I'm honestly shocked, appalled and really disappointed that even after the new photo of Sarah Palin has surfaced, and even after the news about Bristol Palin's pregnancy has surfaced, Andrew Sullivan continues to puff the disgusting rumor about Trig Palin's parenthood. Honestly, this kind of thing from someone whose work I often disagree with, but who I respect, leaves me speechless -- but it didn't affect John Podhoretz the same way. Excerpt:
Thus have scurrilous attacks always found their target. What is different this time, with the Beagle Blogger, is that he has involved a teenage girl and a newborn baby in his libel. Even Trollope, who understood more about human weakness than just about any other novelist, might have had difficulty fathoming that.
A female friend who is not a Republican (I don't think), and whose name most readers would know, writes to say she has been floored by the unhinged misogyny the Palin nomination has brought out from the left. I think it is already quite clear that whatever happens in November, many people -- and not only on the left -- will have ruined their good names for the sake of political expediency. What role does basic human decency play in their calculations? Andrew should ask himself this. He is a better man than what he has done here.
UPDATE: Classy from Obama:
Politico's Carrie Budoff Brown reports: At a press avail in Monroe, Mich., Obama on Palin: "Back off these kinds of stories.""I have said before and I will repeat again: People's families are off limits," Obama said. "And people's chidlren are especially off limits. This shouldn't be part of politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as a governor and or her potential perfromance as a vice president. So I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18 and how a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn't be a topic of our politics."
On charges that his campaign has stoked the story via liberal blogs:
"I am offended by that statement. There is no evidence at all that any of this involved us," he said. "Our people were not involved in any way in this, and they will not be. And if i thought there was somebody in my campaign who was invovled in something like, they that would be fired."
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McCain apologized to Chelsea and her family. If Sullivan sincerely apologizes to Palin and her family we should forgive. I doubt he will though. He may well have shown himself to be not half the man McCain or Obama is. (Or one-third or one-eighth or whatever fraction one prefers)
At first I was willing to give him a bit of slack but he really did "pursue it in a passive-aggressive way" as someone else stated.
"I do know that if Obama's unwed, teenaged daughter was pregnant we'd be hearing from Rush and co. non-stop about how that was evidence of his bad family values and deficient management skills."
Perhaps, but Rush is a dufus and largely an entertainer. I don't know why people still take him serious,
I did respect Andrew Sullivan once. He is a well-educated and well-traveled man who seemed to have a good deal of compassion. Hence his principled stand against "enhanced interrogation" even when many on the Right mocked him for it.
I might agree now that Sullivan is no different than Rush Limbaugh.
There was an article recently about a study showing that when people are presented with falsehoods concerning someone that they will believe it even after the truth comes out. I work with alot of Republicans that circulate falsehoods by e-mail that can be easily checked thru Snopes but never are. They are read then mass mailed to others. The people at the top are aware of this study and know that by spreading lies they can win over someone's confidence. This is why you continue to hear the same stuff over and over, these people are too ignorant to check facts and are taken advantage of because of it. This is the true condition of the American people.
Dahlak is a good choice, Ryan. I don't know Marigold, but I'll look it up.
Frivolous1 gives me the opportunity to quote one of my favorite authors, Terry Goodkind, who has a keen insight to human nature that informs his fiction and gives it an edge missing in most other writings.
People are stupid. [...] They will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true.
As for anyone who might be offended by being called stupid, there is a simple cure for it: stop acting like it.
If PaLin can be lied about, along with her family. Are Obama's kids truely off limits??
The left is desperate and if Palin's daughter was killing this baby they would be applauding
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