The Obama justice department will drop charges against the Black Panthers that intimidated American citizens at polling places, but will investigate CIA interrogators that intimidated Al Qaeda terrorists??? I guess when you're the President of the United States, with an overwhelming majority in the House and Senate and you're getting your ass kicked on health care by a lady with a facebook account you'll do anything to change the subject, including damaging this countries national security.
There has never been a person on earth who has deserved to have their breath stolen by a cat more than this lady. Was anybody else rooting for that tiger to come alive and bite her hand off???
In all seriousness, how much would you have to be paid to spend a night in the same house with this lady? If you make it out of there without being cooked and eaten, chalk it up as a win.
Whatever possessed President Obama to mention the travails of the post office while discussing health care the other day, his timing was certainly apt. The Postal Service is headed toward a loss of $7 billion this year and another $7 billion in 2010. Naturally, Congress is planning another bailout rather than the kind of reform that would recognize how technology has transformed modern communications.
Not that the Postal Service has ever been a paragon of efficiency. If the cost of a postage stamp had risen at merely the rate of inflation since 1950 when a stamp cost two cents, today you could send a first-class letter for 30 cents. Instead the cost rose in May to 44 cents from 42 cents.
These higher prices have corresponded with worsening service. The mailman used to deliver twice a day in urban areas, but now Postal Service Chief Executive John Potter says he wants to stop Saturday service to reduce costs. No private business in America could continually raise prices, lose billions of dollars and then hope to win back customers by promising poorer service.
Let me first start by saying I really like reading Charles Krauthammers columns. He is one of the few "intellectual" Beltway insiders that will actually rip into Obama. That being said, his column today is as confusing as ever. It of course has to do with "death panels." Lets break it down.
We might start by asking Sarah Palin to leave the room. I've got nothing against her. She's a remarkable political talent. But there are no "death panels" in the Democratic health care bills, and to say that there are is to debase the debate.
Um Charles, you're a day late and a dollar short on this. Sarah Palin left the room on this provision over a week ago. Granted she left with something so many Beltway Republicans have never tasted, victory. Someone should let Charles know that this provision that he is so concerned about has already been stripped from the bill. To paraphrase Col. Jessup, he should "probably just thank Sarah Palin and be on his way. Either way, why does Krauthammer give a damn about a provision that is no longer in the bill!" Is it only political columnists that write about things that are already decided as if they hadn't come to a conclusion yet? Are there any sports articles in todays paper about last years Super Bowl saying that Roethlisberger should've sat out the game even though his team won and he was the MVP? The games over Charles. We actually won this battle.
The other problem with Krauthammers column is that it follows the same old tired elite Republican script. Let me criticize someone on the right so I can be taken more serious. He'll show how reasoned and well mannered he is. Nevermind that his column says it's ridiculuous to call that provision a death panel, yet the rest of his article is about how that provision could pressure people into choosing death over life. This script gets boring after awhile.
The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care.
Let me break this down real slow for everybody. The death panel being in quotes signifies it's a nickname. The rest of the sentence spells out what that nickname is for. A governement bureaucracy that will ration health care. But who would ever suggest that a panel like this would even be set up. Palin must be making things up. Oh wait...
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that's part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. It's not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And that's part of what I suspect you'll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now.
Honestly this is too easy. I'm starting to get bored destroying Beltway Republicans.
Cash for Clunkers a/k/a C.A.R.S a/k/a We’d have to be high to let these red-tape bureaucratic weenies touch our health care.
Here’s the skinny on this “successful” program:
You’ve heard it advertised by now: bring in your clunker if it has less that 18 miles per gallon and you can get a $3,500-$4,500 voucher on a new fuel-efficient vehicle.
Here’s what you’re not hearing: The Dep’t of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued 136 pages of rules plus 20 pages of amendments to car dealers. Irony update: the upside, the NHTSA claims these 150+ pages are in line with the Paperwork Reduction Act). Dealers were to be reimbursed within 10 days of making their initial claim. “Computer glitches” kept that from happening. Say it with me…….of course! Glitches! Always an underlying glitch! Blaming someone/something else is line with this administration's trends. But I digress....
Now having no love for major car dealers, I do have sympathy for the independently owned dealers. We have to go with the assumption these folks understood the mounds of regulations and passed that information onto the consumers, right? How likely is that?
So since its inception some say it’s been wildly successful as evidenced by Congress dumping two billion more into the program. I suspect any program that would advertise as “hey we’ll give you shit for free!!” would be wildly popular. However, it doesn’t make it (a) just, (b) economically sound, or (c) properly managed.
Speaking of governmental clusterfarks being properly mismanaged, we’re now seeing the aftermath of this wretched concept.
Regarding reimbursement to dealers, take Maryland as an example. Three hundred dealers were surveyed, 70 responded. Less than two percent of those dealers said their claims have been reimbursed thus far. The promised turnaround time by the NHTSA: 10 days. The NHTSA in turn has said it’s all the fault of improper staffing, they can’t keep up with the paperwork and the lack of details dealers are providing when submitting their claims. Oh also, these dumbass dealers keep submitting their rejected claims which backlogs the entire process.
The answer: hiring more unqualified governmental worker to process the paperwork. How hard can that be you ask, after all, it’s just paperwork. Well tell that to the dealers that got rejections back from the NHTSA that said “Reason for Rejection: None”. Thanks for playing!
This is government inefficiency for you. And now we’re being asked to entrust our lives and the lives of our loved ones to these imbeciles when considering passing government run health insurance programs.
Think of it this way. It’s easy to loath both the insurance companies and the government. I know I do, but I have more distaste for one over another. But let’s break it down:
Idiot employee to a major corporation that processes your paperwork. Idiot employee to a major governmental entity that processes your paperwork.
Hey, guess which one actually has accountability for their job performance and has the fear of termination lingering in the back of their head??
Two billion guesses on that answer and the first two billion don't count.
Some seniors may have been calmed when President Obama told them at a town hall meeting:
"The rumor that's been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for 'death panels' that will basically pull the plug on grandma because we've decided that it's too expensive to let her live anymore," Obama said. "I am not in favor of that."
But Mark Steyn warns unplugging Grandma isn’t what should be feared; he says getting Grandma plugged in in the first place is the problem.
This mornings editorial by The National Review says everything you need to know about Beltway Republicans. On the subject of rationing of health care, they write:
To conclude from these possibilities to the accusation that President Obama’s favored legislation will lead to “death panels” deciding whose life has sufficient value to be saved — let alone that Obama desires this outcome — is to leap across a logical canyon. It may well be that in a society as litigious as ours, government will err on the side of spending more rather than treating less. But that does not mean that there is nothing to worry about. Our response to Sarah Palin’s fans and her critics is to paraphrase Peter Viereck: We should be against hysteria — including hysteria about hysteria The National Review in all its brilliance chose a time in which ObamaCare is in freefall, due in large part to Sarah Palin, to pick a fight with...Sarah Palin. As C4P points out:
Great. The most anti-conservative White House since, well... ever, is about to nationalize the entire American healthcare system, and Romney's cheerleaders-in-chief think this is a great time to start another round of GOP infighting. It is, to put it mildly, seriously lacking in judgement.
I don't see any wisdom in taking a shot at Governor Palin at this moment when, finding themselves unable to defend the plan against her indictment, Democrats have backed down and withdrawn their "end-of-life counseling" boards. Palin did a tremendous service here. Opinion elites didn't like what the editors imply is the "hysteria" of her "death panels" charge. Many of those same elites didn't like Ronald Reagan's jarring "evil empire" rhetoric. But "death panels" caught on with the public just like "evil empire" did because, for all their "heat rather than light" tut-tutting, critics could never quite discredit it. I think Palin was right to argue her point aggressively. Largely because she did, a horrible provision is now out of this still horrible Obamacare proposal. To the contrary, if the argument had been made the way the editors counsel this morning, "end-of-life counseling" would still be in the bill. We might have impressed the Beltway with the high tone of our discourse and the suppleness of our reasoning, but we'd have lost the public.
He's exactly right. It's like the scene from White Men Cant Jump when Woody Harrelson (Billy Hoyle) says that Wesley Snipes (Sidney Deane) "would rather look pretty and lose, than look ugly and win." That is exactly what the editors at The National Review have become. They are the Sidney Deane of the Republican party. Andy McCarthys point about Reagan using the Evil Empire phrase is valid. How would todays National Review have treated that comment? No doubt they'd have scolded him for his "hysteria." Whether it's true or not does not matter to them. They would like the conversation to remain "civil", take their beating from the left, walk home losers and get ready for their cocktail party that night.
In one week Sarah Palin had a portion of the bill tossed out and along with the help of townhall protesters has put ObamaCare on life support. Can anyone point me to a National Review article that has made headlines to damage this bill? Hell, can anyone show me anything they wrote that made headlines during the campaign? Actually, that's not fair. They did make headlines when Christopher Buckley endorsed Barack Obama. Oh, and when Kathleen Parker called on Palin to resign. Keep up the great work.
As RAM over at C4P notes there are some National Review writers that are worth reading (Steyn, Victor David Hanson, Thomas Sowell) but they can all be read on their own websites.
Few things are as predictable as the mainstream media freaking out whenever somebody reveals Obamas actual agenda. As soon as somebody questions his ridiculous plans (covering 50 million people while cutting costs) they follow an obvious pattern. Lets take a look at the accurate "death panel" claim.
First they simply said that it isn't true. From there, they move on to saying it is debunked, end of discussion. After this doesn't work they start getting really nervous and use the phrase "thoroughly debunked." How do you know they are in full freak out mode though? As soon as they call in the NYTimes. This is like Vincent and Jules calling in "The Wolf" in Pulp Fiction. For emergencies only.
WASHINGTON - The stubborn yet false rumor that President Obama’s health care proposals would create government-sponsored “death panels” to decide which patients were worthy of living seemed to arise from nowhere in recent weeks. If your the NYTimes and your blantantly dishonest I guess you can write that. You can write that knowing full well that this "stubborn yet false rumor" came from the mouth of Barack Obama talking to the (wait for it)...NYTimes!
THE PRESIDENT: So that's where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues. But that's also a huge driver of cost, right?I mean, the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here.
LEONHARDT: So how do you - how do we deal with it?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that's part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. It's not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And that's part of what I suspect you'll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now. Hmm, so independent government bureaucrats will be making life and death medical decisions. I'm trying to think of a good nickname for that panel. I've got it. Death Panel. Brilliant.
The media knows they have zero credibility left after their coverage during the campaign, so they don't even try to hide it anymore. Todays NYTimes article is the latest example.
For the first time ever there will be two Miss Conservatives in the same family. A few months back Rochelle Veturis was named the Miss Conservative of the Week. Now we bring you her younger sister Chelsey Veturis.
1) Who is your favorite politician?
Sarah Palin is by far my favorite politician. Finally someone who can put up a good fight!
2) What is the most important issue to you?
Keeping the government out of Universal Health Care... don’t get me started!
3) Have you ever thought of about running for office?
Of course! When I was younger it was something I thought about. Now I want to be a teacher and I can make my political opinion known via Twitter.
First Sarah Palin absolutely obliterates Barack Obama in her newest message on Facebook.
President Obama can try to gloss over the effects of government authorized end-of-life consultations, but the views of one of his top health care advisors are clear enough. It’s all just more evidence that the Democratic legislative proposals will lead to health care rationing, and more evidence that the top-down plans of government bureaucrats will never result in real health care reform.
The only other conservative politician who has stepped up to the plate on this issue has been Newt Gingrich
How much is one additional year of your life worth?
Or one more year of life for your father or your wife? For your child?
In Great Britain, the government has settled on a number: $45,000.
That’s how much a government commission with the Orwellian acronym NICE has decided British government-run health care will pay for one additional year of life for a British subject.
Think it could never happen here? Then you need to pay closer attention to what Washington is planning for your health care.
Lisa Murkowski (you know the lady who was appointed to the Senate by her father) is criticizing Sarah Palin again over her accurate death panel statement. Heres what Veruca Salt had to say:
"It does us no good to incite fear in people by saying that there's these end-of-life provisions, these death panels," Murkowski, said, according to the paper. "Quite honestly, I'm so offended at that terminology because it absolutely isn't (in the bill). There is no reason to gin up fear in the American public by saying things that are not included in the bill."
Now anybody with reading comprehension skills above Lloyd Christmas would realize that Palins "death panel" statement was in regards to the rationing of health care. How do I know this? It could be that Palin said so in THE SAME SENTENCE. A question some people might ask Murkowski (202 224-3121) is, does she believe universal health care will not have a government bureaucracy which rations care? Maybe she should check out this statement made by the President in April:
Obama said “you just get into some very difficult moral issues” when considering whether “to give my grandmother, or everybody else’s aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they’re terminally ill.
“That’s where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues,” he said in the April 14 interview. “The chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health- care bill out here.”
Stackhouse better be under 24 hour psychiatric watch because I can only assume something like this is what led Stephon Marbury down the path to complete insanity.
First she released her accurate and scathing critique of ObamaCare on Friday. She followed this with a number of links on Saturday and Sunday which all showed the flaw in either ObamaCare or Cap and Tax. I still didn't think anything of it until her latest post which is the youtube clip of Obamas "take a pill comment."
Within 30 minutes of her posting this clip it had over 1,300 comments. There aren't too many blogs that can do that. The brilliance of her using her facebook page rather than starting a website from scratch is she already has a built in following which is currently at 716,000 (an addition of about 26,000 since Friday alone). Reading through the comments of the clip she posted I saw that most of the people had never seen this clip. There was real shock at Obamas answer. Now most people who follow the blogs on the right have seen this clip over the past few weeks. This tells me she is reaching a number of people who don't follow the blogs. And because Palin is using her facebook account, they don't have to. Most people check there facebook atleast once a day to see if they have messages or any updates from their friends. Now when you check in, one of those updates on that page is from Palin. This means she already gets a huge number of views without even trying, before it undoubtedly gets picked up by other political blogs.
So basically in only 3 days she has turned her facebook page into one of the most influential political sites reaching people who otherwise wouldn't get this information.
As I post this there are currently 2800 comments on her post with the clip of Obama.
Answering a question from Jake Tapper on Friday about the tone of the debate over health care Gibbs replied:
I think the most important thing is we can have a discussion in our democracy about where we want to go and why or why not we want to take certain steps. The president strongly believes we can do so without yelling at each other, without pushing each other, without degrading each other, and do so in a way I think that respects the difference in all of our opinions.
Compare this to what Obama has said about getting his message out
Ok well maybe that was a one time thing where he didn't really mean to get in peoples faces and argue...Damn wait, heres a different speech
“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said at a Philadelphia fundraiser Friday night. “Because from what I understand folks in Philly like a good brawl."
I'm starting to think Robert Gibbs was lieing in his answer to Jake Tapper. Damn, theres more. Here's the White House deputy chief of staff describing how they will debate during the August recess on health care:
“If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard,” Messina said, according to an official who attended the meeting.
Ok, yeah, you have to admit it. This White House will lie right to your face.
Here is the kid who runs the streets of Baghdad. I'm not going to tell you which one it is. Within 5 seconds you'll know exactly who I'm talking about.
Recruiters haven't been this excited about a prospect since the Reggie Bush high school highlight tape came out. Only these arent't college football recruiters. Thats right, I'm talking about the scouts from SEIU. This kid has union thug in his DNA. Did you see how he broke up that mob that was around his candy? It was flawless. This kid is the Roy Hobbs of union thugs. The best there is, the best there was, the best there ever will be.
PS Nothing like a little old school Snoop to start the day.
I always thought of liberals as the crowd that lets feelings get in the way of facts. They were the crowd that would ban dodgeball because kids might be sad for 10 minutes. They were the crowd that gave every kid a trophy even if they sucked. Basically, they were for the wussification of America. Part of the reason I liked thinking myself a conservative was we say what needs to be said whether it's politically correct or not. If it's accurate, say it. I really only started reading the political blogs a little over a year ago. I've been a little surprised by what I've seen from some pundits/blogs on the right during that time. Sarah Palins facebook note on Friday really shines a light on this.
The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil. Seems pretty straight forward and accurate to me. Government run health care will lead to rationing of health care. A government bureaucracy will decide who gets the necessary medical treatment and who doesn't. Is anybody denying this will happen?
Here is how allahpundit, a blogger at one of the highest trafficed blogs on the right spun this on twitter:
Because I oppose Obama's plan, I'm supposed to believe he's out to euthanize the retarded? Really, that's the interpretation you come away with from reading that. Not that the elderly and disabled will have rationed care (ya know, like she clearly writes) but that once the bill is passed they will just be euthanizing the retarded? That's embarrassing comprehension skills. I feel like I'm at Eastside High before Joe Clark took over, watching these pundits on the right fail the basic skills test. THAT MEANS THEY CAN HARDLY READ! (that's my best Joe Clark impersonation)
Listen, I was a 7 year phys ed major and I could easily comprehend her statement. This leads me to believe one of two things about those who couldn't understand it. Either they are intentionally taking her out of context or they are dumber than a 7 year phys ed major.
Allahpundit later went on to say this about her statement:
I don't give a shit about being taken seriously by the left. I care about being taken seriously by swing voters So his plan for being taken seriously by swing voters is to put words in the mouth of Sarah Palin that she never said? Interesting strategy.
Even Mary Katherine Ham, who I do think does a better job than most of the Republican pundits, has gone soft on this issue. She wrote on twitter:
Yes, exactly. Fear is serious talk of rationing can & will be parodied, thereby weakening very strong argument. Disappointing. Disappointing? With one facebook note Sarah Palin put the rationing of health care at the head of this debate. Of course the media and left (one in the same) is going to parody that by taking it out of context. Kind of like how Allahpundit did (again, interesting). You can do as Ham does and complain that it will be mocked or you can do as Gingrich does and point out how her statement is accurate. The fact is, rationing of health care will be a major talking point over the next week because of Palins statement. Ham should take the opportunity when asked to point out how it is true that a government panel will be making your life and death decisions, rather than worry about what the left says.
There are really only two ways you can disagree with Palins statement.
A) You don't believe a government bureaucracy will ration health care, in which case you're delusional. Or..
B) Your delicate personality doesn't like the fact that a government panel that will be making your life and death decisions has been accurately nicknamed the "death panel."
Something tells me that the people who are so hysterical about the "death panel," wont find the phrase so outrageous when their parent receives a letter in the mail telling them they'd be better off taking a pain killer, rather than the life prolonging pace maker their doctor recommended. But hey, that probably wont happen. It's not like anybody of significance in this debate has told us that will happen. Oh wait...
Republican pundits need to either step and use this opportunity Palin has given them to show how government bureaucracys will make your life and death decisions, or they need to go join the "every kid gets a trophy" crowd.
I decided I'd go all "investigative blogger" on everyone this morning and check out how Politico covered Obamas "fight the smears" website and how it covered Palin fighting a smear. First here is Ben Smiths take on Obama:
Wired's Thomas Goetz emails to make a great point about Obama's big FightTheSmears.com rollout today:
By putting their own website out there front-and-center, and then getting everybody to link to it (starting with all the media covering the launch of the site), the result will be to drive fightthesmears.com towards the top of a Google search on, say, "obama muslim" or "michelle obama whitey." Ideally, if enough of the pro-Obama network links to fightthesmears.com, it'll drive the sites that peddle in the rumor-mongering, which are now the first results on said searches, off the top of the results list. Ideal long term result: any curious low-information voter who eventually bothers to google these pesky rumors will immediately be led to the debunking rather than the rumor.
My take: Did the Obama campaign create fightthesmears.com to game Google? If so, they're even more net-savvy than folks give them credit for.
Indeed, Obama already had a protype of this page connected to his Fact Check site, and even bought Google ads linking it. But this wave of publicity will probably push the new site to the top of Google to stay.
So not surprisingly Politico links to a story which portrays the Obama campaign as "even more net-savvy than folks give them credit for" for fighting these smears. Now when Palin fights a smear here is how Politico covers it:
Sarah Palin’s spokeswoman Saturday took the unusual step of posting a statement on Facebook denying an anonymous blog report that the former Alaska governor was getting a divorce and moving to Montana.
Um, was Martin not around during the campaign when Obama was "fighting the smears." How is that now unusual.
By having her spokeswoman repeat the charges to rebut them in a public form, Palin effectively guaranteed coverage from the mainstream media that otherwise would not report claims attributed to unnamed sources on an anonymous blog.
This would lead you to believe that Martin feels stories left on the web can't really do much damage if they're not covered by the msm. Only problem is this contradicts a story he and Ben Smith wrote on July 28,2008.
For all the media attention his historic run has attracted, not to mention the quarter-billion dollars he has already spent introducing himself to the nation, 25 percent of respondents in a recent Newsweek poll wrongly believe he was raised as a Muslim and nearly 40 percent errantly thought he attended a Muslim school while growing up abroad.
These incorrect claims have also come up repeatedly in Politico interviews with voters, including Democrats and independents.
Kathie Steigerwald, a Dearborn, Mich. businesswoman who said she voted for Hillary Clinton but now plans to support McCain, offered an especially succinct recital of a narrative on which other interviewees offered numerous variations:
"I feel John McCain is a true American and I want to support a true American," she said.
But isn't Obama a "true American?" she was asked.
"I don't know," she said after a measured pause. "I question it."
Why?
"I don't know — maybe because of his name?"
Whatever his motives, McCain’s new hit on his foe’s patriotism hints at two years of whispered, viral rumors and myths about Obama centered on his patriotism and American values, or, more to the point, his lack thereof. The e-mails —cataloged in Snopes.com's lengthy Obama section and Obama's own “fight the smears" page — often have contradictory particulars, but the thrust is clear: Obama, various false e-mails claim, is not really a natural-born American citizen, is not really a Christian and refuses to pledge allegiance to the American flag.
Not only does Martin cite a poll but he interviews a woman to prove that a viral web campaign of rumors can damage a politicians reputation. So how does he square this with his questioning of Palin squashing a rumor before it gets out of control? Could it be that Martin is just another hack "journalist?"
Ironically, the smear campaign represents the dark side of the Internet’s emerging dominance in American politics — a phenomenon that has driven Obama’s unparalleled grass-roots and financial campaigns. After harnessing the Web to great advantage, Obama is now struggling to beat back the viral threat from the same uncontrollable medium.
Voters widely and repeatedly cite information that has been gleaned directly or indirectly from the e-mails to explain why they won’t support Obama.
Obama’s campaign has built a pioneering Web-based apparatus to debunk the myths, but the candidate himself has also begun to fight back against the smear in symbolic and substantive ways...
It seems ole Jmart can't contain himself over at Politico when it comes to Palin. Apparently now it's absurd for her to respond to rumors that are flying across the internet. Here's part of his story today.
Sarah Palin’s spokeswoman Saturday took the unusual step of posting a statement on Facebook denying an anonymous blog report that the former Alaska governor was getting a divorce and moving to Montana.
“Yet again, some so-called journalists have decided to make up a story,” wrote Meg Stapleton on Palin’s Facebook page. “There is no truth to the recent ‘story’ (and story is the correct term for this type of fiction) that the Palins are divorcing. The Palins remain married, committed to each other and their family, and have not purchased land in Montana (last week it was reported to be Long Island).”
Actually, no journalists had reported the allegations. They were made on an Alaskan blog called “The Immoral Minority,” and then repeated on other blogs, including Gawker, a well-trafficked New York gossip site.
Actually this story caught fire this morning when it was posted at Alaskareport.com. This blog just happens to be run by Dennis Zaki who is a stringer for CNN. Ya know, the most trusted name in news. So by the third paragraph Martins story has already shit the bed. But he continues.
By having her spokeswoman repeat the charges to rebut them in a public form, Palin effectively guaranteed coverage from the mainstream media that otherwise would not report claims attributed to unnamed sources on an anonymous blog.
Again this is a story that was being pushed by a blog in Alaska run by a CNN stringer. It was a story that was all over twitter as well as being picked up by Gawker, The Daily Kos, and The Huffington Post (one of the most widely read political blogs on the planet, especially by "journalists"). Staying silent would only feed the fire.
Palin is one of the few conservative politicians that seems to understand the internet. Many people now get their news from the internet. These rumors start on the blogs, work their way into comment sections of msm news stories, and eventually get reported on. Martins line that the "msm otherwise would not report claims based on anonymous blogs" is ridiculous. Part of the deal with the msm exposing itself as journalistic frauds during the campaign is that it can no longer be given the benefit of the doubt. If this had gone unanswered MSNBC would have a countdown clock Monday morning to the supposed date of Palins divorce. By addressing this rumor it does guarantee msm coverage...ON PALINS TERMS.
Sarah saw how the McCain campaign (specifically Steve Schmidt) handled internet rumors during the campaign. The whisper campaign by the left wing blogs went unanswered, then seeped into the msm, and by then it was too late. People couldn't differentiate fact from fiction. Was she a book banner? Did she join a secession movement? Is Trig really her baby?
Jonathan Martin is straight out of the Kathleen Parker and Christopher Buckley wing of The National Review (yes he worked there shortly). He doesn't seem to like the fact that Palin has figured out how to squash rumors before they can damage her. Well sorry JMart, Sarah now knows how the game is played. Get used to it.
UPDATE- Thanks to C4P, Texas4Palin, and RiehlWorld for the links. Be sure to head over and check out their updates on this story. I'll have more in the morning...or the afternoon, depending on when I wake up.
Todays Wall St Journal tells you why.
