Rumor Mongering

November 8, 2008
Rumor Mongering

While we are on the subject of how dishonorable it is to be a "bad winner" and kick someone while they are down, there appear to be more stories in the national media about Sarah Palin ... the losing Vice Presidential candidate, that there are about our President-elect, his running mate, Joe Biden-His-Time, or John McCain! It is virtually all incredibly negative and nasty, but she still elicits more coverage (which equals interest) than the rest of them! The nastiness is inexcuseable, however, and only understandable in the context of extreme fear by the liberal elites that Sarah is indeed the long-awaited return of the Messiah ... oops, sorry, that was Obama. Sarah is apparently feared to be the long-awaited return of a Ronald Reagan. It seems that anyone running for anything in the Republican party has tried to claim that title (including the outgoing President Shrub). Sarah hasn't tried. She hasn't had to. She has excited the Republicans (and a lot of Democrats) beyond anything anyone has seen on the Republican side since ... well ... since Ronald Reagan! Realize the media did its best to paint him as a mental pygmy his first couple of runs at the presidency as well. Now ... he is the most likely 5th face to be carved into Mt. Rushmore! No wonder the liberal elite is scared of her and is desperately trying to make her look stupid and vindictive even after she lost! They desperately need to bury her politically. But they won't.

Even this latest nonsense: an anonymous (way out-of-date) report allegedly by some disgruntled McCain staffer that Sarah didn't know whether Africa was a country or a continent is total bunk. As I understand it, what she really asked(according to unnamed anonymous sources :-) during the debate preparation for her one-on-one with Biden, was something like "Are we talking about the country of South Africa or the continent of Africa?" which, in the context of the conversation at the time was perfectly reasonable. I haven't discovered for sure yet whether a staffer misheard the comment and missed the "South" or if it was just an intentional hatchet job. But I'm working on it.

I am not alone in the realization that the media intentionally painted a caricature of Governor Palin and even nationally well-known Democrats who got to know her well flatly do not believe that Sarah could have been confused as to whether Africa was a country or continent. This story conveys the following (and more): a Democrat reporter, Greta Van Susteren, who interviewed Sarah Palin twice says that she was "enormously impressed at how smart she was". The Democrat who was the former communications director for Citizens for McCain, Elaine Lafferty, traveled with Sarah and got to know her well. She was also incredibly impressed at her intellect ... and that, far from being a diva, the staff absolutely loved her. Assuming that someone on the staff actually did tell Cameron about the alleged Africa confusion and other nastiness about Sarah, it would have to be, according to those who know, "sour grapes from one or two people".
I guess my latent [latent? :-)] cynicism finally emerged in full bloom after watching the press march so diligently to the beat of the exact same drummer; who was (is!) drumming a bizarre concoction of outright lies and half-truths. As noted above, for instance, even if someone associated with the campaign did mishear something that they turned into the utter nonsense that Sarah didn't know whether Africa is a country or continent, it was not a newsworthy event. Biden said dumber things daily. Obama is going to be President of all of the 57 states he had visited. But the media -- you know -- the folks that have been telling you about evey misstep that Sarah took whether it happened or not? The folks who mix the kool-aid? They would never make a mistake that could look dumb like that, could they? [Btw: I'm not a fan of political correctness (obviously :-), but the kool-aid comments started from Barack himself. See bottom line of third main paragraph.]

Let's take a quick glance at just a few of the articles from the pressography that attempt to make her look the fool on that specific issue of Africa's "continentalism":

Fox News started it all in an apparent attempt to boot-lick the winner of the election and to erase any suggestion that it had any conservative leanings, so let's start with them. Here is the headline and the opening sentence:

Fox: "Palin didn't know Africa is a continent"
06-11-08, 04:43 PM

"As Fox News's Carl Cameron reported Wednesday, that Palin thought Africa was a continent -- not a country –"

Now I realize that I am apparently too stupid, in the view of the press, to see how dumb this makes Palin look. Silly me! I thought it made Fox look dumb instead. Last time I checked ... Africa WAS a continent! Now obviously we can't blame the press for one little mistake that ... oops ... that's what they were attempting to skewer Palin for doing! Only they were probably wrong and only "name" some unnamed anonymous source for their allegations. Even though they probably have changed it by now, however, their "stupid mistake" was made in print and in plain view of millions of people. And not only in this country! As we can see from this exact quote (copied and pasted ... no editing by me at all) from the left-wing BN Village in the U.K.:

"So just how woefully unqualified was Sarah Palin? Now that the election's over, aides to John McCain's campaign are starting to dish on the former Republican vice presidential nominee. The Alaska governor who bragged about being able to see Russia from her home state was pretty uninformed on even the most basic details of the world, it appears. As Fox News's Carl Cameron reported Wednesday, Palin allegedly thought Africa was a continent -- not a country ..." [Bold emphasis was in the original, as cut and pasted.]

I obviously have erred in referring to the lock-step Palin bashers as the "national media". Clearly they were mixing kool-aid from the identical recipe "internationally"! Here's another from across the pond (although Newstin reports reports of news stories more than actually reporting news).


"Sarah Palin, R-Alaska, returned to the 49th state and denied reports that ... she thought Africa is a continent, not a country, as Fox News's Carl Cameron reported."
Closer to home, it was Newsweek that was one of the first to jump on the "kick Sarah under the bus" bandwagon:

"She was angry at [reports that she did not know that Africa].... is a continent, not a country, as Fox News's Carl Cameron reported."

I could go on at some length; there were many who used that exact quote. Apparently many "theoretically competent" news outlets and bloggers just ran with what they were given without even bothering to see if it made any sense, let alone to fact check it. And yet these are the people who think we should trust the truth and accuracy of what they tell us? Even Cameron's report was so wishy-washy it shouldn't have even been National Enquirer material. [Actually, perhaps I should apologize to the National Enquirer for that. There standards may be higher!] "Folks told us ..."? "We were told ..." all by unnamed sources weeks ago. This is trash journalism folks. And incompetent trash journalism to boot!