Does
Real American in Chief Sarah Palin support the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't
Tell"? Palin retweeted Tammy Bruce, a conservative pundit, who said she
was tired of Republican hostility to gays in the military. "But this
hypocrisy is just truly too much. Enuf already--the more someone
complains about the homos the more we should look under their bed,"
Bruce wrote. With her retweet, Palin kicked up flurry of
internet speculation on what, exactly, her position is on DADT.
Bruce is
cheering
the retweet as an announcement that Palin supports gays serving openly
in the armed forces. "Palin hasn't said anything more on the issue so it
remains unclear exactly what she meant to convey," CNN's
Alexander Mooney
writes, "but the re-tweet is a rare comment from Palin when it comes to
any issue involving gay rights." Others, too, are struggling to figure out what else Palin's tweet could mean.
- Four Possible Explanations for This Tweet The first possibility, Gawker's Max Read
explains, is that Palin is coming out in support of DADT repeal and gay
rights. ... Which isn't out of the question--Palin is not, in the context
of her party, rabidly homophobic." Option number two: She didn't understand what
the tweet meant. Evidence for this conclusion is that it's "not the most
professional way to come out, so to speak, in support of DADT repeal,
is it? (Though, Jesus, why am I looking for professionalism from this
woman of all people? ... )." Then three: "She
clicked the wrong button." Or four: "She thinks we should be looking for
gay people hiding under beds."
- Does This All Come Down to 'Netiquette'? Politics Daily's Matt Lewis
asks. "Palin has not commented on any of this [tweet controversy]...
but I can't help but think that Bruce may be unfairly (or at least
prematurely) interpreting Palin's actions. Re-tweeting, it is generally
agreed, does not necessarily constitute an endorsement."
- This Looks Like an Endorsement, If an Ironic One "There is some irony in this quiet positioning, if indeed
that's what this is," Hot Air's Ed Morrissey muses. "The opposition to repeal of DADT in the Senate was
led by Palin's former running mate, John McCain. Palin has courted the
conservative base in the GOP that opposed the repeal (as did McCain
himself in his re-election bid this year), but managed to avoid taking a
stand either way on this issue, one of the few from which Palin has
shied."
- Palin Represents Today's GOP, Politico's Ben Smith
notes. "More broadly, though, she seems roughly representative of a
Republican Party that isn't particularly interested in fighting the old
culture wars around sex, drugs, and crime--abortion is the enduring
exception, obviously--and more interested in fighting the new culture
wars around the size and meaning of government."
- This Calls for a Palin Tweet Index, Slate's Dave Weigel
writes, a way to gauge how much news/"news" is generated by Palin's
social media activity. "The Palin tweet index is a ratio of how many of
her words appear in a Palin tweet versus how many words appear in a
stories about said tweet. ... A CNN story about the tweet has 294 words,
for a Palin Tweet Index of 147." And Politico's Andy Barr merits an score of 183.
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