The JournoList scandal is still unfolding even as we speak, and who knows what revelations are yet ahead. The Daily Caller, which broke this story, is doing Yeoman's work putting all the pieces together, and you can keep abreast of all past and future developments here.
Not all the journalists on JournoList was involved with the attempt to subvert the electoral process in order to aid in the election of their favored candidate, Barak Hussein Obama. They considered it unethical. Many other mainstream journalists and commentators feel the same, and the ones who were involved in the controversy have been greatly criticized. One of their critics has been The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan, who recently blogged about it at The Daily Dish.
Unfortunately, in Sullivan's case, the criticism isn't based on the ethics of the endeavor. He is pissed off because they didn't go far enough. He is incensed, in fact, that they did not devote any time to the Sarah-Trig Palin controversy. Oh, they discussed it at some length. What has Sullivan so angry is they seem to at least have had enough sense to know such dirty, underhanded tactics might actually have backfired on them-or more importantly, on Obama.
Andrew Sullivan's obsession with the birth of Trig Palin is obviously based on Palin's politics. She has stated her opposition to gay marriage for one thing, and she has a long-standing affiliation with an evangelical, apostolic Christian Church. She is obviously a social conservative. In Sullivan's world view, this leaves her automatically unfit and unqualified for any high office, especially a high national office, and most especially the Presidency. Had she been elected Vice-President, she would only be a heartbeat away from the highest office in the land, the most powerful position in the world. Sullivan could not abide by that, so he went to work, and promptly rolled in the gutter. The stench of that experience is still with him, and he can't seem to shake it. But then, he doesn't want to. He is now securely on the same level as the Alaskan blogger Gryphen, who seems to have been the originator of the story of how Palin's oldest daughter, presumably, gave birth to Trig, whereupon Sarah, for some inexplicable reason, claimed him as her own. This was done apparently to avoid the scandal of a daughter who had given birth to one illegitimate child, giving birth to yet another illegitimate child, this one afflicted with Down's Syndrome.
Since there might be a time disparity involved in the two births, it was soon posited that Trig may have been premature. Also, Sarah didn't look pregnant enough at seven months, and besides, what kind of woman would get on a plane while pregnant and close to going into labor. Then there were the ears. Trigs ears were gnarled in one old photo, but seem to have underwent a drastic, noticeable improvement in later photos. Something strange is going on here. Maybe there have actually been two, or three Trigs.
Whatever the case, Sarah Palin could not have given birth to the child, so somebody else must have. If not the oldest daughter, then maybe the middle one. But since Palin seems unconcerned enough about the other illegitimate child that she didn't try to hide its birth to her unwed daughter, why would she go out of her way to hide this one by claiming maternity of the child when she obviously is not and could not be the mother?
What this is all leading up to is of course blatantly obvious, and in fact it has even been stated, albeit in the closed circles of Gryphen's blog. Palin's husband is the father of Trig-by his own daughter. They just don't know which one yet. Once they figure that out, then they can go on from there to determine how culpable Palin was. When did she learn the truth about the pregnancy, and did she know about the alleged relationship of father to daughter. Was it a one time thing, the act of a drunken Todd acting out in frustration after a period of marital discord, or was it an on-going act. And was Sarah a willing enabler of all this?
These are the kinds of people who swim in the cesspool of the American political left. This is the kind of thing they dream up. They will go to any lengths to damage, and hopefully destroy, a political opponent.
It's nothing new. It's been on-going since the earliest days of the Republic, with both sides aligned with their advocates among the special interest groups, and among the news professionals. Adams, Hamilton, Burr, and Jefferson all had their supporters amongst the press who doled out propaganda. But at least then, there were no pretenses as to objectivity. We've almost come full circle, with only the slightest facades of that pretension of objectivity, with the lions share of the support of "objective" journalists going to the left.
The JournoList people excoriated George Stephanopolis for daring to question Obama, during the debates, for his associations with the Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers. It should be pointed out of course that Stephanopolis worked in the Clinton White House, and may not have been entirely objective himself during the primary contest between Obama and Clinton.
But the JournoList members had no such compunctions about the unfair allegations against Palin-except in this one brief instance, where even the people who made up JournoList knew that such allegations might result in a popular uprising at the polls in favor of the GOP ticket. In other words, the concerns were not ethical, but pragmatic ones.
On most other given days, the journalistic profession in general comprises the largest collection of garbage, and in some cases raw sewage in the entirety of the public sphere.
Sometimes one can find Andrew Sullivan clawing his way to the top of the heap. But at other times, he is to be found happily swimming at the bottom of the cesspool.
Hat Tip to Jenn Q Pulic-on Twitter
