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2010-02-09

2010-01-19

Agriculture

Lifestyles

Friday, November 20, 2009 10:01 PM

Why won’t the media stop stressing about Sarah Palin?

By The Hutchinson News

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

That adage aptly applies to the hoo-ha over Sarah Palin’s new book.

If “Going Rogue” had been printed without any cable TV talking heads hearing about it, would we be hearing a peep out of Palin?

The former half-term governor of Alaska is being treated like royalty by TV queens Oprah Winfrey and Barbara Walters, both of whom scored interviews with Palin. Most cable TV commentators — at least the far left ones like MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann — likely will never see Palin sit down for an interview with them. But they have boosted “Going Rogue” book sales with their nightly chatter about the book and its multiple inaccuracies.

Why the fascination over a woman who was plucked from obscurity nearly 14 months ago by a presidential contender whose campaign staff now regrets the plucking? Perhaps talk of health care reform and the jobless rate and hunger in America is too taxing for cable news.

Ironically it is not the former governor’s small but vocal fan base or even the national Republican Party encouraging Palin’s fascination with herself. With one exception: the crusty, hyperbolic Rush Limbaugh, who called “Going Rogue” one of the “most substantive policy books I’ve read.”

Yikes.

Indeed, Palin owes her blockbuster book sales to the same liberal media she blames for dashing her hopes of becoming the first woman vice president. They can’t shut up about her.

And that has led to the printing of 1.6 million copies of “Going Rogue,” according to The Wall Street Journal. But The Journal also noted that “major booksellers declined to release sales figures.” The reason, according to the Huffington Post? Some bookstores already put the book in the bargain bins and were selling it for less than $5.

Doesn’t really matter, at least from Palin’s perspective. Political guru David Gergen claimed that by the time all is said and read about “Going Rogue,” Palin will have pocketed a cool $10 million.

She gets the last laugh — all the way to the Wasilla State Bank.

— The Hutchinson News