So it comes as no shocker that someone would write an adversarial piece about her. However, given that she has an extremely loyal backing of supporters, one would think that a journalist trying to rip her apart would fact-check and make sure that all the t's were crossed and the i's dotted.
We can forgive a simple recreational blogger for making a mistake, but when a journalist for a major publication such as Vanity Fair has a "whoopsie" it sort of makes you wonder about the publication as a whole.
Michael Joseph Gross, the writer of the Vanity Fair column on Sarah Palin identified a child as Sarah Palin's son, Trig - when really it was the son of Gina Loudin, a conservative activist from St. Louis. Gross was trying to point out that Sarah Palin used her children as political pawns - but Trig wasn't even at that event.
Loudin told the press that she had informed Gross that the baby was hers, not Trig - but he ignored it.
If that's the case - and Gross did admit to the Associated Press that he made a mistake - can you really trust the article? Even if Gross did have some valid points in his Vanity Fair piece about Sarah Palin, the whole message has been tainted by errors and controversy.
At least Michael Gross had the cojones to admit he erred, unlike Sarah Palin, who has yet to own ONE mistake, lie or distortion. Her Death Panels claim was PolitiFact 2009 Lie of the Year. Her claim that ethics complaints cost AK millions was debunked; less than $300,000 and nobody was paid OT or extra; routine salaries that would have been paid regardless of her being investigated or not. Her claim that AK makes 20% of gross U.S. energy was discredited by U.S. Energy Information Administration stats that prove AK makes less than 3% of total domestic energy consumed in the U.S. When she cited the October 3, 2008 NY Times as proof that Obama pals with terrorists, those who actually READ that particular paper knew it actually came to the exact opposite conclusion of Palin's claims.
ReplyDeleteYet, not once has she admitted or accepted any fault or accountability for her lack of curiosity or her brazen but cheerful ignorance of facts, nuance, context, etc. She was given repeated opportunities to speak to VF and present her side of the story. Instead, she refused because VF is not Fox and then ran to Sean Hannity and cried foul, though it does not appear as though she actually read the article.
The sad thing is, some people treat this ready for Jerry Springer character as though she actually be on the world stage and engage intelligently with Sarkozy, Cameron, Medevedev, Hu Jintao and Merkel. She leverages her past elected office and VP run to inject herself into every issue and debate w/o actually debating; hiding behind Fox, Facebook, Twitter and AM Radio; afraid to be further exposed as the ignoramus she is.
Text book hit piece. Vanity Fair should be ashamed.
ReplyDeleteWow, this is the stupidest post I've ever read. You wrote an entire piece on how one journalist mistook one kid for another, and that's a reason for calling the entire integrity of the piece into question? You're retarded.
ReplyDeleteVanity Fair and Michael Gross know what they are doing and that is attracting liberal females to their mag filled with adds for overpriced jeans and high dollar cologne. It's all about selling magazine ads and has nothing to do with journalism. I suppose you could liken it to the alien baby articles in the supermarket tabloid because they too are about the all powerful dollar.
ReplyDeleteThe ones criticizing the article because of its reliace on off the record sources are either just woefully uninformed or are playing stupid.
ReplyDeleteOff the record sources have been a staple of reporting for years. Woodward and Bernstein anyone? And, the same ones making a beef now seem to have no issue if right wing journalists and pundits use off the record sources like many did in the Clinton investigations of the 1990s.
Just this weekend after quarterback Matt Leinart was cut from AZ Cardinals, two players spoke off the record deriding Leinart, saying he was all Hollywood who cried just over a hangnail or bruise while Kurt Warner was a man who would get hit time d again but get up and give his mates the Kurt Warner positive attitude that propelled him from grocery store bagger to Super Bowl champion. In same article, a Patriots coach anonymously derided Leinart as well. Is anyone, including Leinart going to go to Hannity and cry foul? No.
Does anyone see Obama going to Maddow and Olberman every time some kook wants to claim Obama is not the president because he was born in Kenya or that he is a Muslim? No.
Could anyone with any ounce of intellectual integrity imagine Palin as President? We can say that Nixon was paranoid and vengeful but he also happened to be very intelligent and on the world stage, the man was a true heavyweight. Palin is vengeful and petty but I cannot imagine her doing what Nixon did; opening up doors to previously isolated nations (China) or achieving weapons reduction treaties with a rival power as Nixon did with the Soviet Union. She is incurious and can only address issus at the vapid soundbite level and even then, thos soundbites often have no basis is fact.
She simply is a charismatic charlatan and low information sociopath. On one hand, she is the uninformed white trash she portrays; uneducated and does not wish to be bothered with them evil, elite eggheaded facts, as she already has made up her mind and has common sense American values (low information). However, she also is (or her handlers are) clever enough to know where the cash and worship is and it is not in Juneau(sociopath). While she does not have the classical sociopath's ability t fake or normalize charm or sophistication (think Ted Bundy), she is clever enough to know that her catchphrases and vapidity, which she believes is some type of aura or new conservative girl power, will make her very rich. Sort of like the ditzy cheerleader or vapid mean girl in high school. She may not have known much about history, grammar or math but knew how to get by on looks and perkiness and knew how to get male authority figures to overlook their vapidity; show a little cleavage or leg. Clever but not in any way intelligent or substantive.
Isn't it interesting how illerate, government dependent voters like to call Sarah Palin names. These are the same people who thought a Community Organizer and closet Marxist could run our country. Still jobless??
ReplyDeleteSo -- does this mean that Palin was hauling a baby around on stage that wasn't even her own? That is truly creepy . . . .
ReplyDeleteThat she was. She is the liar!
ReplyDelete