No, they don't have horns.    No cloven hooves, either.

       Journalists aren't out to sink the republic, or the Republican ticket.

       The media isn't red or blue--it's green, as in the dwindling supply of same-colored paper in your purse or wallet.

        And, beware the blogs--they're great when they do your bidding for you, but a pain when they aren't on your side.

        These are the lessons I'm preaching as waves of Palin-o-mania roar across the fruited plain.      No matter which way you swing politically, you have to be supremely dazzled by the ascension of the obscure Alaskan Governor to status as GOP heroine.   Barack Obama's cult of personality took much longer to build--his coming out party wasn't with a prime-time convention speech--it came with a talk to delegates four years ago, followed by self-penned books and a carefully crafted Internet data base, not to mention the slog of the primary campaign.       The public vetting of Obama came over the course of months as his bidn got traction, and was done not just by the media and the blogosphere but also fellow Democrats trying to derail his bid to bolster their own campaigns.    They tossed everything they had at him.    Some of it stuck.    Nothing proved fatal.

       That's not the case with Palin.     The vetting will be hasty, hurried and harsh as the networks and cable news channels are forced to play catch-up.       The bloggers already had an impact, ferreting out the pregnancy of Palin's 17 year old daughter.      That's blood in the water, folks.      Some of the Internet rumors were vile, unfounded, and just plain mean--so it goes in the blogosphere where accountability goes to die and sources can be as fictional as Harry Potter.      Neither party should bemoan it, since both sides embrace the bloggers when they do their heavy lifting.       Blogs and the National Enquirer helped ferret out the John Edwards story a few weeks ago, but it didn't get the light of day until the Senator himself did his Friday night mea culpa on ABC.       The media laid off the Palin rumors until the McCain campaign decided to get in front of the story by going public.

       The press isn't blame-free.      Some of the sidebars being done about Palin's candidacy are blatantly sexist, such as asking voters if the mother of five shouldn't be home caring for her kids.      No one asks that of a guy.      That's not a question of media bias--those kind of sidebars are just plain stupid.    But is it wrong for reporters to flesh in the details about Palin's political past?     Shouldn't some shoe-leather be expended in the streets of Wasilla to see how she ran the town during her mayoral tenure?        And, also in Anchorage where she's called the shots in Alaska for about half of a gubernatorial term?      It's one thing to ask the questions.     That's what the media does.     It's another to make up the answers--which, sadly, happens way too often on the Web.

        I dipped into a media gab-session on NPR the other night, hosted by longtime journalist Gwen Ifel.    She asked her panel of scribes about the coverage of Palin and whether it had gone too far.     A writer for Politico said, bluntly, "No".      She said it's the job of the press to ask every possible question about a candidates viability, and that there should be no apologizing for reporters who are doing their jobs.       That is the mindset, and it will continue to be Palin's future--as it has for John McCain, Joe Biden and Obama.      It means tough questions, not from a liberal/conservative leaning media, but for an electorate that has a right to know.    Unfortunately, in our new day and age, it also means being the butt of sometimes scurrilous rumors and outright fabrications launched by anonymous creeps with keyboards trying to make you-know-what stick to a wall.     Gone are the "Mad Men" days when scribes looked the other way as a president had a fling with the odd starlet or three.

        Trash is cash, and it sells papers.     It draws eyeballs.     It sticks ears to speakers.     And, in the 21st century, it generates Web "page-views" and "unique visits."      The public's voracious appetite for fact and it's I-shouldn't-look-at-the-train-wreck-but-I-can't-turn-away desire for the unsavory is an industry that generates millions and billions, not just for the "dead tree" media but also an Internet information industry that's still getting it's legs.      

       Red?     Blue?

       Nope.    it's green.      Always has been.     Still is.

Comments?   Questions?   Dive in at mueller@620wtmj.com