Selective outrage is all the rage in 2017, with the frenzy over Sarah Palin, Kid Rock and Ted Nugent mocking a portrait of Hillary Clinton at the White House being Exhibit A on Thursday.
“Sarah Palin Is on a Roll of Wrongness This Week” is the headline in Time Magazine.
MSNBC’s Joy Reid:
The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman:
“It’s a white trash Mount Rushmore,” CNN’s Paul Begala said Thursday on Anderson Cooper’s show. “I love it. Look at them. That’s just perfect.”
And that’s not to say Palin, Kid Rock or Nugent weren’t acting like it was sophomore year after getting overserved on the school bus on the way to the White House. It was immature. It was disrespectful. The ages of the three combined is 167. Grow up.
But here’s the problem with this story getting as much attention as it is not only in print, but on national cable news outlets, as pointed out on Twitter by the woman with the handle @Krisp_y and first picked up by Mediaite:
President Obama’s guests in the photo above made the obscene gesture towards President Reagan’s portrait when they were at the White House for its first-ever gay pride reception in 2012.
The White House condemned the behavior:
“While the White house does not control the conduct of guests at receptions, we certainly expect that all attendees conduct themselves in a respectful manner. Most all do,” said Shin Inouye, a White House spokesman. “These individuals clearly did not. Behavior like this doesn’t belong anywhere, least of all in the White House.”
The Reagan portrait spectacle got no attention outside of mostly right-leaning online outlets. As for cable news segments, none can be found on the story.
But the Palin-Nugent-Kid Rock story? That’s custom made for 2017 media because it possessed three perfect elements:
Sarah Palin, whom the press still loves to beat up on at every opportunity…
Hillary Clinton, because the protection reflex is still alive and well from the 2016 campaign…
President Trump, because, well, he’s Trump.
Selective outrage.
It’s not only alive and well.
It’s a portrait of media life in 2017.
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