-By Warner Todd Huston
This particular Palin report is funny for it’s cluelessness, but a spokesman for the Internet search engine company Lycos is astounded that people are still interested enough in Governor Sarah Palin to put her name in the search field of an Internet search engine like Lycos or Google. After all, we have Obama, now, the spokesman says. Why do we need Palin info still?
The quotes from Kathy O’Reilly, a spokeswoman for Lycos, were reported by Politico last week and goes to show that the appeal of Sarah Palin is still little understood in many quarters.
Sarah Palin has stayed in the list of the top 5 Internet searches since she was chosen as John McCain’s running mate in October.
The scope of the GOP ticket’s loss — and the role her critics assigned to her in that defeat — hasn’t cooled interest in Palin. She ranked as the No. 2 top news search at Ask.com this week and No. 2 (after Obama) among newsmakers on the AOL 2008 year-end hottest searches list, and she occupied two slots on Politico’s list of the site’s 10 most searched terms. Palin also ranked fourth among Yahoo searches, behind “Black Friday,” a Czech model and a contestant on the hit television show “Dancing with the Stars.” She was the only politician on the Yahoo top 20 list.
To Lycos spokesman O’Reilly, though, it’s all a mystery.
“People are still searching for her in record numbers,” said Kathy O’Reilly, a spokeswoman for Lycos. “How bizarre is that? Obama is the president-elect after the most historic election of all time and you’d think he would be dominating search activity and he only now is going ahead of her.”
“It’s astounding that someone who should have faded into the background after the election is not only making headlines but being searched for in record numbers online,” said O’Reilly. “People still have a fixation with her, for whatever the reason.”
Politico also makes a mistake that is ubiquitous in the media.
The polarizing role she played in the presidential campaign may also be driving the enduring fascination with all things Palin.
Who says she was “polarizing”? The media does. Again this is a use of false authority. Since they say she is “polarizing” she is. But, it isn’t really because of what she did, what she said or how she campaigned that was really “polarizing.” This claim of polarization is the determination of the anti-Republican, anti-conservative media and they all echo it dutifully. Just as the media proclaimed the war in Iraq lost — until it was won — just as they proclaimed John McCain’s campaign finished several times before he actually won the nomination, and just as the press universally assumes the “fact” of global warming, the media relies on its false authority to proclaim the “truth” of a situation and then they all echo the claim in unison. Even when proven wrong, they simply move on to proclaim the next “truth” and promulgate that as an authorized determination that defies debate.
Still, it is amusing that this Lycos woman and Politico just don’t understand why anyone would be interested in Sarah Palin. After all, they have all determined that she is finished, right? And we have The One to save us. So, who needs her?
(Photo credit: FoxNews.com)
____________
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, Human Events Magazine, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
Fair Use: This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in my efforts to advance understanding of political, human rights, economic, democracy, and social justice issues, etc. I believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research, educational, or satirical purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site/blog for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.