Monday, November 16, 2009

Priceless

H/T Say Anything Blog. Evidently, Newsweak has come out with a cover story portraying Sarah Palin as a problem for the GOP and the country. Now apart from whether Palin is the next Reagan or the next Carter (my opinion; neither), and apart from the fact that Newsweak has been a fishwrapper for decades, consider the headline on the cover:

How do you solve a problem like Sarah?

Sound familiar? Yep, it's a play on the song from The Sound of Music, and ever oblivious to the implications of actual literature, Newsweak conveniently forgets the fact that Maria is the heroine (correction courtesy of Pentamom) of the story, undermining Evan Thomas' thesis.

One would figure that the liberal arts grads that work the editorial pages of Newsweak would be able to figure this one out more quickly than an engineer like myself, but I guess not.

4 comments:

pentamom said...

Would they also be able to figure out that she's not the hero, but the heroine? ;-)

This shouldn't come as a shock given Newsweek's participation in the "slobbering love affair" (HT: Bernie Goldberg) but isn't portraying Sarah Palin as a problem IN THE HEADLINE just a little bit of a biased approach? I mean, it's not exactly my view, but some people might consider her the solution for what ails the GOP. Starting the story on the premise that she's the problem isn't analysis, it's taking a position.

Bike Bubba said...

Thanks for the correction. I was using, um, grammatical gender--yeah, that's right! You can use the masculine form for both sexes......

:^)

To be fair to Newsweak, it's a column, not a news article--I think. Even so, transparent, poorly put together hack jobs like this don't make them look very smart.

pentamom said...

Well, it's not just a grammatical issue, it also rather diminishes the good Captain to make her the sole leading-positive-character as implied by using the inclusive form, as though she is THE leading-positive-character, no?

Yes, I thought it was probably written as an opinion piece, but it's the cover story of a purported """""news""""" (lots of quotes to express the degree of tenuousness of that usage) magazine. It's not the Nation or National Review, so it shouldn't lead with taking a position. Or so it seems to me.

Pilgrim said...

They shouldn't lead with an opinion piece.

Unless the subject of your opinion piece is an attractive, athletic woman sporting running shorts and a million dollar smile.

I think I'd agree with Mrs. Palin on many, many things. But I'm sick of seeing her. She should return to the higher calling of motherhood and homemaking.

Related: Liberal merino wool activewear afficianados upset that Palin is modeling for one of their favorite brands (and the brand's response)