Smears, Vetting, and Sarah Palin

Let' review what sorts of surprises the world has learned about Sarah Palin since she was announced as the Vice Presidential candidate.

The most startling is the announcement that her unwed 17 year old daughter is pregnant, will have the baby, and will marry the father. She initially supported the bridge to nowhere while running for Governor before reversing course while she was Governor. Her husband, then her boyfriend, got a DUI 22 YEARS AGO. She once got a ticket for fishing without a license. She secured almost $27 million in earmarks when mayor of Wasilla. She briefly worked for a 527. It was reported that she was once a member of the Alaska Independence Party. The party has among its platforms the secession from the union. Of course, it was later reported that it was her husband that was a registered member of the party. The biggest potential problem, in my opinion, is the accusation that she may have used undue influence to remove a government employee that refused to fire her sister's ex husband.

As a result of all these revelations, here is what the media is saying.

A few hours before dawn Tuesday, the Intrade predictions market started taking bets on a new proposition: that Sarah Palin would drop off the Republican ticket before the election. Speculators started buying a few hours later; by mid-afternoon, nearly 2,000 trades had been made by people hoping to make a quick buck off of the revelations about the Alaska governor that kept leaking out the day before. (Her husband had a DUI, she once flirted with a secessionist Alaska political party and there was also something or another about her daughter).

Those bets might, eventually pay off. But only if John McCain and his senior staff have a sudden change of heart. McCain's aides, suddenly finding themselves on the defensive about a V.P. pick they still think is a stroke of genius, are pushing back hard against the idea that Palin slipped through their selection process somehow, and against reports in the media that detail just who they didn't call when vetting her. (The campaign has even, apparently, decided to double down on Palin's popularity with the family values crowd; Levi Johnston, Bristol Palin's boyfriend and the father of the child she is expecting, reportedly will join the Palins at the convention.) "She's fully vetted," senior strategist Steve Schmidt insisted. McCain himself chimed in Tuesday from Philadelphia. "The vetting process was completely thorough, and I'm grateful for the results," he told reporters in response to shouted questions.

and...

A series of disclosures about Gov. Sarah Palin, Senator John McCain’s choice as running mate, called into question on Monday how thoroughly Mr. McCain had examined her background before putting her on the Republican presidential ticket.


On Monday morning, Ms. Palin and her husband, Todd, issued a statement saying that their 17-year-old unmarried daughter, Bristol, was five months pregnant and that she intended to marry the father.

Among other less attention-grabbing news of the day: it was learned that Ms. Palin now has a private lawyer in a legislative ethics investigation in Alaska into whether she abused her power in dismissing the state’s public safety commissioner; that she was a member for two years in the 1990s of the Alaska Independence Party, which has at times sought a vote on whether the state should secede; and that Mr. Palin was arrested 22 years ago on a drunken-driving charge.

Aides to Mr. McCain said they had a team on the ground in Alaska now to look more thoroughly into Ms. Palin’s background. A Republican with ties to the campaign said the team assigned to vet Ms. Palin in Alaska had not arrived there until Thursday, a day before Mr. McCain stunned the political world with his vice-presidential choice. The campaign was still calling Republican operatives as late as Sunday night asking them to go to Alaska to deal with the unexpected candidacy of Ms. Palin

Now, this episode reinforces the unbelievable hubris of the media establishment. The reality is that nothing the media has discovered so far comes even close to rising to the level of a controversy. There is nothing but innuendo that says that Palin did anything wrong in the so called "troopergate". Everything else is a scandal in the minds of the media only. Furthermore, the media is blatantly trying to hype all this. After first falsely reporting on their front page that Sarah Palin was a member of AIP, they put the retraction on their blog. The idea that the McCain campaign didn't vet Palin is a creation of the media based on anonymous sources that is based on nothing but innuendo. Furthermore, everything that has been discovered almost certainly was found out by the McCain campaign, however they didn't see a fishing ticket as disqualifying.

The reality is that there is absolutely nothing close to evidence that the vetting process was superficial. There is absolutely no evidence that anything in Palin's past or closet disqualifies her from being the VP. There is absolutely no evidence that McCain has any plans to drop Palin, and this narrative is entirely created by the media. In fact, these so called scandals are pseudo scandals totally manufactured by a media that has turned their opposition to the Republican party into a blatant and naked opposition.

Where this becomes hubris is that the media thinks this will work. The media apparatus actually thinks that if they talk enough about her pregnant daughter that suddenly the American people will care. They think that if they print a smear on page one and bury the retraction in a blog that no one will know the truth. They think that if they make enough of a deal out of something that is not a big deal, that eventually they will do the Jedi mind trick on the American people and make them believe that it really is a big deal. Now, to see just how demented the MSM is check out this snippet of a .commentary

Whatever one thinks of Ayers’ actions 40 years ago, there is nothing to condemn, and much to admire, about his leadership and commitment over the past 20 years in making schools better places to teach and learn. And there is nothing to condemn, and much to applaud, in Obama’s close association with those efforts.

Some of the reporters assigned to dig into the Annenberg archives felt a little silly about it all, I’m told. Their editors should too.

Now, this editorial is about Barack Obama's time at the Annenberg Challenge where he worked alongside former domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. The reporters, the commentary alluded to, were sent to examine mountains of newly released documents related to the time both spent at the Challenge. If ever there is a clear example of the absurd and demented bias of the media establishment it is this. It appears that if a reporter is ever forced to vet the Presidential candidate's relationship with a former terrorist, they feel silly, finding out about a 22 year old DUI, a fishing ticket, and the pregnancy of a 17 year old of a Republican, now that is something they will pursue with vigor.