Tag: Politics

Andrew Sullivan goes there

It was only a matter of time before a wild rumor about the Palin family broke into the mainstream. Now the line has been crossed by Andrew Sullivan, who blogs about it at the Atlantic.com. The rumor: Sarah Palin is not the mother of young Trig Palin. The mother is actually her 16-year-old daughter, Bristol.

I strongly believe Sullivan should have laid off this. I could have linked to it yesterday, but didn’t, since at that point it was only fodder for a pseudonymous diarist at the Daily Kos. This is the sort of hurtful story that reputable news organizations should check out thoroughly before injecting into the debate. I mean, come on. Does anyone think Josh Marshall hasn’t been following this? Or dozens of other liberal political blogs and Web sites, including Media Nation? None of us went there, and Sullivan shouldn’t have, either.

Interestingly, the Huffington Post beat Sullivan with a double-reverse flip, raising it only to tut-tut about ethical standards at the Kos.

But now, thanks to Sullivan’s reputation as one of the early blogfathers and the prestige of the Atlantic, this story is, for all intents and purposes, Out There. Which news organization will be the first to debunk it? Or, uh, not?

Instant update: Sullivan is already defending himself:

The job of a press is to ask questions which have a basis in fact. Read for yourself the full chronology here. See whether you are certain there are no legitimate questions worth asking. I have claimed nothing.

Sorry, but it doesn’t wash. The job of the press is to ask questions and then to present its findings to the public — or, in this case, if it found nothing, to do its best to make sure the story never saw the light of day.

If Sullivan was that worked up about about the Palin rumor, he should have e-mailed some reporters he knows and asked if they were on the case. This is the definition of a story that shouldn’t be hashed out publicly.

For the bridge before she was against it

As you may have heard, Alaska’s two largest daily newspapers have published editorials questioning the Sarah Palin choice. The more negative is the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, which says in part:

Most people would acknowledge that, regardless of her charm and good intentions, Palin is not ready for the top job. McCain seems to have put his political interests ahead of the nation’s when he created the possibility that she might fill it.

The Anchorage Daily News isn’t quite so harsh, although this editorial does say “it’s stunning that someone with so little national and international experience might be heartbeat away from the presidency.”

The Daily News also confirms that stories of Palin’s opposition to the “Bridge to Nowhere” are largely fictitious — and that when Palin herself said on Friday, “I told Congress, thanks but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere,” she was, at the very least, leaving the most relevant facts unspoken.

“Palin was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it,” the Daily News reports, telling us, among other things, that her support for the project was a key issue in her successful 2006 gubernatorial campaign. After federal funding was withdrawn, she changed her mind, leading to accusations that did it in a way to attract national attention.

Let’s get real: If federal funding had been withdrawn for the Big Dig, Michael Dukakis and Bill Weld would have been against it.

The Daily News also reports that Walt Monegan, the state commissioner of public safety, whom Palin fired, says both Palin and her husband, Todd Palin, contacted him about her ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper involved in a nasty divorce with Gov. Palin’s sister. Monegan claims he was fired in large measure because of his refusal to get rid of the inconvenient trooper.

This would appear to contradict statements made by both Palins. And there may be e-mails.

“The media” cheer Obama (II)

More-direct evidence of how silly The Hill’s item was concerning people with press passes cheering for Obama: Charley Blandy of Blue Mass Group saw my post and followed up, noting that BMG bloggers were among those wearing green press passes and cheering.

Blandy writes: “In other words, the reporter at the Hill may well have seen partisan bloggers like us, who had green press credentials, whooping and cheering for Obama. That’s a problem because … ?”

Palin favored the “Bridge to Nowhere”

Flummoxed conservatives looking for something nice to say about Sarah Palin cite her opposition to the “Bridge to Nowhere,” a proposed $398 million Alaskan boondoggle that John McCain fought against. For instance, here’s what New York Times columnist David Brooks said on “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” last night:

But what he saw when he looked at her, according to the people I spoke to, is someone who fights the same fights I fight. The first gateway sort of fight that he thought they have in common was the bridge to nowhere. He’s been talking about that for years. She’s the one who killed it.

Wrong. As The New Republic’s Bradford Plumer shows, citing reports from the Anchorage Daily News and Palin’s own official statement, Palin supported the bridge at every step, and dropped it from her list of priorities only when it became clear that federal funding wasn’t going to be forthcoming. In her statement, she even criticizes congressional opponents of the bridge, including, by implication, McCain:

Despite the work of our congressional delegation, we are about $329 million short of full funding for the bridge project, and it’s clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island. Much of the public’s attitude toward Alaska bridges is based on inaccurate portrayals of the projects here. But we need to focus on what we can do, rather than fight over what has happened.

Here’s an AP report from Sept. 22, 2007, noting that Palin had withdrawn her support for the bridge because of lack of funding.

Ron Fournier on the Palin pick

Last week I criticized the Associated Press’ Washington bureau chief, Ron Fournier, for writing what I thought was a dumb and partisan analysis of the Joe Biden pick. Fournier, as I noted, has an interesting history with John McCain, so I was wondering if he would be similarly harsh when writing about McCain’s choice.

To Fournier’s credit, his analysis of the Sarah Palin nomination is pretty tough. Granted, it would be hard for it not to be given its utter ludicrousness. But Fournier hits all the right notes, observing that McCain himself said just a few months ago that he was determined not to repeat George H.W. Bush’s Dan Quayle mistake of 1988 — and making it clear that he just did.

Personally, I think Fournier is wrong about Biden and right about Palin. But he was even-handed.

Palin’s anti-science, anti-gay agenda

According to information dug up by Boston Globe religion reporter Michael Paulson, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin not only supports the teaching of creationism in public schools, but opposes state health benefits for same-sex partners — even to the point of supporting a constitutional amendment.

I know John McCain has said some disturbingly supportive things about teaching “intelligent design,” but no one thinks he actually believed what he was espousing. Palin, on the other hand, sounds like a true believer. Off the top of my head, it also strikes me that Palin’s anti-gay agenda is considerably to the right of McCain’s.

Not good.

“The media” cheer Obama

From The Hill:

Several members of the media were seen cheering and clapping for Barack Obama as the Illinois senator accepted the Democratic nomination Thursday.

Standing on the periphery of the football field serving as the Democratic convention floor, dozens of men and women wearing green media floor passes chanted along with the crowd.

Is it possible that some members of the media behaved unprofessionally? Of course. But there were 15,000 people in Denver with media credentials, and to tar “the media” with an item like this is ridiculous.

Having covered four national conventions, I can tell you that there are plenty of folks at these things from one- or two-person newsletters for farmers, accountants and the like, blatantly partisan outlets and — in some cases — organizations with no obvious tie to journalism at all. A friend of a friend comes up with a media credential, and there you go.

If you want to make the case that the mainstream media are in the tank for Obama, be my guest. But this non-item proves nothing. (Via InstaPundit.)

Go-go Gore

Remember when people used to parody Al Gore by talking … very … slowly? He just rushed through his brief speech like the guy from the old Federal Express commercials.

The parallels he drew between Obama and Lincoln — their relative inexperience, their opposition to popular wars, their eloquence — were a reminder that long years in office are no substitute for judgment, even if you think Obama = Lincoln is a stretch.