WHO reignited the culture war?

I would link a story, but I don't need to. Nearly all major news outlets have made the claim in one segment/article or another: Sarah Palin's nomination revived the culture war. First the major media outlets overplayed select aspects of Palin's record, then staged a tantrum that a "war" was taking shape when her supporters came to her defense. McCain is a moderate who never put much stock in the phony "conflict" that draft-dodging journalists and College Republicans have been propagating ever since Pat Buchanan choked out his last breath of relevance in at the Republican National Convention in 1992. For him, an war with actual elements of danger and death was quite enough. What makes this "culture war" so much fun for those who fight is that the only casualties are the reputations of public figures and no exercise of any kind is required. Unless you count the tired process of your average news cycle, but that's not the type of exercise I mean. Observe:



So, we can all agree that the guys who use the term culture war want to censor those they disagree with and shut them and their families off from dissenting opinions. For them, this is a war that is won by never seeing or hearing from your enemy.

With that unfortunate example of neoconservatives and paleoconservatives embracing out of the way, the question remains: Did Sarah Palin bring it back? I first began supporting Palin for VP in May of this year, and started this blog a week or so before the nomination. What brought me to this conclusion was not her stance on abortion or evolution, but her record as governor of Alaska. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to find her religious views expressed anywhere if one searched articles pertaining to her in the Summer of 2008, as I did.

Instead, there were bountiful examples of a brash independent streak that had won her enemies on both sides of the aisle. According to Bloomberg News

Ms. Palin threatened to evict Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's biggest oil company, and partners BP PLC, Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips Co. from a state-owned gas field, winning their promise to increase Alaska's natural gas output 17 per cent.

This and other moves led conservatives to compare her to Hugo Chavez, and her policies to socialism. That was the Sarah Palin I supported and continue to support today. You wouldn't recognize it today, because of all the sensationalism the media has engaged in by pointing out her belief in God or that neither she nor her daughter chose infanticide, a fact she only chose to reveal when the media began suggesting she had faked her pregnancy while Bristol delivered Trig Palin. This is not to suggest that the media is liberally biased. I am wary of such a blanket statement, but it is obvious with every passing day that the media is simplistic and ruthless and is motivated by factoids, not facts, sound bites, not speeches, and profit, not informing. It is no wonder that they would seize upon isolated speech excerpts, trivial meetings and family issues to turn one of the few credible reformers left in this country into an extremist Christian who will lord over McCain the way Cheney was assumed to pull President Bush's strings. Anyone keeping score knows it was the sensationalists, not Palin, who reanimated the rotting corpse of the dishonest culture war.