Palin and the Bloggers
THE CORNER
By Byron York
Here in St. Paul, I was on NPR this evening with a man named Michael Carey, who is a columnist and former editorial page editor for the Anchorage Daily News. We started talking, of course, about the day's Palin news -- the fake baby story and the real baby story. As far as the fake baby story was concerned, Carey told me that the rumors were going around in Alaska a few months ago, not long after the birth of Sarah Palin's fifth child. He told me that Daily News reporters and editors explored the story quite extensively, and, as Carey said on NPR, 'could find no basis for it except that people who didn't like Sarah Palin believed it.'
He told me that Daily News reporters talked at length to the Palins about it -- Carey said the Palins were actually eager to talk about the rumor because they knew how much it had spread around Alaska. He also said Daily News reporters looked into the medical angle of the rumor, which included talking to at least one doctor involved, and again found nothing to support the story. In the end, Carey told me, the newspaper became 'convinced that it was not true.' What is amazing about all this is how making just one phone call to a man like Carey could have given some of the bloggers at The Atlantic and DailyKos pause before they wrote so extensively about it. Why didn't they do that?
Bennett On CNN
By Jonah Goldberg
Wow, good for Bill. A CNN reporter used the Bristol pregnancy story to lecture viewers on the need for sex-ed in schools. Bennett chided CNN on air for advocacy journalism. Wolf Blitzer tried to defend the 'report.' But Bennett -- who conceded that teen pregnancy is a legit issue -- wouldn't budge in condemning CNN for using the girl as a political football or prop. He seemed to disappear from the set shortly thereafter, but I got caught up in a phone call, so I'm not sure what happened.
Palin and the Evangelicals
By Byron York
Been talking to people about the Bristol Palin story. How will McCain's newly-enthusiastic evangelical supporters react to is? My feeling is that they are simply not going to be judgmental. The whole tone of contemporary evangelicism seems to involve a lot of non-judgmentalism, at least in matters like this. My guess is that the only people who will partake in fire-and-brimstone rhetoric will be the left-wing blogosphere. As far as evangelicals are concerned, I spoke this morning to Marlys Popma, who is the well-known Iowa evangelical leader who is now the head of evangelical outreach for the McCain campaign. Turns out Popma herself had a child out of wedlock nearly 30 years ago -- it's something she's talked about publicly in the past -- and it changed her life. 'It was my crisis pregnancy that brought me into the movement,' Popma told me. 'My reaction is that this shows that the governor's family is just like so many families. That's how my first child came into the world, and I'm just thrilled that [Bristol Palin] is choosing to give this child life.'
I asked Popma what she thought the larger reaction among evangelicals will be. 'Their reaction is going to be exactly as mine,' she told me. 'There hasn't been one evangelical family that hasn't gone through some sort of situation. Many of us are in this movement because of something that has happened in our lives.' By the way, I talked to someone in the Obama campaign today, and there is no way in the world they are going to comment on this. |
