Liberal Houston & Dallas 'alternative' blogs review 'The Undefeated'

"The film elevates her to... a primary fighter in a holy war... against the encroaching forces of darkness."
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A review of "The Undefeated" appears in the Unfair Park blog of the Dallas Observer, an "alternative" weekly owned by Village Voice Media. Think of the Dallas Observer as a Metroplexed Village Voice, and you've got it pegged. Still, reviewer Anna Merlan gives the film a fairer shake than does the Houston Press, the left-wing "alternative" rag in the Bayou City, which used the opportunity to slam-pan Stephen Brannon's documentary.

Instead of being angrily outraged, as was the lefty who wrote the Press' review, Ms. Merlan seems to find the grassroots conservatives who were with her at the screening to be the sort of curiosities rarely encountered in her normal circles. Some excerpts:

After the film, the woman sitting next to me -- who turned out to be Lorie Medina, the head of the Dallas Tea Party -- talked a bit about about Sarah Palin haters. Many of them, she thinks, are motivated by bitterness.

"She's what the feminists have told us to be shooting for," she said. "She has a great marriage, a huge family and an incredible career."

Does Medina think Palin would run for president?

"Well, that's the $64,000 question," she said. "Some days I wake up and I think she will, some days I think she won't." I asked if Palin would be her first choice for president. "Of course," she said, looking faintly shocked.

[...]

"There's nothing wrong in America a good ol' fashioned election can't fix!" Palin exclaims brightly near the end of the film. The audience in Grapevine clapped, cheered and whistled at that. As the movie faded to black, the clapping was replaced with earnest chants of "Run, Sarah, run!"

To her credit, Ms. Merlan eschews the usual liberal snark lathered into the Houston Press review. Still, she missed the point:

The purpose of the film, basically, is for people who currently work for her -- or have in the past, including her attorney, who looks a little depressed, and numerous people who were part of her mayoral and gubernatorial campaigns -- to talk about her achievements and bash her foes, who are part of what one talking head calls "an uprising of hatred" against Palin.

No, the purpose of the film is to tell the true story that the major media ignored, so busy was it bashing Palin and praising Obama during the campaign of 2008. It's the same story told by the tens of thousands of Gov. Palin's emails that same corrupt media couldn't wait to get its hands on, so sure it was that there was dirt to be mined there. But all the media found in the massive email release was the story of an honest and capable administrator who left office with a number of significant accomplishments on her watch. And that's also the point of "The Undefeated." Too bad the Dallas Observer failed to observe the obvious.

The hard left will never give Sarah Palin the credit she's due. That's all right; we don't expect them to. If we can get them to see "The Undefeated," and they come away from the film no longer dehumanizing her as a monster or something, that will be progress. Which would make them live up to their self-characterization as "progressives" for a change.

- JP