Under the harsh light of a glaring Alaskan sun the frailties and foibles of a less than competent pubic administrator became hard to find once they were so solidly pointed out on the national stage. The media is tasked with reporting such failings because the public must know just who and what they are electing. Sadly, they hardly reported on her record in office because she provided them with so much entertaining and distracting fodder every day from the campaign trail. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Eugene Robinson dissects her ‘reasons’ for passing the ball and leaving at half time and it should be noted that John McCain’s legacy shall be forever marred by his reckless pick for a running mate.

The reasons she gave for stepping down are not just contrived or implausible but literally nonsensical. She can most effectively serve the people of Alaska by ceasing to exercise the powers of chief executive? She worries that as a lame duck she would somehow be compelled to waste taxpayer money on useless junkets? In her “Don’t Cry for Me, Alaska” news conference announcing her departure, the folksy non sequiturs—“Only dead fish go with the flow”—were like nuggets of Cartesian logic amid a tub of mush.

But I’m stating the obvious. The thing is, Palin’s unsuitability for high public office has been obvious all along. Tina Fey got it right; the rest of us were far too reluctant to state plainly that the emperor, or empress, had no clothes.

There are basically two reasons why the political class and the commentariat continue to speak and write about Palin as if she were a substantial figure whose presence on the national stage is anything but a cruel, unfunny joke. The first is fear—not of Palin and her know-nothing legions, but of being painted as elitist and sexist.

Despite Palin’s belief that she has been victimized by the press, the press in Alaska clearly didn’t do their job or she would never have been elected governor in the first place and we in the lower forty eight would never have been subjected to her last summer. Claims that Palin is a narcissist are everywhere and one notable thing about narcissists is they are supremely adept at playing the victim while simultaneously persecuting and victimizing their perceived foes. Palin is gifted indeed at this artful subterfuge but it doesn’t qualify her for any ‘higher calling’.

The press failed Alaska just as it failed America in the lead up to the Iraq war. The press are no longer really journalists doggedly seeking the truth for the public. Instead they serve mostly to entertain and secure ad revenues to feed their hungry corporate owners. For example, the Anchorage Daily News is owned by conglomerate McClatchy Papers just like our so called local paper The World is owned by the financially strapped, Iowa based Lee Enterprises.

The consequence of profit defined journalism is the ill informed public all too often elect disastrous choices not only in Alaska but right here in Coos County. Perhaps this is why citizen journalism in the form of blogs is taking such a bite out of the profits of mainstream news media. Maybe mainstream media would do well to pay heed and start really reporting again.