I Might Be Wrong

It has been my position that, appalling as it may seem, Sarah Palin has a very realistic chance of being the GOP's 2012 Nominee. No one in the party has the media magic she offers. No one in the party speaks for the resentful right with the same unencumbered-by-facts panache like she does. No one else in the party gives the creepy sexually frustrated fat/frat boys of the Republican Media the hard-on that she does....

My LLF Mr Breeze insists she will self immolate. I always tell him that he underestimates the susceptibility of the masses, as well as the key fact that Sarah's Base is a) a really big part of the Repugnican Party and, even more importantly b) it's the only 'united' part of the GOP Coalition.

But, Mr. Breeze may be on target.

Political Animal takes a look at this week's desperate grab for the spot-light:

"I'll tell you, [Palin states, in an Esquire interview]yesterday the Anchorage Daily News, they called again to ask -- double-, triple-, quadruple-check -- who is Trig's real mom," Palin said. "And I said, 'Come on, are you kidding me? We're gonna answer this? Do you not believe me or my doctor?' And they said, No, it's been quite cryptic the way that my son's birth has been discussed. And I thought, Okay, more indication of continued problems in the world of journalism."

At first blush, this might sound reasonable. For the Anchorage Daily News to call, months after the campaign, just to make sure the governor really is her son's mother seems like a clear example of media excess.

Except, that isn't what happened. My friend Alex Koppelman explained that the paper was actually defending Palin and debunking the bogus rumors about her family. The Anchorage Daily News' editor even emailed Palin directly about this, responding to her concerns.

"You may have been too busy with the campaign to notice, but the Daily News has, from the beginning, dismissed the conspiracy theories about Trig's birth as nonsense. I don't believe we have ever published in the newspaper a story, a letter, a column or anything alleging a coverup surrounding your maternity.

"In fact, my integrity and the integrity of the newspaper have been repeatedly attacked in national forums for our complicity in the 'coverup.' I have personally received more than 100 emails accusing me and the paper of conspiring to hide the truth (about Trig's birth.) [...]

"[W]e have been amazed by the widespread and enduring quality of these rumors. I finally decided, after watching this go on unabated for months, to let a reporter try to do a story about the 'conspiracy theory that would not die' and, possibly, report the facts of Trig's birth thoroughly enough to kill the nonsense once and for all."

So, Palin's favorite example of the "continued problems in the world of journalism" is actually a newspaper coming to her defense, setting the record straight, and defending her against nasty and baseless rumors.