Sarah Palin's Emails--A Cure For Insomnia

Your mission--should you choose to accept it--is to comb through 24,000 pages worth of Sarah Palin’s emails and find something worth talking about.

Any takers?

Anyone?

Well, of course there are: The New York Times; The Washington Post, and others. In fact, on The New York Times’ website--as well as the Post’s--there’s an invitation for readers to search through the emails and point out interesting bits of information, “gotcha” moments, correlations, anecdotes. 

Sean Hannity over at Fox News with his typical mixture of pugnacity and adolescent dimwittedness, has accused the two organizations of trying to smear Ms. Palin by enlisting a mob of readers in its cause.

Mr. Hannity, unfortunately but unsurprisingly, misses the point. These newspapers are enlisting help in the analysis of these emails not to smear her--they love her--but because they are desperately hoping there is something worth reporting about her.

Anything worth reporting, really. They’re praying some political savant will find what they cannot. Maybe someone who lines his sad one room apartment with old issues of Foreign Affairs, and sleeps on pillows made from Newsweek under blankets of The Washington Post will be able to find what no other human being will be able to--a story.

Any story, because right now reporting on Sarah Palin is about the closest thing the news media has to American Idol.

There isn’t, by the way, a story here. I’ve looked through a lot of the emails--more than is probably safe without . Believe me, within a few days everyone will be talking about how there is nothing in the emails to report--at least nothing that we didn’t already know.  

If you read them this is what you’ll discover.

• Sarah Palin doesn’t like the media. 
• She has a thin skin. 
• She really loves her husband and is supportive of her staff. 
• She was caught off guard by the “Troopergate” scandal. 
• She has rabid supporters within the disenfranchised conservative base. 

Etc, etc.

The thing is, we can’t seem to stop talking about Sarah Palin. Even though it’s a new presidential season, it’s the same old storyline. Watching her is like watching an embarrassing parent wear out her welcome at a child’s slumber party. You kind of want her to leave, but at the same time, she’s funny in that awkward, “did she just say that?” kind of way, and there’s just no telling what she’s going to say next--so maybe you don’t want her to go just yet.

I don’t know what she’s going to say next, but let’s hope it’s more interesting than what I read today.