NRO subtly shows their dislike of Palin

On the heels of Palin's State of the State Address, in which she outlined her conservative views and actions for the state, one of National Review Online's blogs, The Corner, had a post titled:

"Palin's Wardrobe"

The post is a status update of where Palin's RNC clothes are. That's newsworthy right? The title is misleading. It leads you to believe there is some drama on Palin's side of the story, that there is continuing "bad blood" between the RNC and Palin. That is not true. Palin returned her clothes and the RNC simply has done nothing with them. There is nothing newsworthy about this story whatsoever. The only point of posting this was to make readers remember that Palin received clothes in the first place, that they cost lots of money and there was controversy during the campaign about it. It's misleading because they failed, again, to report that Palin didn't even want those clothes.

I question the timing of this post. After weeks, maybe months, of not discussing this stupid wardrobe story, NRO decides to post about it a day after her State of the State Address, thus deflecting any positive attention she might have received that day.

What's worse is that NR's post also links to the new website of a former NR staffer, David Frum, who is on the record as a Republican who cannot stand Palin. They're plugging Frum's new website and sacrificing Palin in the process.

This is unfortunate. I can understand HuffPo, or any other MSM outlet running this story. But it's sad that NR, that used to be the premiere Republican news outlet, decided to go in this direction. What they're saying is they don't want someone with Palin's views and ideals representing the Republican Party. Since Palin leans very "right," and is a fiscal conservative - to me it says that they are not as "right" or conservative anymore.

I realize that NRO shouldn't be endorsing politicians without question, and that's not what I'm saying they should do. However, this misleading post almost goes into "smear" territory, and I don't think Palin deserves that. I also realize NRO is a collection of several writers, and not all of them agree with this. But did they have to link to David Frum to get that extra jab in? That was unnecessary. This post really highlights how there's little direction or leadership in the current state of the Republican Party.

the corner
Friday, January 23, 2009

Palin's Wardrobe [David Freddoso]

The story about Sarah Palin's wardrobe was one of the most overblown of the 2008 election cycle, and unfortunately it came at the expense of a more thorough look at the serious problems with Obama's record. Yet clothes-gate did raise a very legitimate question: Just how well are the Republican Party and Republican campaigns spending donors' money?

Here's an additional, frustrating angle to the story: Palin has returned the clothes to the RNC as promised, but they're inside trash bags at the RNC, collecting dust.

01/23 03:12 PM