Neil Gaiman offers perspective

Originally published at Firefly the Great. Please leave any comments there.

When Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, she (allegedly) attempted to get books she didn’t approve of out of the public library. This is scary. Are free speech organizations like the CBLDF and the First Amendment Project going to take this issue on?

No. They are too busy fighting actual cases of censorship from all the way across the political spectrum, to bother with partisan silliness. (Here’s the Snopes report on Palin’s non-existent Bookbanning.)

What you fight is specifics: bad laws, bad arrests and the like. People trying to ban books and comics and people trying to stop other people selling or publishing or creating comics and books and suchlike.You don’t fight “alleged attempts to get books out of a public library” ten years ago. To “take this issue on” I suspect would consist, Father Ted-like, of people walking around Sarah Palin with placards saying “Down with This sort of Thing” and “Careful Now”, which would probably not result in increased freedom of speech. Although it might be funny.

(link, scroll down towards the bottom)

About a week ago, we had CNN on in the break room and all day the hammering home “This is Sarah Palin’s first time on the national campaign trail all by herself! Can she handle it?”

First off, it’s one week after the convention where she was first announced. One week where she campaigned with the presidential candidate she was supporting (and, no doubt, gathering more enthusiasm than the top-billed McCain.

Second, isn’t this sort of thing incredibly sexist? Oooh, can the little girly go out on the road and take care of herself?

Sickening, but I still think it’ll all backfire incredibly, help McCain/Palin, and serve as the deathknell of traditional media.