Journalism Fail

Today's lucky winner: Mikey Bloomberg, come on down!

Former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin used her first trip to Asia to attack the for creating asset bubbles and encouraging excessive risk-taking that hurt working-class Americans.

In a wide-ranging, 80-minute speech to fund managers in Hong Kong today, Palin spoke about issues ranging from Alaskan fishing to energy independence to U.S.-Sino ties. She repeated calls for "market-oriented" health-care reform and said governments shouldn't regulate executive compensation.

"The Fed and the government sent a message to companies that the bigger that you are, the more problems that you get yourself into, the more likely the government is to bail you out," Palin said in the closed door speech, according to a tape of the event given to Bloomberg News. "Of course the little guys are left out then. We're left holding the bag, all the moms and pops all over America."

That would be the barf bag you would presume that some of the attendees were clutching. I mean, I don't normally feel much sympathy for a bunch of wealthy fund managers, but Jesus---they paid for a speech, and ended up having to sit through 80 minutes of this crap?

But I digress:

The speech was Palin's first major public appearance since quitting as Alaska governor on July 26, less than a year after she ran with John McCain in an unsuccessful campaign against now-President Barack Obama. People at the event said she focused on a wide range of global and domestic issues rather than her own political future.

"It was a very safe speech," said Suyeon An of RCM Asia Pacific Ltd, who left before Palin stopped talking. "Boring, I have to say."

Zzzzzzzz . . . Now, compare and contrast to AFP's take on the same event:

Her performance, which was closed to the media, divided opinion.

Some of those who attended praised her forthright views on government social and economic intervention and others walked out early in disgust.

"She was brilliant," said a European delegate, on condition of anonymity.

"She said America was spending a lot of money and it was a temporary solution. Normal people are having to pay more and more but things don't get better. The rich will leave the country and the poor will get poorer."

Two US delegates left early, with one saying "it was awful, we couldn't stand it any longer" . . .

Although she touched on the threat posed to the United States by terrorism and talked about links with traditional US allies in Asia such as Japan, Australia and South Korea, one Asian delegate complained she devoted too much time to her home state of Alaska.

"It was almost more of a speech promoting investment in Alaska," he said, declining to be named.

"As fund managers, we want to hear about the United States as a whole, not just about Alaska. And she criticised Obama a lot but offered no solutions."

Another said he was disappointed that she took only pre-arranged questions . . .

Several delegates saw the speech as a sign of her ambitions to run as a presidential candidate in 2012 and a useful indication of the potential direction of US politics in the future.

"It was fairly right-wing populist stuff," one US delegate said.

Palin blasted Obama's proposals on healthcare, reiterating a previous statement made to the press that the plan would include a bureaucratic "death panel" that would decide who gets assistance, he said.

Another [delegate] from the United States said: "She frightens me because she strikes a chord with a certain segment of the population and I don't like it."

Amazing. The rampant "death panel" bullshit. The media lockout. The pre-approved questions. The small-minded (and shameless) Alaskan parochialism. The utter lack of any substance on matters of policy. The "right-wing populism." The American delegates walking out on her speech, and the others who couldn't stand her rap. The polarizing nature of her message: All on display in the AFP dispatch, none of it in Bloomberg. Channeling DeLong, why oh why can't we have a better French press corps?

---Vitelius