gaffe goes mostly unmentioned. Why? Because the press only cares about what right-wing noisemakers are crowing about. (i.e. The bow.)
UPDATED: Palin (writing in the third person) is reportedly upset that Newsweek used the photo, which was from an older Runner's World issue, because it featured her in a running suit. The fact that it featured her apparently disrespecting the flag is of no concern. The media continue to remain mum.
UPDATED: Conservative pundits now want to talk about the Newsweek cover...to show how biased and sexist Newsweek is. They want the issue of the Newsweek cover to become a thing. But so far, crickets from the right-wing press regarding the fact that Palin trampled etiquette and inappropriately used the United States flag as a photo prop.
UPDATED: Question for CBN's David Brody: Did somebody force Palin pose for this photo? Just asking.
I thought it was President Obama that carried that Anti-American Tag?
When is Fox & Friends & Sean Hannity going to cover this Flag Desecration?
Or are they waiting to follow the lead of Fair & Balanced Fox Nation?
Speak truth to power.
Mr. News
Ergo, media outlets find their most attractive - and lucrative - combination being an anti-Obama story aimed at righties. In fact, the lefties are pretty much ignored by the media outlets because of the lefties' ability to perceive that which is simply petty drama and trivial spats - the two major staples of contemporary media.
Thanx Newsweek for zapping the Right with this cover.
Then there was the note from Palin that the photo was "from an older Runner's World issue". I guess Newsweek was in such a haste to publish that they couldn't do a photo shoot themselves.
And in fairness to Sarah of The North, those photo lights get hot. She was probably properly wrapped in the flag immediately before the photo was taken.
And one of the idiotic rightwing radio talk show hosts in my community was freaking out because he thought that it was a picture of her in a really short shirt, and was done to mock her. But if that was the case, wouldn't the problem be with HER taste and her choice in wearing that short skirt????? But it wasn't a short skirt, it was short shorts, and again, it was her choice to be photographed in those shorts - no one tied her up and made her wear that outfit or agree to have the photo taken, for cripes sake!
What do we see? G.W. Bush with his wife Laura, standing ON the flag, which is laid ON the ground, ON September 11th, 2006.
Delusional -- disingenuous -- dishonest -- dense. These, dear reader, are the stepping stones by which the Publicans navigate their world. And we are too politically correct when we extend them the courtesy of dealing with them as though they were honest and sane.
Noni
Because this is Grape Nuts compared to the REAL things we have to deal with in government.
I don't really care what people say about the flag in this picture, because it has nothing to do with real-world issues. It's minor.
Much like the bowing.
Stop turning these things into tempests in teapots, Tea Partiers.