GOP spins nice yarn about Palin

ST. PAUL -- Here we are in the Twin Cities awash in a mythical version of Sarah Palin that looks little like the real woman but features few of the facts.

This is the kind of turning point in an election you often don't realize because things just don't add up.

When you don't know much about someone, it's very easy to buy the story line being offered. And once that initial message gets out there, it's impossible to take it back.

What a difference one week has made in this campaign.

Early last week it appeared John McCain was desperately clinging to the part of his biography that actually proves his character. When Jay Leno jokingly asked McCain how many houses he owns, the senator sternly reminded viewers about his "house" in the Hanoi Hilton.

Sadly, the honorable service and true American heroism McCain displayed during his five years of capture and torture are as hard to remember at this convention as John Kerry's Silver Star, Bronze Star and Purple Heart were last cycle.

The machine on the right (it sort of goes soft money, hard money, campaign, Fox News, talk radio, churches) doesn't let facts get in the way of the myth.

Sarah Palin is this cycle's most prominent myth, and any journalistic attempts to present facts that might muddy the beautiful storyline are being greeted as sexism and worse, an attack on her family.

The right has found a champion of the unborn who loves guns and has "executive" experience.

When the country was first introduced to Palin last Friday in Ohio, she spun a nice little yarn about being a reformer. "In fact, I told Congress, 'Thanks, but no thanks,' on that Bridge to Nowhere," she told supporters.

In fact, what Palin said then wasn't true. Little Miss Reformer may know how to field dress a moose, but she was sucking at the trough with the rest of Alaska on the $400 million bridge to an island of 50. When she ran for governor, way back in 2006, she encouraged the use of state funds to levy federal earmarks for the bridge.

"The window is now while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist," she said at the time.

But Republican delegates here see that simple fact as an attack on a woman. And not just any -- she's a Christian woman, mother of five. We can't let the facts get in the way of Palin's introduction to America.

If you thought Hillary Clinton suffered sexism, you ain't seen nothing yet. This victimization will be felt in the Christian community before those pundits stop talking about last night's speech.

Palin was such an unknown commodity this week that speaker after speaker here knew little about her. What a perfect opportunity to create the myth.

On Monday various speakers at the convention referred to her as either Pay-lin or Pah-lin. Republican National Committee vice-chairman Jo Ann Davidson called her Sarah Pawlenty.

Into this abyss of unknowns enters the myth-making machine that has turned Palin into a "proven reformer." Never mind that she has no security clearance, has traveled abroad only to U.S. military bases (and Ireland) and couldn't even run a car wash properly. She's even raised taxes. In Alaska, where every man woman and child gets handed more money each year than anyone anywhere.

Delegate after delegate say the same thing about Palin -- "a breath of fresh air."

"Hell's bells, she's got more experience than Barack Obama and Joe Biden put together," said Al Valdez, attending his fifth GOP convention, this time as a guest.

By Tuesday "the message" started turning into an attack on the press. Typically that signals desperation. Here it simply triggered the victimization process that goes from the "angry left" to the pundits to CNN/MSNBC (never Fox News) on down to local press.

During Tuesday's breakfast meeting, Lynn Jones, the wife of Las Vegas alternate delegate Roger Jones, prayed for protection from "those who would do us harm." Later, Jones told me she hadn't personally felt threatened but saw media reports of broken glass at businesses nearby the St. Paul Hotel.

"The selection of Governor Palin has the other side and their friends in the media in a state of panic," Fred Thompson said Tuesday night. "She is a courageous, successful, reformer, who is not afraid to take on the establishment."

Earlier, during a lull between speakers, the delegates danced to Journey's "Don't Stop Believing," the anthem for the white trash biopic "Monster." Small town girl indeed.

As a woman I find it offensive that Palin suggests she's going to be the one to put the final crack in the glass ceiling.

Republicans like their "babes" this way. If the only controversy with Palin seems to be in the media, then the American people just see the myth of the muckraker in mukluks.

No fact. No matter. What a story.

Contact Erin Neff at (702) 387-2906, or by e-mail at eneff@reviewjournal.com.