Or, wading through the muck that is the media coverage of Sarah Palin so y’all don’t have to. Please borrow, steal, appropriate, or relocate for your own use, and leave some Palin-love in the comments.
SteveReenie celebrates the Palin nomination. So do Tammi and Matthew. Matthew also reports that Hawaiian reporter Dan Douglass is afraid of Sarah Palin.
More of Simon’s outstanding Sarah Palin blogging. Here’s Newt saying that her resume is stronger than Obama’s; Alaska Independence Party was so false that the NYT had to issue a retraction (when does that ever happen?); and destroying the Bristol-is-a-victim-of-abstinence-ed meme.
Michelle Malkin takes on the Washington Post’s lie about Palin “slashing” funding for teenage moms. Sez Michelle: Alaska gave three times as much funding to the group in ‘07 as they received from all sources in ‘06. Even when Palin “slashed” the funding, it was still increased from 2006. Michelle does not mention: the centre does a lot of things, and only a small portion of their budget goes to helping out teenage moms.
Susan Estrich is appalled at the sexism and Monday-night quarterbacking of Palin’s pregnancy. Speaking of liberals, even the New Republic gets in on it, and warns Obama to not underestimate Palin. Melissa McEwan opposes Palin on her positions, but decries the sexist tactics used against her. From across the aisle: thank you.
A Vote for Sarah Palin, by Suann Therese Maier, of FirstThings. Check in for about a dozen “I will vote for Sarah Palin because….”
Megan McArdle says the rumours and supposed scandals are irrelevant and asinine.
The Corner on National Review has “little known Sarah Palin” facts. This bloggers favourite: “Little known fact: NFL teams may draft Sarah Palin, if they forfeit all their other players forever, to maintain league parity.” From Sarah Palin Facts.
Sarah Palin on energy in late June:
“Obama is way off-base on all that. I think those politicians who don’t understand that we need more domestic supply of energy flowing into our hungry markets [are] living in la-la land. And we’re in a world of hurt if they’re agenda continues to be to lock up these safe, secure, domestic supplies of energy.”
David Warren on “What I like about Palin.” “I have yet to find a single instance, in Ms. Palin’s frontier background and extraordinary career — rising in politics as an enemy of posturing and corruption — of where she fails to be a symbol of America’s better angel.”
Speaking of the vice presidential nominee, what a breath of fresh air Governor Sarah Palin is.
She is from a small town, with small town values, but that’s not good enough for those folks who are attacking her and her family.
Some Washington pundits and media big shots are in a frenzy over the selection of a woman who has actually governed rather than just talked a good game on the Sunday talk shows and hit the Washington cocktail circuit. Well, give me a tough Alaskan Governor who has taken on the political establishment in the largest state in the Union — and won — over the beltway business-as-usual crowd any day of the week.
Let’s be clear … the selection of Governor Palin has the other side and their friends in the media in a state of panic. She is a courageous, successful, reformer, who is not afraid to take on the establishment….
She and John McCain are not going to care how much the alligators get irritated when they get to Washington, they’re going to drain that swamp.
Woo-hoo!
Afternoon Updates:
McCain campaign official on the speech that Sarah Palin has been preparing since Friday’s announcement: “We’re just going to rock ‘em, sock ‘em — we kind of like it when people underestimate us.”
Sez Tucker Eskew, a senior McCain adviser, of Palin’s speech tonight: “She will detail her record of shaking up the status quo in Alaska and standing up to the entrenched interests to put the government back on the side of the people.” A record, you say? She is who Obama can only try to be.
Anthony Bradley on “The Sarah Palin Difference.” She’s honest, ethical, has a record, and can reach across the aisle.
Palin Derangement Syndrome is so apparent that Australians are reporting on it.
Patterico is doing yeoman’s work on the media bias surrounding Palin. He links us to the Ace of Spades, who discusses how conveniently baby-free other politician’s lives are. P. has some great stuff on the media’s temper tantrum about not calling the Palin pick. Moving onwards, Patterico takes on David Frum, who wrote that Sarah Palin was the mayor of a small town. (Barack Obama, too, conveniently does not mention running a state, nor chairing the Oil and Gas Comm’n. Funny.) Saving the best for last: Patterico sends us to an Alaskan’s take on America’s Most Popular Governor:
Sphere: Related ContentShe reminds me personally of our Alaska wolverine which will fight anything in its path if it sees fit to do so. No respect at all for size or position.
In closing I must tell you that she is the best, most moral and most focused leader I’ve seen since President Reagan. I feel, really strongly that like Alaska, the rest of our country will love her within a few weeks. Put simply, she represents Middle America like no leader we’ve ever had.
I think McCain made a totally brilliant move in choosing her. She’s a maverick who is probably tougher and more focused than McCain himself… and she won’t be a total yes man, or more appropriately, yes woman.
Thanks for all these roundups! I’m just going to point people over here.
It is amazing how quickly the pro-condom distribution types took Bristol’s pregnancy to attack abstinence education. As one of the links notes, she may have received “normal” sex-ed at school and even so, does a single pregnancy of someone who has non-abstinence sex-ed prove it is completely flawed? If so, then that argument was over a long time ago.
Neil’s last blog post..Weekly roundup
It’s a little wierd that it’s supposedly “the left’s” fault that a leader of the Alaska Independance Party claimed Palin as an erstwhile member, and the New York Times reported her saying it, and suddenly it’s a big leftist conspiracy.
It looks to me like the Alaska Independance Party person made the statement of Palin’s membership. The New York Times reported it.
Then, the Chairperson retracted the statemtn, and the New York Times reported the retraction.
How is it that an extreme right-wing person makes an erroneous statement, then corrects it, and it’s suddenly a big leftist conspiracy?
That’s just weird.
Teresa’s last blog post..Ooopsies.
Thanks, Neil.
Teresa,
Do you have cites for that? Far as I know, the NYT, CBS, and others quickly reported it as evidence that Palin is anti-American, with no confirmation beforehand (hence the retraction).
Now, for my snarky side (aimed at them, not you!): these are the same people who spent WEEKS waiting for “confirmation” of the John Edwards affair. They had photos of him in a hotel with his mistress, but that wasn’t enough “facts” for them until Edwards himself confirmed it. Sloppy reporting on one side, but not the other, is bias. Did the NYT contact Palin before publishing this? Did it try to access public information about her voter registration? No - it just threw the rumour out there and then made Palin play defence. Usually, news sources should wait to confirm their info, then report, not report any old thing that comes their way, and confirm later.
We’ve seen the same thing with countless other messes, which is why Winston Churchill said that lies get halfway around the world before the truth has had the time to put its pants on. I see no reason why people who claim to report on news cannot confirm their stories first.
Roxeanne,
One of the links you had up there said that the Chairperson for the Alaska Independance party had said that Sarah was a member, and then, after reviewing the records, ammended her statement.
I can’t think who would you call to fact-check the chairperson of an organization about the membership of their organization? Who would be more reliable, and have more authority to authenticate the information?
Whereas I can totally understand why the mainstream media would hesitate to take the National Enquirer as a reliable source.
I don’t think you have to be liberal to see that the two sources are not of equal reliability.
Teresa’s last blog post..Jaw-dropping cluelessness
oops…it was actually a link referanced by one of your links…lead to Donkelphant:
http://donklephant.com/2008/09/02/that-would-be-no/
The key paragraph:
The information in the Times article was based on a statement issued Monday night by Lynette Clark, the party’s chairwoman, who said that Ms. Palin joined the party in 1994 and in 1996 changed her registration to Republican.
On Tuesday night, Ms. Clark said that her initial statement was incorrect and had been based on erroneous information provided by another member of the party whom she declined to identify.
Teresa’s last blog post..Jaw-dropping cluelessness
Teresa,
On the Enquirer issue: that magazine does have a reputation of not being terribly reliable, but it has scooped the mainstream media on a number of stories. Patterico’s Pontifications (site that spends a lot of its time pointing out media bias, usually with the LA Times) ran this story on the Enquirer’s recent scoops - all ones that the rest of the media sat on.
I brought up the Edwards one, not because it was unfounded speculation that the NE routinely engages in, but because they found the guy in a hotel room with a woman who was rumoured to be his mistress. He had to get hotel staff to help him exit. Yet, that was not enough for the MSM. They used the NE’s bad reputation as an excuse, not a reason, to not report it. The evidence was there, and the mag - after several high-profile suits that it lost - has been a lot more careful in recent years.
As for Palin: it could have confirmed with public records. It could have asked the guy to send over its party’s internal records for their review. The default position should be to confirm (trust, but verify), not to assume that everything they hear about a major party candidate is true.
Wasn’t sure if you had this one or not - I’ve seen a couple of the “Chuck Norris” type lists but this is the best so far - http://www.stoptheaclu.com/archives/2008/09/03/little-know-facts-about-sarah-palin-aka-the-sarahcuda/
My favorite: Sarah Palin can divide by zero.
Neil’s last blog post..Weekly roundup
Thanks again Roxeanne!
U R a peach.
BTW I’ve no idea why my track back is so whack.
It leads to a 404 page.
Odd.
Velvet Hammer’s last blog post..Digging Through The Sarah Palin Media Firestorm
Roxeanne,
I was under the impression that they were reporting what the Chairperson said. As far as I know, the only confirmation you are responsible to get is to make sure that the person said what you are reporting them as saying.
If they had to confirm the factuality of every statement made by a source that they report, it would be sort of crippeling.
Especially if they are white house correspondants.
Teresa’s last blog post..Jaw-dropping cluelessness
Did she, or did she not, ROCK?
Seriously, I know she’s awesome. But every time she does something else, it’s even better than before. Amazing.
I heard she rocked. Does anyone have the vid? Unfortunately squarebob spongepants was on so I didn’t get to watch it.
We’ve GOT to get another tv :(.
Kevin’s last blog post..Newswire (aka Inbox)
Kevin,
I watched it. She hit a home run. The Obama campaign will be reeling. Left-leaning atheists are saying their prayers that this never gets out to voting Americans.
I wrote down a few of my favourite quotes (while watching) and put them into the newest Haemet post. (While “mooseburger-eating bomb-thrower” may not sound like the convention, you would have had to seen it to know that she obliterated the Obama campaign.)
Tieki,
I think she ROCKED. Or, as my former colleague once said, “This []rocks out loud.”
Teresa,
Voter registration records are routinely kept on file. A simple, “Great, fax those over, here’s my number” would have cleared the entire thing up.
Now, by your logic, why not take the word of people with pictures of John Edwards frolicking about a hotel with his mistress?
Velvet,
Thank you.
Roxeane,
“Now, by your logic, why not take the word of people with pictures of John Edwards frolicking about a hotel with his mistress?”
So, by your logic, if the White House Press Secretary says “We do not torture”, the press is obligated to verify that we actually don’t torture before they can print the words “The white house pressperson says ‘We do not torture.’”?
and then, if later, it turns out that we DO torture, the press is responsible for a lie?
Not by a long-shot.
That’s rediculous.
They COULD have reported “The National Enquirer claims to have pictures of Edwards frolicking with his mistress, but won’t give them to us, or show them to us.”
But that is not interesting news. The NE ALWAys claims to have evidence of outrageous stuff regarding public figures.
When some pictures were actually published, the media could have said “The National Enquirer published photos they say are of Edwards, but they are grainy and indistinct.”
Once again…not news. The National Enquirer’s photos are ALWAYS grainy and indistinct.
But to report it as a fact that Edwards was having an affair because the NE claimed to have evidence it wasn’t going to show anyone yet, or later when the evidence was of poor quality, would have been irresposible.
When the press did it’s own investigation and gathered its own evidence, they story went wild, and would have had legs a lot longer if the Olympics hadn’t started and the press said “oooh shiney!”
The press are not liberal. They are attention deficient.
REporting that the National Enquirer CLAIMED it would not have been irresponsible, but it would also be uninteresting. The NE has claimed to have photos of all sorts of stories that never materialize or tune out to be false.
Reporting that an official of a radical right-wing organization claimed Palin as a member and supporter is not out-of-bounds.
Teresa’s last blog post..Im a true humanitarian.
Oh! and by the way, the same reporters who “broke” the Edwards story now claim that they know about an affari Palin had with her husband’s business partner, and McCain is apparently talking about sueing.
The NE is a rag. They frequently claim to have proof when they do not, and when they do the proof is often of inferior quality. Anyone who bases a story on anything they say without waiting for the facts to emerge is an idiot.
Teresa’s last blog post..Im a true humanitarian.
Teresa,
To a certain extent, I agree with you. Nonetheless, the story was reported as “Palin was a member of this party,” and anything else - qualifiers about who said what - were essentially unreported.
I don’t think it’s that hard to get a copy of a public record before printing something. I mean, it’s not like everyone is 100% totally honest when they’re dishing about politicians to a major newspaper.
Roxeanne,
I guess anytime there is a mistake, there’s probably something that someone COULD have done to prevent it…but really, does a reasonable person think that a chairperson of a party would put out erroneous information about their own membership…and conversly, would a resonable person go to the work and expense of doing an investigative peice to scoop a story from a notoriously disreputable newspaper that prints unreliable gossip in every issue?
Some people view the two situations and perceive a concious liberal plot. To me, it seems like a reasonable person would assume that the chairperson would have no reason to lie about the membership of their group, and that there would be no point in putting investagative resources toward trying to scoop a story in a gossip rag. Especially when it is about a guy who is essentially an also-ran.
You may be right that it was a mistake to not independantly verify the Chairperson’s facts as a matter of course…but it doesn’t seem like an extraordinary mistake, and certainly doesn’t rise to the level of a concious liberal conspiracy.
Teresa’s last blog post..Sarah Palin Derangement Syndrome: Focus, people!
Does anyone else find it the slightest bit odd that McCain who is married to an ex beauty queen has chosen an ex Miss Alaska runner up as his running mate? Does she have a fetish for beauty queen has beens? Should ex playboy playmates and Hooters waitresses etc. be lining up with their resumes for cushy jobs in the future McCain administration?