Journolist, Andrew Sullivam & Karma

"Corrupt" journolist members had more sense regarding Trig Palin "story" than Sullivan

Sometimes Andrew Sullivan gets things right.

In his book, The Conservative Soul, Sullivan was absolutely right when he posited that a healthy level of uncertainty should be considered central to conservatism -- a socratic breed of uncertainy that leads conservatives to question themselves on what they know and what they do not. This breeds a sense of humility seldom found in the ideological opponents of conservatism. (It's also too seldom found in conservative ideologues.)

Sullivan has very seldom been right outside the pages of his book.

He was right about something far more recently when described participants in Ezra Klein's Journolist message board as "corrupt".

"What's depressing is the way in which liberal journalists are not responding to events in order to find out the truth, but playing strategic games to cover or not cover events and controversies in order to win a media/political war," Sullivan wrote.

But the story has since turned even on Sullivan, as it can't help but rub his nose in the most devestating self-humiliation of his career.

The matter pertains to the story that Sullivan bought hook, line and sinker -- to the extent that he continues to occasionally harp on it even today. That story, is the bizarre conspiracy theory suggesting that Sarah Palin is not the real mother of Trig Palin.

The story was brought to the attention of Journolist by Business Week's Ryan Donmoyer.

Dylan Matthews -- the blogger known as Minipundit -- quickly responded to the story by declaring it to be non grata in terms of political strategy:

"Obama absolutely cannot touch this. Even if it’s true.

I think the press would justify covering it on the issue of trust, but for me it’s offensive that she would refuse to allow her daughter the choice. She has no business deciding what to make of that pregnancy. If her daughter wanted an abortion, it speaks very ill of Palin’s character to deny her the option."

Matthews gave the matter just enough consideration to consider that it may actually be true. Some Journolisters seemed prepared to believe the story. But Donmoyer himself was not. He later wrote:

"This is one hell of a whacky conspiracy theory and I too agree it’s probably best left alone. I do wonder, however, whether at least one authoritative piece ought to be done to try to put the issue to rest — not as a hit job on Palin so much as to counter something that has already rapidly and viciously spread on the Internet and will only go more viral. As long as it’s in the rumor stage it rivals the disinformation disseminated about Obama — and neither is useful for the
public discourse."

This healthy skepticism on Donmoyer's part unfortunately seems not to have lasted. He would continue in the thread to compile a list of reasons he thought it was more likely that Trig Palin was actually Bristol's son -- resting his case on his belief that it's more likely that a 17-year-old girl would give birth to a child with Down's syndrome than a 43-year-old woman conceiving without medical help.

Much more eager to embrace the conspiracy theory was Health Beat's Maggie Mahar. Dylan Matthews also seemed to have bought the sorry tale.

Perhaps the most disgusting response came from Mark Kleiman, of the website Reality-Based Community. "I see no upside for our side here," he wrote. "There’s plenty of other stuff to work on that won’t get her any sympathy at all and won’t risk damage to her innocent children/grandchild."

To Kleiman, the only reason not to report on the conspiracy theory was that it would provoke sympathy for Palin. One can easily posit that Kleiman's use of "children/grandchild" suggested that he may have believed the story -- or was at least prepared to.

These examples -- with the exception of Donmoyer's initial skepticism -- are actually outliers amongst the Journolist cabal. The bast majority of them either expressed outright disbelief in the story, or simply ignored it.

With the exception of the noted outliers -- as well as a few others -- the "corrupt" Journolist crowd, who even when addressing this issue seemed far more interested in harming Sarah Palin than in reporting a factual story, were able to figure out very quickly that promoting the Trig Palin conspiracy theory was a fool's errand.

But not Andrew Sullivan. Still not Andrew Sullivan. Scarcely a week passes on his Daily Dish blog where Sullivan doesn't dredge it up again.

One should consider it the karmic end of the Journolist scandal: that even as Andrew Sullivan scorns the Journolist participants, they demonstrate judgement far superior to his own.

The Excuses They Make

Just as predicted, the far left excuses themselves over Levi Johnston revelation

As predicted yesterday, the American far left lost little time in looking for a way to excuse themselves for gleefully reporting the lies that Levi Johnston admitted he told about Sarah Palin.

Writing in an op/ed in the New York Times, Gail Collins shows no interest whatsoever in honestly addressing the revelation, and sinks to an actually quite-comical low in order to do it:

"We have been dealing with a lot of imperfect apologies recently, but this one hits a new level of unsatisfactory.

At the very least, we need to know which of the gossip he was dishing was true, and which not completely. The part about how Sarah fights a lot with Todd? Or that she never cooks? Personally, all I want to know is whether Levi was being straight when he said that the former governor of Alaska doesn’t really know how to shoot a gun."

It's so utterly pathetic that one hardly knows where to begin.

Apparently, it's unthinkable to Collins that the vast majority of what Johnston said about Palin is untrue.

What Collins -- and other far-left figures such as Andrew Sullivan -- has entitled themselves to is a unique rhetorical trick.

The honest and rational individual examining the media coverage of Levi Johntson's comments about Sarah Palin would recognize that it was all merely gossip -- hate-driven gossip intended to influence impressions of Palin's politics, despite having little or no relevance whatsoever.

The honest and rational individual will quickly realize that, given that one is dealing with nothing more than gossip, if any unidentified portion of it is admitted to be untrue, then all of it is suspect.

Instead, Collins has entitled herself to a rather different take. Her self-serving take seems to be that if none of what is untrue is specificially identified, then none of it is suspect.

That's hardly a rational or honest approach to this revelation. Then again, the modus operandi of individuals such as Collins to Palin has been one that has been fundamentally dishonest and irrational. Nobody should have expected anything to change now.

In the case of Collins, she isn't done entitling herself to rhetorical tricks. In a particularly pitiful attempt to squirm free of the implications of the Johnston revelation, she even disputes the commonality of the phrase "youthful indiscretions", suggesting that its use is evidence of some kind of conspiracy:

"Johnston also told People that he hoped that the Palins would 'forgive my youthful indiscretion.' This does not really sound like something that would come from a high-school dropout who gave his son the middle name of Easton because that is his favorite hockey equipment company. In fact, the last time I heard anyone refer to a 'youthful indiscretion' was in 1998, when 74-year-old Henry Hyde, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, was confessing to an adulterous affair he had conducted when he was 41."

This would mean that Collins wasn't paying attention as recently as July 1, 2010 when USA Today refered to the "youthful indiscretions" of Ted Kennedy in the midst of an obituary piece on Senator Robert Byrd.

Google passes verdict on the commonality of the phrase quite decisively.

As an argument, this is beyond weak, and it actually sullies the pages of the New York Times that they would bother printing such tripe.

It's a sobering reminder for any of those who had hoped that the revelation that the far left yellow journalists who had posted so many of its hopes on the gossip offered by Levi Johnston would smarten up and offer a mea culpa. With Gail Collins and the NY Times leading the charge, an appropriate admission simply isn't in the cards.

They've simply let themselves off the hook -- at least in their minds.

Andrew Sullivan Before the Levi Johnston Revelations...

While this is unlikely to make the the pale imitations some clowns offer of intellectually superior alternatives, Levi Johnston, the man who impregnated Sarah Palin's daughter and then delighted the left-wing media with his tales of Palin's alleged dirty deeds, had admitted that many of the things he said about the Palin family were "not entirely true".

It doesn't take a PHD in etymology to realize that means that Johnston told a few fibs; sold a few lies.

So while the furthest of the far left find themselves excuses to not shuffle their feet uncomfortably, it's certainly worthwhile to take a look at some of the individuals who took great pleasure in reporting, and actually embellishing, some of Johnston's mistruths.

One need not have a great deal of regard for Palin to agree that Andrew Sullivan -- he of the Trig Palin conspiracy theory -- is due for some comeuppance.

Even setting aside the self-destructive Trig Palin conspiracy theory -- in which Sullivan managed to destroy his own reputation with a story invented out of whole cloth -- Sullivan has far too often staked his credibility on the topic of Sarah Palin to escape with it intact.

The degree of the effect Palin has on Sullivan's psyche became evident mere days after Palin's selection to be John McCain's running mate in the 2008 election, when he suggested that Palin should be "dismissed out of hand":



Sullivan remarkbly once claimed that the only thing he was interested is the truth -- while suggesting that Harper Collins should have vetted her autobiography, and continuing to peddle his self-humilating Trig Palin conspiracy theory!



By the time Sullivan made his most recent appearance on Bill Maher's HBO program, it became clear that his reputation was all but shot.



(For the record, Sarah Palin has a right to part of what Sullivan describes as "our discourse" because she is a US citizen. Andrew Sullivan is not.) (Would it be crass to suggest that Sullivan won't use the meth pipe Maher gave him because he may already have one of his own? -ed)

Sullivan shouldn't be surprised to find out that Johnston has been lying. Even in the midst of his glee he acknowledged that Johnston could be lying while describing Johnston's allegations as "the best we've got":

Now, it turns out that the best source Sullivan had to offer in the midst of his anti-Palin crusade wasn't being truthful. In fact, he was likely being far from truthful.

One should expect a mea culpa and a massive apology from Andrew Sullivan for taking the Johnston allegations in so deeply. One should, but one doesn't.

In fact, on the very day of Johnston's revelation, Sullivan was still pretending there's a debate regarding Trig Palin.

As of this writing, Sullivan hasn't come clean on the extent to which he's been bamboozled by Johnston's dishonesty. Nor should one expect one.

Meet Andrew Sullivan after the Levi Johnston admission. Same as the Andrew Sullivan before the Levi Johnston admission.

The American Left's TMZ Moment

Never has a lop-sided, hastily-erected fence sparked such speculation in the not-so-hallowed falls of the internets.

Yet when Todd Palin set to work feverishly constructing a fence between the home he and his wife Sarah Palin -- the former Governor or Alaska, and former Vice Presidential nominee -- share with their children and the property currently being occupied by author Joe McGinniss, it didn't take long for a photo of a section of that fence to appear on the internet.

The photo reveals a massive gap under the bottom of the lop-sided fence, indicating the clearly-poor crafmanship of the work.

Then again, quality craftsmanship requires time. And when a would-be journalist is watching your family's private moments from the house next door, you start building fast.

The incident has revealled, once again, the self-serving nature of many of those who occupy the far left -- even those who occupy the far left under the guise of being conservative.

Case in point:

In The Conservative Soul, Andrew Sullivan wrote a fine and thoughtful book on the meaning of what it is to be a conservative. But in joining the "Bristol Palin is Trig Palin's mother" rush, Sullivan demolished his own credibility. He chose to become, essentially, a left-wing birther.

(And while right-wing birthers are concerned about the birth certificate of the American President -- a matter that would be of great social consequence if it weren't total nonsense -- Sullivan and company are concerned about the birth certificate of Palin's child. Sad world.)

It's on this note that some would imagine that Sullivan would decide to stop self-immolating, and leave Sarah Palin alone.

Nope. In a Daily Dish blog post about Palin and McGinnis, Sullivan snidely remarks: "I'm hardly surprised that Sarah Palin has had a conniption over someone threatening to commit journalism in her vicinity."

Apparently, to Andrew Sullivan, that's what this entire sorry affair is: journalism.

It isn't voyeurism for the satisfaction of a cabal of far-left-wingers who despise Palin. It's journalism.

Of course, there are other individuals, relentlessly invasive of the privacy of public figures, who call themselves journalists: the paparazzi.

Certainly, many among the paparazzi aspire to journalism. The problem for them is that they possess no quality journalistic skills. Accordingly, they become relegated to a dark corner of the world of journalism where they simply invade the privacy of celebrities in order to sell the photos they take for money.

This is apparently the depth that McGinniss has sunk to. Evidently, possessing no quality journalistic skills, he instead spies on the Palin family, presumably so he can include what he sees in their home in a book -- to be entitled Sarah Palin's Year of Living Dangerously.

To visit Wasilla, interview locals, perhaps even friends, family or adversaries of Palin would be one thing. But moving in next door and playing at being a Peeping Tom?

Another thning entirely.

Which reminds one of the genius of TMZ. TMZ is basically an infotainment program/website largely centred around the papparazzi. But rather than glorifying papparazzos, the show focuses on showcasing the ridiculousness of said papparazzos, and the kinds of stupid questions they tend to ask their subjects.

The current plight of Sarah Palin and family is a reminder of how ridiculous the left-wing media can be.

That someone like Andrew Sullivan, who describes himself to be a conservative, would join the ranks of their cheerleaders is rather embarrassing -- but, as in most cases of Andrew Sullivan and embarrassment, the embarrassment remains his.