The Palin pile-on

Media loathe spotlight they themselves place upon prominent figure

A book some years ago called The Dance of Anger was an exploration of dysfunctional intimate relationships.

The so-called "mainstream" media ought to read it, with Sarah Palin in mind.

It's comical to watch them stalk Palin and then blame her for it all. CNN's John King recently staked out the Gettysburg battlefield at night and complained that Palin wasn't there. MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell noted that a Palin appearance in a biker event proved she was "once again showing that she sure knows how to seize the political spotlight."

Irony of ironies, Mitchell, of course, chose to shine that spotlight on Palin herself. Oh, and by the way, she did it with the express intent to cast aspersions on Palin for being an uninvited "distraction" at the Rolling Thunder biker event. She found a biker to say so, too. Problem was, the biker organization confirms that Palin was, indeed, invited to participate.

Talk about going out of your way -- to the point of getting the whole story wrong -- to shine the spotlight on someone! Oh well, you know Andrea Mitchell's point, even if it's an unfair, inaccurate one.

CNN's Jessica Yellin oddly bemoaned the coverage of Palin's bus tour -- which her network featured just about every hour of the broadcast day for several days -- as "a media low point."

Some of us think the media's low point might have been when a network personality confessed to having a thrill run up his leg at the sound of a certain politician. But OK.

Just a thought: If it pains Mitchell and Yellin so much to give Palin the spotlight -- in Mitchell's case, for the express purpose of ginning up complaints about her that have no basis in truth -- why don't they stop? If John King doesn't like being a victim of Palin's schedule -- which he made sure viewers knew wasn't shared with him -- why doesn't he just stop?

Tuesday, when reports of out-of-control Memorial Day weekend behavior and a worse-than-expected double-dip in the housing market were making headlines, the top story at WashingtonPost.com was Sarah Palin's "cat and mouse" game.

These people are positively obsessed with her.

Sorry, but it's certainly not mutual.

The media also questioned Palin's self-styled "founding document" bus trip, wondering out loud if the country really needs to revisit the Constitution, et al.

Um, well, yeah.

"It was a surreal situation," a New York Times blog moaned of the media's stalking in Gettysburg, "given the fact that Ms. Palin and her advisers had shown an almost complete contempt for the press corps and its usual rituals."

Gee, why would she show contempt for the media, especially when they've been so good to her -- and since that's really more of Barack Obama's modus operandi ? Remember how the administration has tried to bar certain reporters and de-legitimize whole news organizations and -- oh, wait. Those were "conservative" news media being mistreated. No big deal. Never mind.

But if any of our political luminaries have contempt for today's whiny, hypocritical, take-sides national media, they're in good company; most of the public does too: A 2009 Pew Research Center survey shows less than one-third of Americans believe news media get the facts straight; 63 percent said the media's stories are often inaccurate.

Maybe the media ought to read Dance of Anger with the public in mind, too.