On Consignment Editor and Veteran newspaper man Rick Ansorge criticizes media’s treatment of Governor Palin

Although I have a jaded view of the profession where I spent 20 years of my life — mainstream journalism — even I was surprised at the ferocity of the vicious media campaign designed to destroy Sarah Palin before she could even get out of the starting gate. The commentary I saw on the so-called progressive blogs — which seeped into the MSM in less than 48 hours! — even exceeded the vile attacks against Hillary Clinton.

Over the past few days, I’ve thought about how Sarah Palin should respond to the yapper dogs in the national media who are demanding that she submit to a round of press conferences.

If I were her, I would summon the TV cameras and issue a brief statement that goes something like this:

“Dear Esteemed Members of the Fourth Estate. Although I appreciate that you have an important job to do, I must respectfully decline your request for interviews. You’ve let it be known that my nomination for the Vice Presidency was greeted with laughter in newsrooms across this great land of ours. That’s OK. I’ve been laughed at before. Well, today, the joke is on you. Since you have demonstrated your utter contempt for me, and your eagerness to trivialize this election by focusing on unimportant personal issues, I will not take any questions from you until further notice. Between now and Nov. 4. I will only take questions from everyday American citizens who appear at the series of town hall meetings I’ve planned. Now I don’t mind if these questions are tough, but I will insist that they be serious. The real issues in this election — from the economy and war on terror to health care and the environment — are too important to waste precious time talking about things that have nothing to do with the well-being of the American people or the future of this great nation. So, for now, I kindly suggest that you take your cameras, recorders, and notebooks and stick them where the sun don’t shine. After I’m elected Vice President, I may agree to press conferences if you’ve shown that you’ve developed some rudimentary manners. But if you haven’t, I will happily once more tell you to stick your weapons of mass destruction where the sun don’t shine.”

Then I would smile, wave, and blow them a lipsticked kiss.

Of course, Palin would never do such a thing. But if she did, it would earn her millions of adoring fans and votes.

Because Palin is a conservative Republican, she has nothing to lose by denouncing a corrupt media culture that is bent on destroying her (as it did Hillary Clinton), and everything to gain by refusing to cooperate with it. Although there’s no way I can support Barack Obama because he’s part of the same corrupt culture, I still don’t know if I can support a McCain-Palin ticket. What I do know is that when Sarah Palin told a national TV audience that she was running for office not to earn the “good opinion” of the media elites but to serve the American people, I felt like standing up and cheering.