SubscribeMcCain Aide: Media Out To Destroy Palin
Buried in the back pages of the Washington Post:
McCain Strategist Blasts Media
Top Aide Says News Organizations Are on a ‘Mission to Destroy’ Palin
By Howard Kurtz
Wednesday, September 3, 2008; A17ST. PAUL, Minn., Sept. 2 — Sen. John McCain’s top campaign strategist accused the news media Tuesday of being “on a mission to destroy” Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin by displaying “a level of viciousness and scurrilousness” in pursuing questions about her personal life.
In an extraordinary and emotional interview, Steve Schmidt said his campaign feels “under siege” by wave after wave of news inquiries that have questioned whether Palin is really the mother of a 4-month-old baby, whether her amniotic fluid had been tested and whether she would submit to a DNA test to establish the child’s parentage.
Arguing that the media queries are being fueled by “every rumor and smear” posted on left-wing Web sites, Schmidt said mainstream journalists are giving “closer scrutiny” to McCain’s little-known running mate than to Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.
The McCain camp has been unusually aggressive in pushing back against the media, and it seems to hope to persuade journalists to back off in their scrutiny of Palin. Obama campaign officials have complained to news organizations that their man has been subjected to considerably more investigative reporting than McCain has, but they have done so in more low-key fashion.
By contrast, Schmidt spoke on the record in denouncing as “an absolute work of fiction” a New York Times account of the process by which the McCain campaign vetted Palin. He also charged that Newsweek columnist Howard Fineman was predicting that the governor might have to step down as McCain’s vice presidential choice.
Fineman said that he has “never, ever said that,” and that he has pointed out positive aspects of Palin’s candidacy. “They decided a long time ago that they were going to work the refs,” he said.
Elisabeth Bumiller, the lead author of the Times report, said she is “completely confident about the story.” As for the campaign’s criticism, she said: “This is what they do. It’s part of their operation.”
McCain also canceled a scheduled appearance on CNN’s “Larry King Live” on Tuesday in retaliation for an interview a day earlier in which prime-time host Campbell Brown repeatedly pressed campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds to provide one example of a decision that Palin had made as commander of the Alaska National Guard.
“The interview was totally fair,” Brown said. “I was trying to get an answer. I was persistent, but I was respectful. That’s my job. Experience is a legitimate issue when John McCain raises it about Obama, and it’s also legitimate for us to raise it about Palin.”
Schmidt, a former spokesman for President Bush and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, talked openly about his frustrations in an interview with The Washington Post. He said the McCain camp is in the middle of the worst media “feeding frenzy” he has ever seen.
The fact that unsubstantiated allegations appear on the Internet “is not a license for smearing” Palin, he said. “The campaign has been inundated by hundreds and hundreds of calls from some of the most respected reporters and news organizations. Many reporters have called the campaign and have apologized for asking the questions and said, ‘Our editors are making us do this, and I am ashamed.’ ”
The intensity of media inquiries hit a new level after an anonymous blogger on the liberal Web site Daily Kos last weekend charged that McCain’s running mate is actually the grandmother of Trig Palin, the 4-month-old baby born with Down syndrome, and that the real mother is her daughter, 17-year-old Bristol Palin. That led to mainstream media inquiries, which prompted the McCain camp to disclose in a statement Monday that Bristol is five months pregnant and plans to have the baby and marry the teenage father.
Markos Moulitsas, the site’s founder, said he did not know the contributor’s identity but thought that the admittedly “weird” pregnancy questions were a legitimate line of inquiry that he should not suppress.
Some journalists, Schmidt said, have demanded to see Trig’s birth certificate, or have asked when Palin went into labor and whether her contractions increased or decreased as she traveled from Texas to an Alaskan hospital in her home town, Wasilla. Others, he said, have asked whether Palin’s eldest son, Track, who serves in the Army and is deploying to Iraq, is a drug addict. “Categorically false,” Schmidt said, adding: “This is crazy.” …
The nerve of the McCain campaign complaining. You’d think we would be used to it all by now.
But this part really takes the biscuit:
Elisabeth Bumiller, the lead author of the Times report, said she is “completely confident about the story.” As for the campaign’s criticism, she said: “This is what they do. It’s part of their operation.”
Hilarious.
Ms. Bumiller’s front page article in the New York Times was a pack of lies, as even The Times has been forced to admit:
Alaska Party Official Says Palin Was Not a Member
September 2, 2008
The chairwoman of an Alaskan political party that advocates a vote on the state’s succession from the union said Tuesday that she had been mistaken when she said Gov. Sarah Palin was a member of the group.
A front-page story in The New York Times on Tuesday and articles in other news media reported that Ms. Palin was a member of the Alaska Independence Party for two years in the 1990’s.
Of course this admission was buried in the back pages of paper.
It was ever thus with the Old Gray Lady Whore.
After all, “this is what they do. It’s part of their operation.”
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19 Responses to “McCain Aide: Media Out To Destroy Palin”
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September 3rd, 2008 at 4:34 am
I pray that Gov. Palin unloads both barrels on these sc**bags during the debates. I want to see her get right in Bidens face and take him to task for every underhanded thing that has been done to her and her family. This is really starting to piss me off and I hope it is doing the same to others and blows up in Obama and Bidens’ faces.
September 3rd, 2008 at 5:38 am
The mainstream media is in panic mode. They are throwing anything and everything out there, true or not, to try to derail Palin’s obvious popularity. The abject fear, the palpable reaction to impending doom is obvious. Palin scares the absolute hell out of the media…..and entrenched bureaucrats in washinton….and their moneyed special interests. They arent that concerned about McCain, but they are jumping in fear of the shadow she casts for a future run against Hillary, and against them.
She will weather it. The media has cast their vote for Obama, and they will be left sitting on the sidelines if they lose….in more ways than one. They have been paid to make Obama the victor. They have been ordered to make Obaaaaama the victor. Soros is used to getting his way, and they know they cant disappoint the behind the scenes money that keeps their losing ventures alive.
Sarah Palin’s sun is just rising…..and she is casting an immense shadow, eclipsing anything the left can offer. The fly over states are breathing a huge sigh of relief, and getting ready to vote where just two weeks ago, they werent. The democrat’s worst fear has arisen. The chosen one cant beat someone who represents what the American people have always wanted.
Palin will be beaten half to death by the lies of the media, who will faithfully transfer them from Kos and Huffpost as fast as they are made up by Markos and other lickspittle minions bowing to their DNC masters…..but she has been attacked before, and won. This will be no different other than the fact that the MSM will finally be exposed as the partisan hacks on socialists’ payrolls they are.
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:47 am
SJ’s right. The level of noise produced by the MSM about this non-story is the measure of how panicked they are. Now we’re hearing about the husband’s DUI from 22 years ago.
Maybe we should all just confess right now publicly to all our past misdemeanours in case someone we’re related to ever decides to run for public office. Get it over with, you know? I’ve been haunted for years by that 3 Musketeers bar I shoplifted from Woolworth’s when I was 13, the dollar I took from my Mom’s purse, the beer I bought when I was underage (cigarettes ditto), my episodes of truancy in high school, those overdue library books, the incidents of public drunkenness in college, the time I looked at a Victoria’s Secret catalogue when I had no intention of buying anything, all the times I knew I was being undercharged in stores and didn’t draw the clerk’s attention to the error, the time I found $20 in the street and made no effort to find the real owner, the Cuban rum I drank in full knowledge that I was violating the US trade embargo…god, I’m gonna burn for this stuff.
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:56 am
The McCain camp needs to aggressively stay on the offense with the MSM. There are a whole hoard of so called investigative reporters either in or heading to Alaska to dig up all the dirt they can find on this woman. We need to aggressively support this campaign and do what we can to fight back against these traitors. The Washington corrupt and the far left are scared to death of this lady, they are afraid that she is going to shake things up and I think their attacks will backfire on them bigtime. People do not like someone who they can really relate to and reminds them of themselves attacked so unfairly. I believe she is up to the task at hand and will give them back tenfold what they are doing to her. As a former Alaskan resident, I can tell you have to have an awful thick skin to have turned over the tables and shaken things up like she did. Her popularity will soar as the American people get to know the real Sarah Palin, and that will be change we can believe in. She made bigger and far reaching decisions on a daily basis than Obama has had to make his entire life. Like she said He has run nothing but his mouth.
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:46 am
What a despicable leftist media!!!
This comes quickly to mind….
“Blessed are you when men; speaking falsely, say all manner of evil against you for my names sake”
On a brighter note: Jon Voight was pretty darn good on H&C last night. At one point, I thought Voight was getting pretty close to whacking Alan in the head !!!! …and the McCain bio-vid was awsome! Thompson also gets a thumbs up! Way up!!!
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:36 am
They treated Reagan like this if I remember correctly. That is a good sign in my book.
The difference is the paper/TV media did not have the internet to fall back on to gather rumor and sleaze.
Lenin would smile at the job they are doing if he could.
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:54 am
We need to fight this not with the Jerimiah Wright, William Ayers stuff toward Obama - but rather in the actual stuff that will hurt Obama/Biden - Biden’s son under investigation in fraud, his son’s connection to Obama, Obama’s dirty and underhanded tactics (releasing Mr. Ryan’s divorce records) to win all of his previous elections. More importantly we need to point out the duplicitous and hypocritical issue of trashing a female candidate with personal dirt, especially since the other side claims to be so feminist and supportive of ‘women’. That kind of garbage might just work in IL - but on a national level it is not and should be shouted to the rooftops that gutter, sleazy politics should not be tolerated and most certainly a candidate who uses them should not be elected to the White House.
I, once was told I should run for office - I told the person, thank you very much for the compliment, but I have skeletons in my closet that will talk for very little money! We all are not perfect (that is why we are humans, not gods) - so this is in reality a non-issue as who among us is perfect - one must also wonder as to why Obama has not been ‘vetted’ as to his personal failings as a human being. Oh yeah, I forgot he admitted freely to using cocaine - so much more a positive than a mother with a pregnant 17 year old. Bet even that is a lie (the cocaine) but just put into his book to give him street cred - never forget this is a political hack who has been on a mission to become the first (bi-racial) African American President. I put nothing said or done beyond him as a political tool to use to his advantage - which is also why the first thing out of his mouth is that what McCain does is a political tool. Takes one to know one.
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:59 am
MSM knew about the Edwards’ love-child rumors when he was running for POTUS, but they ignored it — it took the National Enquirer to break the story.
MSM knew about the Clinton-Lewinski affair, but did nothing – it took the Drudge Report to break the story.
MSM knew about Wright, but it took FNC/Sean Hannity to break the story.
MSM knew about Ayers – the University of Illinois, Chicago was in on the cover up, but it took TNR/Kurtz to break the story. Now we have a pack of reporters running Alaska digging up dirt, but only a couple pouring over the thousands of pages of documents related to the ONLY executive experience Obama can claim.
MSM knows about Rezko, a man the US Attorney successfully connected to financiers with close to Saddam Hussein, yet they’re silent.
MSM knows about the investigation of Biden’s son and brother, the civil suit, the fraud allegations, the $1.2 million salary, the $3.4 million ear marks, etc. Where are the “concerns” about the vetting process here?! This is a man who was run out of the 1988 campaign for lying and plagiarism, yet he’s back on the national stage.
I feel an undercurrent of righteous and justified indignation on the part of my fellow conservatives. For far too long we have been civil in this debate, but these latest affronts have shaken the base at its core. If this was McCain plan, he has succeeded.
Americans are not stupid, despite what the liberal elite in NYC and Hollywood believe. Look for a huge bounce out of this convention and a landslide in November.
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:08 am
Interesting - Bumiller’s journal entry is remarkably similar to Wikipedia’s Sarah Palin Page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_palin
Hey - If my daughter can’t use Wikipedia because her professors find it unreliable, then how the Hell can the NYT rely on it?!
Remarkable isn’t it?
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:41 am
“MSM knew about Wright, but it took FNC/Sean Hannity to break the story.”
Actually all this stuff came from S&L first–Hannity habitually steals from bloggers. With regard to Hannity also he’s a complete weenie for not calling out Alan “Skeletor” Colmes. Skeletor is the origin of the “breaking water” crisis, and had a post about Palin “having” to marry her husband–based on his calculation of Track’s birth.
Rudy Giuliani was laughing at him the entire time he was on Fox last night–and Jon Voigt looked like he was going to slap him. After claiming it wasn’t the lefties bringing up family, Skeletor asks Voigt about his liberal brother and what it was like to talk to him. Sez Voigt: “why are you bringing up my brother?”
Colmes had tears in his eyes. ROFLMAO
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:48 am
Nice post, wardmama. Eva ditto. I’m feeling plenty energized right now, thanks to these lying smear merchants. Also, I just thought of more bad stuff I did: jaywalking, improper disposal of chewing gum, left seat up, reckless discharge of shotgun (into television), told female dress looked nice on her when it didn’t, secretly ate extra ice cream when in kitchen preparing dessert, drove in car on highway with loaded pistol and open container…
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:54 am
The NY Slimes trots out Garry Wills with memories of the infamous Thomas Eagleton
How kind of the smug leftards to help us in minimizing their coming humiliation.
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:01 pm
That decision worked out very well for McGovern didn’t it?
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:07 pm
I guess Wills never heard the ol’ saying,
“You dance with the girl you brung.”
Of course, not, guys like him couldn’t get a date, That and the lack of oxygen during their development years caused by having their underwear pulled up over their heads, made them bitter and fearful - especially around attractive, powerful women.
RB’s havin’ moose burgers flown in for tonight. Go Sarah - Go!
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:17 pm
From http://www.hillaryis44.org
# HillaryforTexas Says:
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:43 am
Re: McCain’s new ad comparing Palin and Obama’s experience, I would LOVE for there to be a mocking voiceover at the very end:
“Oh, and by the way: She’s our second string. He’s their starter.”
What a long strange trip this election has become.
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:53 pm
“Oh, and by the way: She’s our second string. He’s their starter.”
Hahaha, this is great. Hillaryis44 is rooting for “great speeches” tonight. I love it!
I told you, WOMEN stick together and defend each other. The “sisterhood” (pardon my liberal term, but I thought it would appropriate), is greater than partisan politics. BO and his cronies should have laid off the “little woman” bashing. Now they have HELL to pay.
Fox news just had a group of top Conservative/Republican women who have joined together to air their outrage over how Palin is being treated. They say a man in politics would NEVER be treated this way. It’s sexist. I can’t find a link to it yet. Maybe you can find it SG.
It’s hilarious… women are angry and the momentum is growing. Told ya’. :-)
Get the popcorn out, this is going to be soooo entertaining. LOL
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:18 pm
“Oh, and by the way: She’s our second string. He’s their starter.”
hahaha, what a great quote! And from a Hillary site, no less.
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:26 pm
The seditious MSM, the editors and their talking heads are out for Sarah Palin. That is why we should do our part to return the favor. There has never been a better example of truly evil intent than their behavior during this election cycle. If we’re going to remain a free people, we can’t continue to allow them to present tainted information to us. Most of the visable stars of print and television news are former operatives of the Left and we don’t need them to explain our world to us. Unless the news serves their worldview, we won’t hear it anyway.
Our Founding Fathers placed great value in a free press, emphasizing their role in the preservation of our nation. Our press is now owned by the Left, and have outlived their usefulness.
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:31 pm
This is going to backfire BIG TIME! The average Joe and Josephine who doesn’t live, eat, breathe and sleep politics is not going to see it their way. They are just going to see a bunch of @$$holes campaign aides, oops I mean Lame Stream Media, attack a woman and her daughter! I smell LANDSLIDE!!!