Commentary
Justice Palin?! Judge For Yourself
- by J. Max Robins , Featured Columnist, March 23, 2016
To beef up her credentials for her inevitable appointment to the Supreme Court by President Donald J. Trump, Sarah Palin announced she was developing a “Judge Judy”-style reality show. Palin inked the deal in February, not long after she became one of the first prominent Republicans to endorse The Donald’s whirlwind White House run.
Unfortunately, the ex-governor of Alaska’s show is not expected to launch until 2017, which means she won’t have any vital televised jurisprudence experience under her judicial robes in time for Trump to appoint her in his first 90 days to fill the Supreme’s seat vacated by the late Antonin Scalia. Actuarial charts tell me that Trump is likely to have the opportunity to nominate Palin to the highest court in the land during the last year of his first term. By then Palin should have two seasons’ tenure on the daytime syndicated court circuit.
Of course, I am assuming a lot here—including the nagging vicissitudes of TV ratings and annoying unpredictability of Supreme Court Justice deaths. But in a campaign year, where a reality TV star and real estate mogul has a virtual lock on the GOP nomination and is expected to give the Democrat’s likely nominee Hillary Clinton a tough fight in the fall, is Sarah Palin on the high court such an outlandish scenario? You already know the answer.
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Yes, I’m waiting to wake up from the media addiction to the click, ratings and revenue smack that is Drumpf’s White House run. Unfortunately, that’s wishful dreaming; decades spent watching the “one who plays the media best” win forces me to offer up the once-unthinkable.
When People magazine broke the news that Palin had a deal to become “Judge Sarah,” it was noted that the independent production house Warm Springs that tapped her for the bench used the same producer credited with developing “Judge Judy” and “Judge Joe Brown.”
It was also noted that unlike Judge Judy and Judge Joe, the failed 2008 vice presidential candidate is not a lawyer and has no experience presiding over an actual courtroom. Also noted was that Palin has been let go twice as a commentator by Fox News and that her “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” reality show on Discovery was deep-sixed after a single season. Plus, no major studio, as of yet, is backing the still-unnamed Judge Sarah show, which means she will have to sell it station by station. And that’s no easy task.
Yet, despite the obvious hurdles and Palin’s failed reality TV career thus far, a spokesman for the project noted that she’s “sold millions of books, one of which sold over 2 million copies, she’s a proven ratings draw, she has close to 6 million followers on social media, she has a huge audience and you can say that audience corresponds well with a daytime audience.”
Sadly for the future of our country, all that is true. As we’ve seen with The Donald, a strong social media brand and savvy use of it, and a keen exploitation of multimedia offered by a revenue-hungry media universe, means actual, substantive experience in government counts for painfully little.
Remember, Palin was almost a heartbeat away from the highest office in the land. In this strange alternate universe we now live in, doesn’t that somehow qualify her—in a Drumpf White House—to be chosen to serve in the highest court in the land? I can answer that question in two words: You betcha!
J. Max Robins has chronicled and critiqued the industry from the birth of modern cable through the advent of Snapchat. The former award-winning editor-in-chief of Broadcasting & Cable, Robins has commented on industry issues for virtually every major media outlet from CNN to the Wall Street Journal. Currently, executive director of The Center for Communication, Robins writes the weekly MediaPost column "TV Everywhere."
Memo To: J Max Robbins
From: The World In 2016
Subject: Substantive Experience In Government
Bottom line, government experience, rife with its ineptitude, inefficiency, and total unaccountability due to the fact that our elected officials are playing with an endless supply of Monopoly money known as "our hard earned tax dollars" is not only worthless, it's become a negative.
We the people are sick and tired of lying politicians that attempt to curry favor, and garner votes with their fingers in the air testing the winds by campaigning on promises they have no intention of keeping should they be elected. See Dubya's campaigning on smaller government, and reduced deficits while increasing the size of government, and spending like a drunken Democrat sailor throughout his eight years. See also Obama's cool Cumbaya campaigning on bringing both sides of the aisle together, and uniting everyone in direct juxtaposition with his being the most imperial, and divisive president in US history.
We're fed up with it. So much so that, yes, an insolent buffoon like Trump can win, simply because he can't possibly do any worse than our lying career politicians, and just might get something done worthwhile. Worth a try, anyway, even as we hold our noses.
As for Palin, I think the single DUMBEST political miscalculation in US history was McCain, a Teflon candidate as these things go, actually selecting her for his VP. The only thing the left was throwing, and that was semi-sticking to McCain back in 2008 was that he was an older guy, that had just recovered from cancer. Amidst that, that old cancer survivor put Bimbo Palin a rather weak heartbeat (or so was the perception being painted by the left) away from the Presidency. When I heard that news, I KNEW that Obama would be our next president. I actually changed my vote from McCain to Obama as a result of that terribly stupid decision, but now I see what a mistake that vote for Obama was too.
Yes. I will vote for Trump. Six months ago, I thought "no can do." But it's become painfully clear that I don't want somebody with "experience in government" so statistically commensurate with failure has that type of experience become. Trump will win, will undress Hillary as the failed loser that she is, and has always been (including by standing by her misogynist, sexually abusive, deviant and devious liar of a husband), and I can see Hillary's brightly, and multicolored pantsuits strewn across debate stages near and far already.
Yes, I will hold my nose, but take consolation in the fact that Trump cannot be much worse than our recent cast of inept clowns, and if he is, we can vote him out in four short years. Not sure that that's going to be necessary, though. He's got that lack of "governmental experience" going for him, which means he's always had to get good things done because nobody else was going to do them for him. That could be good for us...
And you wonder why we could be a heartbeat away from a nuclear war.
Nice column Max! I'm sure the show will sell. I'm sure she won't last.
Note that Sarah Palin can't go the distance on anything she tries. Syndication is filled with lots of famous people who think they can put a bunch of episodes in the can, and just go cash the paycheck. (Katie Couric comes to mind.) Stations that sign up for Judge Sarah will end up showing Judge Jo-Jo from Tupelo by year two.
Tp Kenny Kurtz, commenting above... you said, "Trump cannot be much worse than our recent cast of inept clowns." I hope we don't get to find out.
Why, David? Why do you hope we don't get a chance to find out? What difference will it make if he's a little worse than recent presidents, and their "get nothing done" eight year runs (get nothing done, or get bad things done like the "Affordable Care Act which has made health care far more unaffordable)?
Aren't you a bit curious to see if he can do some of what he says he can do? Improve our torpid economy? Bring good American jobs back? Re-do some deals that so CLEARLY favor China, and Mexico, and others while leaving us holding a dirty bag? Restore rule of law as it applies to immigration, and make it fair for immigrants that have entered our country lawfully, and many more that are waiting because they are also following rule of law?