Trochilus Tales: That Ain't Lucky, Brendan. That's Good!

In the ongoing exchange between Sarah Palin and certain lemon-sucking press scolds who consistently, sometimes dutifully carry water for the left wing, it seems to me that "Sarah Barracuda," the little state championship point guard from Wasilla, AK, has still got game, now hasn't she?

The way I count it, that was two in a row for her on her road tour way up here into the historic northeast. Two victories on the road, and deep in enemy territory! Wow! First, there was the Paul Revere ride incident, and then she seems to have blanked 'em on the email flurry.

Was she lucky?

Well . . . as for those 24,000 pages of emails, I'd say this:

Never in the course of media events, has so little been gained, by so many, from so much. Those 13,000 emails of hers were all snooped through, pored over and second guessed repeatedly . . . all to no avail.

Now, you really cannot count the recent Palin tour itself as a separate victory, but the image of a few bloodthirsty scribes actually grousing at her about the possible dangerous conditions created by their decision to follow her bus around from town to town, all whilst grubbing for any tiny tidbit to trash her with, is just priceless. "Her American Flag is too large," they crowed. "It's illegal!"

Can you imagine?

Harken back with me for a moment, dateline Boston, to the risible claim by that stuffy local Boston University history professor, Brendan McConville, who, unable to bring himself to just concede the score about Paul Revere to Sarah Palin, instead improbably sniffed that she was probably just "lucky" when she correctly pointed out one of the lesser-known fact about Revere's famous ride through the Massachusetts countryside. As was reported well by the Boston Herald, quoting McConville:

. . .
"Basically when Paul Revere was stopped by the British, he did say to them, 'Look, there is a mobilization going on that you'’ll be confronting,' and the British are aware as they're marching down the countryside, they hear church bells ringing — she was right about that — and warning shots being fired. That's accurate."

. . .

McConville said he also is not convinced that Palin’s remarks reflect scholarship.

"I would call her lucky in her comments," McConville said.

McConville could have been an honest gent about the whole thing and said something like, "Looks to me like Mrs. Palin and her handlers took the time to bone up a little on their American History, or she was paying very close attention during a tour. Either way, good for her. She made her point, and her critics came up short."

But he just couldn't bear to acknowledge her score, and instead he improbably concluded that she must have just gotten lucky. Sure, Brendan! It happens every day, doesn't it? Come on!

So as a result, right there in the Boston Herald, Sarah ended up with the basket and the foul, for a three point conversion.

Anyway, I keep envisioning Sarah appearing at some future event -- or perhaps even making a TV appearance -- with a big smile on her face, sporting a large electric blue political button that simply says, "Lucky!" in big, bold white letters. Or, perhaps we can imagine her husband Todd wearing a tee-shirt saying, "I'm With Lucky!"

When I was a child, acronyms played a far more limited role in popular cultural than they do today, given the recent explosion of texting and and limited keystroke social media, like Twitter, all of which seems to have leapfrogged on the shoulders of frequently abbreviated commenting on story threads, or in emails . . . FYI, LOL, LMAO, WTF, STFU . . . the list is endless.

Probably the most catchy acronym from way back then, was the marketing shorthand for Lucky Strike cigarettes . . . L.S.M.F.T. -- Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco. It worked well for them for many, many years.

As kids, naturally such expressions quickly morphed into our own popular re-phrasings such as Loose Suspenders Means Falling Trousers, and other ones that tended to be a little more risque.

But, as also noted there in the Urban Dictionary, at one point in the late '40s the acronym took on a political dimension, even in the years before being printed on the side of the packs of cigarettes . . . "Lord, Save Me From Truman" was indeed a popular rephrasing amongst some Republicans at the time.

How, then, might someone put it as a way to describe the recent out-and-out media effort to get former Governor Palin with the dumpster-diving inquiry onto her years of emails when she was Governor, an effort that, as described in The Telegraph by Tony Harnden, backfired "on her media antagonists."

The trove of more than 13,000 emails detailing almost every aspect of Sarah Palin’s governorship of Alaska, released late on Friday, paints a picture of her as an idealistic, conscientious, humorous and humane woman slightly bemused by the world of politics.

One can only assume that the Left-leaning editors who dispatched teams of reporters to remote Juneau, the Alaskan capital, to pore over the emails in the hope of digging up a scandal are now viewing the result as a rather poor return on their considerable investment.

If anything, Mrs Palin seems likely to emerge from the scrutiny of the 24,000 pages, contained in six boxes and weighing 275 pounds, with her reputation considerably enhanced. As a blogger at Powerline noted, the whole saga might come to be viewed as 'an embarrassment for legacy media'."
. . . . (link in original)

Yeah. There you go. Let's translate:

L. S. M. F. T. in Sarah Palin parlance.

Lame Stream Media Fails Totally!

Sarah was subsequently asked about the "gotcha" squads from media central in an interview by former NJ Superior Court Judge, Andrew Napolitano, on the Fox News Channel: