Sarah Palin spoke truth to power today. And by truth to power, I mean utter gibberish to whoever was around.
As we send our young men and women overseas in a war zone to fight for democracy and freedoms, including freedom of the press, we've really got to have a mutually beneficial relationship here with those fighting the freedom of the press, and then the press, though not taking advantage and exploiting a situation, perhaps they would want to capture and abuse the privilege. We just want truth, we want fairness, we want balance.
Like the Gettysburg Address, this is a deeply complex exegesis on the very relation of one part of our nation to another.
Unlike the Gettysburg Address, it's fucking stupid.
First, Palin creates an overarching theme - that those fighting for democracy and freedoms are the same as those fighting the freedom of the press. This works because it's been scientifically proven that no standing army can fight for more than 26 amendments to a written constitution at any one time, and it makes sense to knock off the oldest - and therefore crappiest - one first.
We then establish that the press, as an enemy of the state, seeks not to take advantage or exploit a situation, but wants to "capture" and "abuse" the privilege. Incidentally, when standing militaries reject constitutional rights, they actually become privileges. Little known fact, but there was actually another first amendment to the constitution that guaranteed the right to creamy milkshakes and/or malts. Sadly, it was done away with in order to lower the voting age to 18. Summers just haven't been the same since.
It's not really clear what the difference is between "taking advantage"/"exploiting" and "capturing"/"abusing" something is - in fact, the latter sounds far worse than the former. Given that the military (and therefore all good Americans) appear to be opposed to the press' abuse of its own privilege to exist, the obvious solution involves arresting them all at gunpoint, putting them against the wall and pulling the trigger. You know, Constitution-style.
At the end of the day all we want is truth, fairness and balance. And, preferably, a bullet through some journalists' heads heralded by a disturbingly folksy, "Are you gonna die? You betcha!"
More of Palin's fascist whining is available here.