AP Disinformation on Sarah Palin

Following is a slightly modified version of a friend's commentary on the Associated Press' s bad reporting on Gov. Palin and its unwillingness to recognize the smear campaign -- an endless stream of lies -- against her.

Team Sarah member John Hopkins (a budding journalist) posted a blog lately re: an AP article in which correspondent Michael Gormley exonerates his organization from spreading lies about Palin, based on only ONE claim, that the media tried to say that Trig was really Bristol's son.

Gormley claims that this was "only" the domain of bloggers, and clean, uncorrupted AP had nothing to do with that. But the "blogger" (Markos Markos) who spread the story, on The Daily Kos, was a Newsweek columnist, and both CNN and MSNBC picked up that ball and ran with it. (Of the two, only MSNBC has issued a formal apology.)

Still, Gormley's article is relentlessly mocking of Palin: "She messed up her first interviews, didn't show much of a grasp of the issues and, dontcha know, had a speech pattern that was widely mimicked. Sarah Palin? You betcha. But Caroline Kennedy also fits the bill."

How can he even compare the two?? Caroline Kennedy is, in actuality, a fine writer who has done two books on the Constitution. But she's never run a city, let alone a state, so how can one say she and Sarah are "both" political incompetents? Here's the link:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090109/ap_on_re_us/palin

Gormley, like so many journalists, dwells in a world where their primary goal isn't to provide verifiable information. Rather, they're driven mainly by a desire to curry favor with their peers, i.e., other self-styled "journalists." They're blissfully unaware of any America that exists outside America's biggest metropolitan areas.

And how did Palin "mess up her first interviews"? Oh yes, I remember, She didn't know what Charles Gibson meant by "The Bush Doctrine," a term that media journalists made up and which has covered over time no less that FOUR so-called "Bush Doctrines." One possible definition of said "Doctrine" is to "kill them [terrorists] before they kill us," a view Gov. Palin certainly shares. Another Bush principle is to encourage the spread of democracy in the Middle East and Central Asia, which Palin surely supports -- and many of the "good folks" at AP and CNN probably don't.

Note: Don Imus correctly characterized Charles Gibson as "a pretentious fool," and he labeled Katie Couric as "a little rodent." Gibson and Couric inhabit a liberal universe where they get paid millions of dollar for reading news reports mainly written by others.

But here's the shocker. Google "AP stories about Sarah Palin, 9/1/08 - 11/4/08," and you pull up - FOUR STORIES - all of them relatively balanced. Gone are any stories about the vicious attacks, about Bristol, about the bogus "Troopergate," about Sarah (who's worn spectacles since age 10) supposedly wearing glasses to look more intellectual, about the wardrobe purchases, about her calling Africa a country, etc. etc. etc.

Gone, gone, gone. They never existed, don'tcha know?? WE never said them! WE'RE fair and honest journalists!! Yeah, sure, right.