THE PALIN EMAIL TRIUMPH

Emails from Sarah Palin’s time as Alaska governor "show a double-fisted Blackberry user fully comfortable with handling nearly every aspect of state government," wrote the McClatchy Newspapers.

The emails paint "a picture of her as an idealistic, conscientious, humorous and humane woman slightly bemused by the world of politics, said the London Telegraph."

"She comes across as practical and not doctrinaire," wrote Molly Ball in Politico.  "She was hands-on and adverse to partisan politics."

This was not what journalists expected to write.  "If critics were hoping to see Palin revealed as a hypocrite, they’re out of luck," said Ms. Ball.  "Her private statements are in line with her public ones."

Journalists strained to say something critical.  "She may have attended four universities, but Sarah Palin still writes like an eighth-grader," wrote Christine Roberts in the New York Daily News.

Her emails were given to two writing experts to analyze.  "Both agree that the Tea Party favorite writes as if she is in middle school," Ms. Roberts said.

You couldn’t tell from Ms. Roberts’ lede that both experts concluded Ms. Palin writes better than do most corporate executives.

John Katzman, CEO of 2tor, is a Democrat who said he "would have loved to support my hunch that Ms. Palin is illiterate."  But she scored better on the Flesch-Kincaid readability test than his emails do, Mr. Katzman acknowledged.

"She’s very concise.  She gives clear orders.  Her sentences and punctuations are logical," said Paul Payack, president of Global Language Monitor.  "She has much more of a disciplined mind than she is given credit for."

The Sarah Palin who emerges from the email dump isn’t the partisan snowbilly of media caricature.  She’s a tough-minded reformer who took on Big Oil and corrupt members of her own party and beat them.

Ms. Ball described her as "the long-lost Palin."  But the real Sarah Palin wasn’t "lost."  The news media hid her.  Journalists were too busy scouring her personal life for hints of scandal to report on Ms. Palin’s accomplishments in public office.

"When my co-host, Mika Brzezinski and I arrived at the Republican National Convention (in 2008), we were met by excited network chiefs and newspaper reporters who were chasing down a sleazy Internet rumor that Trig Palin was not Palin’s child," said MSNBC talk show host Joe Scarborough.  "Mika received a number of calls from her friends at the major networks gleefully passing along the Internet lie before cheering for Palin’s demise."

Many journalists were out to get Sarah Palin from the get go, and still are.  Why?

"Democrats and the media will always tell you who they are afraid of by virtue of who they spend their time trying to destroy," said radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

After Ms. Palin’s speech at the Republican National Convention, Jay Newton-Small of Time magazine wrote: "the dilemma the (Obama) campaign has about the emergence of this political superstar comes down to this: it can’t possibly ignore her, but going after her directly could easily backfire."

A public relations firm with ties to David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s chief media strategist, was responsible for Internet smears of Ms. Palin, the Weekly Standard reported.

They needn’t have bothered with the Astroturfing (an Axelrod speciality). Journalists did the Obama campaign’s dirty work for it.

Pundits declare Ms. Palin won’t run for president, and couldn’t win if she did.  Is this what they really think?  Or is it what they hope Republicans will believe if they say it often enough?

The strange new respect some pundits recently have developed for Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn, may also be an effort to divert Republican attention away from Sarah Palin.  Ms. Bachmann, like Ms. Palin, is a beautiful, gutsy woman with strong conservative principles who expresses them.  But she has nowhere near Ms. Palin’s record of accomplishment, or her support among conservatives.

"Journalists are building (Bachmann) up now so they can tear her down later," said George Neumayr of the American Spectator.

Nonstop criticism has hurt Sarah Palin in the polls.  It would be difficult to overcome the false picture painted of her. But the emails, and a forthcoming documentary about her years as governor are steps in that direction.  Furthermore, the now naked — and often comical — partisanship has hurt the credibility of her adversaries in journalism.

"What’s really embarrassing to Big Media — or would be if they had any shame — is the contrast between the Palin frenzy and the lap-dog lethargy with which it covered the details of Obamacare,  the administration’s near trillion dollar stimulus package, or economy-killing regulatory decisions," said the editors of the New York Post.

Back when the reputation of the "mainstream" media was better, and its monopoly near total, another conservative derided as stupid and extreme prevailed when he emerged on center stage and dispelled the media caricature of him.

In an ABC poll in May of 1980, Ronald Reagan trailed President Jimmy Carter by a larger margin than Sarah Palin trails President Obama now.  But once he got the GOP nomination, Reagan was able to present himself to voters without the news media’s filters.  He won the election in November by a landslide:  489 electoral votes vs. Carter’s 49..

Republicans already think Sarah Palin is more like Ronald Reagan than is any other presidential aspirant.  If she chooses to run, she may resemble the Gipper in yet another way.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.