Palin/Biden Debate and Public Expectations

CNN's Navarette had this to say about the debate:

As the debate wrapped up, I was pulling into a parking lot for an evening speech to a local Democratic club. The person who greeted me shook his head and suggested that Palin had faked-out her critics by weaving a caricature of an airhead. Then, underestimated, the lipstick-wearing pit bull mauled poor Joe Biden.

Could be. The conversation brought to mind the classic film, "The Hustler." The late Paul Newman pretends to be dreadful at pool, and then, with his mark on the hook, clears the table.

Don't look now, Democrats. But you've been hustled.

We've also seen a trend of early polls from both left-leaning CNN and right-leaning FNC (and I'm sure many others) showing that Palin exceeded expectations. But, what I disagree on is this "hustle" notion. Expectations weren't low because Palin hustled anyone. Expectations were low because there was a deliberate propaganda effort in the MSM which was successful, I'm sure, "beyond their wildest expectations." So successful that even voices on the right were bamboolzed.

The bottom line is that the picture of Palin that's been painted in the MSM has been very, very different from the real Palin we see on live, unscripted, unedited TV. If that isn't proof positive that we're not being given the news straight, I don't know what is. The fact of the matter is that the MSM has collectively engaged in a deliberate effort to destroy her in any way they can. Early efforts were not very well thought out--they got too personal and it backfired, fueling her popularity. But, once the MSM caught their breath and thought things through, they shifted to a strategy of re-defining her identity. She would no longer be the immensely popular maverick governor with accomplishments in ethics reform and energy infrastructure. She would be the radically right wing, dangerously ignorant no-nothing. And to accomplish that, lies were circulated about book banning, CNN lied about the authority of commanders-in-chief of the National Guard, and the press pulled a bait-and-switch gag to try to fool people into thinking she forced rape victims to pay for evidentiary medical exams. As if that wasn't bad enough, they deliberately edited the interview with Charlie Gibson to protray her as unknowledgable and ultra-right wing. And over the last week, instead of seeing the entire Couric interview, we're being fed spittets of Palin being caught in gotcha moments (which I might add, were bad questions to begin with... "tell us what McCain has done to regulate Fannie May besides the bill he sponsored to regulate Fannie Mae? How the hell can you ask a question and demand that the response not include the answer!?!?!). How do you suppose they decide which clips are newsworthy and which are not, hmmm? And then the comedians took over to take the message to the masses of people that don't watch the news on a regular basis.

The scary part is that it worked. Not against committed Dem's, we know where they stand and that's fine. But it's scary that the middle bought it too, because by now they should know that they can't get their news from the network news, CNN, or MSNBC and expect to get the whole picture. (Nor should they believe they could get both sides all the time from FNC, but in this instance, they would have.) And it's scary because they started to change conservative minds as well. For the people that weren't too worried about the power of the slanted MSM in the age of FNC and the internet--myself included--we have been proven horribly, horribly wrong.

They've succeeded in convincing America that someone isn't who she really is by manipulating the information we have. Perception has become unhinged from reality to serve a political end.

I suppose next thing we'll be convinced of is that "we are at war with Eurasia. We have always been at war with Eurasia."