Voter Standards: DWTS vs POTUS

The television program Dancing with the Stars has played to record audiences this season thanks to the inclusion of Bristol Palin, the daughter of the former Alaska governor. Ms Palin’s success has resulted in conspiracy theories involving the Tea Party, as well as exploding heads in the media and on the far left. A Wisconsin man even shot up his television in disgust over a performance.

I've never watched DWTS (or American Idol or any other reality show) so I can't comment on Ms Palin's dancing ability or lack of. What has interested me is the usual biased media coverage and the reaction from the “tolerant police” on the left. For example, as reported by Yahoo:

"ABC just might be on the verge of outsmarting itself; using Palin's cult of personality to juice this cycle's ratings while ensuring a result that just might give the lie to everything `Dancing With the Stars' stands for," wrote Eric Deggans, critic for the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times.

Unlike many of the articles, Yahoo offered some non-conspiracy reasons for Ms Palin’s success:

Many of Bristol Palin's supporters readily conceded she wasn't the best dancer. But they admired her pluck and willingness to put herself on the line.

Gretchen Offord, a women's crisis counselor from Shasta Lake, Calif., said she detested the condescension that was directed Palin's way by many of the professional dancers and judges on the show. "I tend to have sympathy for people who have the odds stacked against them," she said. Offord voted for Bristol. She doesn't particularly like Sarah.

Susan Gonzalez, a 26-year-old teacher from Washington, D.C., said she and many of her friends became fans of Bristol as the season went along. "There's something about her that I think every girl in her 20s can relate to," she said. "She's very vulnerable, and watching her gain confidence over the course of the season was kind of interesting — the fact that she's not the best, and she knows she's not the best, but every week she goes on and puts on a brave face." Monday was the first night Palin looked like she was enjoying herself, Gonzalez said. "She kind of seemed relieved that it was over," she said.

In the end, Bristol finished third (of three) in the final. Jennifer Grey was the winner, but all the headlines screamed Bristol Palin comes up Last, Again, on "Dancing". Just for grins, I googled “Bristol Palin” along with the exact phrase “last place” and received 249,000 results. Several wrote “Surprising probably no one, Bristol Palin came in last once again during last night's DWTS finals” or similar words.

Many of the comments by readers of the leftist blogs can’t be printed here, but here’s one from Yahoo.

however you slice it, these retards were voting for who palin was rather than competence. Obviously they either don't think competence is important or don't even know what it is. Unfortunately there are a lot of them. They are called conservatives or in their purest form "tea party." Not good for anybody, even themselves.

So now, competence during an election has suddenly become important to those on the left. Ms Palin typically received low scores from the show’s judges, but made up the difference during the voting by the viewers. The media and the critics on the left thus claimed that the voting became a contest based on popularity and personalities rather than on qualifications.

Yet, this is the same media that deliberately played down the issues (and the candidates’ qualifications or lack of) during the last US Presidential election. Realizing that the socialistic Dems could not win on experience (competence or qualifications), or a platform of higher taxes and spending, redistribution of wealth, killing babies, record deficits, amnesty for illegals, and gutting our defense, the media purposely buried the issues and concentrated on “Barry’s” personality.

While those on the left always march in step with the media’s worship of the chosen one, most independents were so caught up in the sound bites of making history that few bothered to check his slight, but very revealing record.

Now however, when Ms Palin advanced week after week on her popularity, the left and the media cry foul. They recoil in horror at any suggestion of a literacy test for voters in a presidential election, but suggest a PHD in the Arts be required in order to vote on DWTS. They send the message that the candidate's qualifications and competence don’t need to be considered when voting for the nation’s highest office, but when voting for DWTS contestants, a much higher standard must be applied.