Because I can’t resist:
As for blog “rumors” about a Down Syndrome pregnancy, all this blog has done is ask for facts and context …
What the blog did was link to a DailyKos diary that argued, in no uncertain terms, that Sarah Palin was lying about being the mother of her youngest child, and accompany this link with a series of heavily leading questions and a demand – which Andrew continued to repeat even after the rumors had been discredited – for access to Gov. Palin’s medical records. This is far more than asking for “facts” and “context”.
… about a subject that the Palin campaign has put at the center of its message, facts about a baby held up at a convention as a political symbol for the pro-life movement, and cited in Palin’s acceptance speech. You do that, you invite questions about it.
Does this mean that the Obamas’ daughters are fair game? How about the Biden clan? And come to think of it, Michelle Obama has been present at a few campaign events, too … did she and Barack ever have pre-marital intercourse? Did they have any sexual partners before they got married? And mind if I subject their daughters to paternity tests?
I make absolutely no apologies for doing my job.
Nor, of course, do Jerome Corsi and Emily Gould.
If a story does not makes sense or raises serious questions about the sincerity of a candidate’s embrace of a core political message, it is not rumor-mongering to ask about it. It is journalism.
True enough, but as has been explained before, responsible journalists take the time to check out the facts in private, and they do this before shouting whatever questions might come to mind from a public forum. The journalists who do this tend to find, for example, that a simple phone call can be sufficient to discredit a rumor and so spare its subject the discomfort of answering bizarre questions about sensitive and deeply personal matters.
And in the absence of any information from the Palin campaign, I have aired every possible view trying to explain it.
This much is surely – ahem – incontestable.
What else am I supposed to do? Pretend these questions don’t exist? Pretend her story makes sense to me?
See the above: what you’re supposed to do is take the time to check out the facts in private, and do this before shouting whatever questions might come to mind from a widely-read public forum.
I owe my readers my honest opinion. That’s not rumor-mongering, it’s fulfilling my core commitment to my readers.
“Core commitment” or not, when your honest opinion involves a bunch of patent nonsense about a faked pregnancy, sharing that opinion just is rumor-mongering. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Jerome Corsi.
All my factual questions of more than two weeks ago, moreover, remain unanswered by the McCain campaign. They are all factual questions demanding simple factual answers that any campaign that wasn’t bent on deceit and lies would be more than eager and perfectly able to provide.
Why haven’t they? When will they?
Because the rumors have been debunked, the topics at hand are deeply personal, and Sarah Palin doesn’t want a crowd of reporters peering into a bunch of medical documentation about the goings-on in and around her vagina.
Everyone sees this except you, Andrew, and at this point your openly admitted agenda leaves you with little ground to accuse others of “taking their cues” from a Presidential campaign. But keep watching that Technorati rating – ask a few more leading questions and you might catch Gawker.
Filed under: media/culture
At this point I am beginning to believe that indulging Andrew by posting and writing about his actions over the past weeks is only serving to keep this fire going and cause even more damage to a family that, regardless of how much one might disagree with them politically, does not deserve this treatment. Andrew, for all his moments of inspiration and profundity (yes, there have been times when I have found Andrew Sullivan profound) seems, in some deep way, drawn to political drama. The firestorm over his posting about Palin plays directly into his hand in terms of creating the drama he seems to desire and fueling the ongoing soap opera he has played an instrumental part in generating.
Not only this, but it continues to detract from a serious conversation that is, in no uncertain terms, both warranted and desperately needed throughout this election. People all around, and Andrew in particular, need to get over their Palin-mania and get back to a serious discussion about the options available in this election and what those options mean to the future of the country.
For my part, I have gone one step further than no longer frequenting the Dish, at least for the time being. I now also refuse to post about its goings on and will supplant the role that I’d hoped someone like Sullivan would play in this election: focusing on important issues and asking important questions that help to cultivate a clearer and more comprehensive picture about what serious people can do to right the course of a vitally important country that has, in many respects, lost its way over the past 7.5 years (though, admittedly, my attention has shifted greatly to my own country’s federal election of late).
As you mentioned in our conversation, the cult of the presidency in the US isn’t at all helpful, particularly when it subsumes the honest work in which citizens of the country need to engage to maintain the exceptionalism that has made the US such a pivotal global player. Let us (or you, collectively, I guess) get down to that work and not let the machinations of power drown out our (your) own sense of responsibility t do that which must be done.
In the words of a once infamous infomercialist: stop the insanity!
Well said, Scott. I’ve had that same impulse quite a few times. But like I said … I couldn’t resist. :)
I hope that didn’t come off too haughty or imperious. It was meant to imply a certain fortitude and determination I feel on the subject and not to convey any sense of arrogance.
Not at all, Scott! I think you make a lot of important points and offer some good advice … I only wish I were disciplined enough to follow it.
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