Journalists trash Palin speech

"Now I know, the dumbness doesn't come just from soundbites," one says into an open mic

By Joan Walsh
Salon.com

I know she's going to make herself a martyr over this – and among her followers, it will probably work – but Sarah Palin got remarkably candid reviews of her Friday night speech in Turlock, Calif., when an open mic picked up reporters savaging the former Alaska governor's performance. I just checked Palin's Facebook page and Twitter feed, and she hasn't started trying to drum up sympathy by trashing the Lamestream Media yet, but she almost certainly will. (So far the Lamestream Media hasn't covered the open mic kerfuffle; I found the story on The Political Carnival.)

Palin's entire appearance was controversial. Raising money for California State University-Stanislaus, she reportedly charged a $75,000 speaker's fee and asked for another $18,000 or so in expenses, including first class plane travel for her entourage and luxury accommodations. Although CSU is a public university, its leaders didn't disclose Palin's demands -- saying a private foundation was raising the funds, and was thus exempt from public disclosure laws – and we only know about them because intrepid student journalists found the contract in a dumpster.

In her speech Friday night, the vengeful Palin trashed the students as "dumpster divers" with her trademark meanness: "Students who spent their valuable, precious time diving through dumpsters before this event in order to silence someone ... what a wasted resource," she told the crowd. "A suggestion for those Dumpster divers: Instead of trying to tell people to sit down and shut up ... spend some time telling people like our president to finally stand up." CSU student journalists were barred from the speech.

(More here.)