You probably already knew that, but this is the clincher:
The liberal blogger Dave Weigel, who was hired by The Post to cover the conservative movement, has resigned, after advising Matt Drudge on a semi-public forum for leftish commentators to set himself on fire. Put aside the controversy over whether the Post, which was advised by its star blogger, Ezra Klein (who once advised parties unknown, via his Twitter account, to “fuck tim russert. fuck him with a spiky acid-tipped dick”) that Weigel would do an excellent and balanced job of reporting on conservatives, even understood that it was hiring a liberal, and not a conservative (Ben Smith has more on this aspect of the controversy), the issue in the newsroom today is, How did the Post come to this?
I realize this kind of language is why people don’t take blogs seriously, but I’ll say it anyway: if the other Atlantic bloggers have two balls to rub together between the lot of them, they’ll call him on this. If I were worked with this dickhead, I’d kick his Iraq-war-loving ass all the way back to the Green Zone.
Update. I emailed Marc Ambinder and Andrew Sullivan to see if they were going to comment on this. Ambinder replies that he will not.
Update. All right, I see John already wrote about this. Sorry, but goddamn this makes me angry.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Jimminy crickets Dougj. You sound more like me than me do.
But this one is still on my oldies but goldies list.
It was blog love after that/
Kryptik
Again, apparently you can never criticize conservatives and be an actual conservative yourself.
Conservatism never fails, it can only be failed.
Mike Kay
Yeah, I bet Goldberg was all broken up last year when Dana Milbank called Hillary Clinton a “bitch” and Nico Pitney a “little dick”.
WaPo is so liburel. I mean, they nailed tricky-dick 40 years ago, didn’t they?
andrewtna
Who’s in to start a campaign to push WaPo’s offensive conservative columnists out the door? If they’ll cave to demands to fire someone for insulting Matt Drudge, what about demands to fire their commentators for insulting the poor? I can work up some graphics and I’ll throw in a few bucks to run google ads if anyone else is as pissed as me about this and wants to yell.
Kryptik
@Mike Kay:
Well, the editorial board IS run by that unabashed cartoonish leftie Fred Hiatt.
Mike Kay
to chicken-hawk, neo-cons like goldberg, libertarians are evil because they’re non-interventionist.
Litlebritdifrnt
I do not know if Weigel was forced to resign, or he felt the need to resign cause some absolute douchbag put his private e-mails out on the internet, either way it was a loss for all of us, cause he was a damn fine reporter, a damn fine blogger, and best of all, he was willing to interact with all of us rubes in the general public, Dave was always willing to join in (he is a member of Politijab) and give credit where credit was due. I am pissed about this. And as John said the person who released his private e-mails can DIAF.
FlipYrWhig
People are so all over the place on the subject of Weigel’s own views. Is it that hard to fathom that someone could be a center-right libertarian-ish-ist in his politics and find plenty of things to mock and criticize about hucksters and ignoramuses even further to his right… and still not be a “liberal blogger”? Is Andrew Sullivan a “liberal blogger”? For that matter, is our estimable host a “liberal blogger”?
Kryptik
The thing that upsets me most here is that, apparently, trying to justify torture by both saying Catholic Doctrine considers it just and that KSM begged his ‘brothers’ to be tortured as well, that’s fine and dandy, and would never hurt one’s standing with WaPo. Hell, it’s probably WHY they hired Thiessen.
But being angry and using bad language in private, about people you cover even if that anger never filtered through in your writing? That’s unforgivable.
Torture = Good.
Bad Language and not sharing your subject’s views to the T= Bad.
Fucking media.
FlipYrWhig
@andrewtna:
The core complaint, such as it is, is that Weigel isn’t conservative-friendly enough to be on the conservative beat at the WaPo blogs. So to get Thiessen or Gerson fired in a parallel way, you’d have to catch them being _too liberal_.
Or you could try to get uberwanker Richard Cohen fired for being too conservative. But God only knows whom they’d hire in his place. Probably Lanny Davis or Mark Penn.
Mike Kay
O.T.
Frankenstein
Dick Cheneyjust had his SIXTH heart attack.It reminds me of the line in movie “Platoon” – “doncha get it, Barnes wasn’t meant to die!”
Redshirt
Deeper down the rabbit hole we go. We’re going to lose – already lost? – our old school media any day now. I don’t think blogs are ready to shoulder the weight, though I suppose with a certain threshold of internet access and reading devices, the internets could provide in the near future.
daveNYC
Please. The Atlantic blogging crew uses a variation of Reagan’s rule: Thou Shalt Not Criticize Other Atlantic Bloggers.
It’s the only thing that explains McMegan and Goldberg not being constantly mocked.
FlipYrWhig
@daveNYC: I read somewhere today that McArdle is on the notorious now-defunct Journolist herself.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
I know the media is important, and the Village media especially. But this kind of mind numbing bullshit repels me like cow biscuits. And it is getting worse. The goopers are terrified, desperate, and even crazier than usual. There is no doubt in my mind, it was a coordinated effort likely within and without Wapo. I had never read Weigel much until he started his Wapo blog, and gave it to the teabaggers like it should be given to them. With a spicy acid tipped dick. Well maybe not that much, but he was gradually picking their bullshit apart in a smart and articulate way. No doubt imm, a ninja mission was thought up and the go ahead given to take Weigel down.
Christ, about any concerted effort could be mounted by people with access, to scour the tubes, and everywhere else, to find stuff to smear a reporter with. And if not cause him or her to resign, then damage them so much as to discredit them to where they spend their time defending their reputation, and not reporting.
This was ugly, and portends more of same, where there has been at least a semblance of a gentleman’s agreement to not go after the messenger. But that has for a long time been happening, slowly, by conservatives mostly, but also liberals in response. And it started about the time the wingnuts launched their alternate reality political tactics. Accompanied with relentless chants of liberal bias and dirty tricks like this, to blunt honest evaluation of what they were up to. Can’t have somebody irreverent to the power of lies, damn lies and statistics. They gotta go. And did, in this case.
Mike Kay
Weigel should be replaced with someone fearless and not afraid to report on the gop – someone like ana marie cox.
/beltway coctail party
The Truffle
I’m confused: I thought Weigel was a libertarian, not a liberal.
Bella Q
So sadly true. And as someone noted in an earlier thread, Goldberg’s said far more offensive things in any given week (e.g., today) on his blog than anything Weigel said to Journo-list. It’s a loss that makes WaPo look far worse than Weigel, to me.
Cat Lady
The WaPo is a Republican establishment propaganda rag. It has nothing to do with news anymore, and exists to promote the Republican corporatist and neocon agenda. It has been for a long time now, to where even the hack Chris Matthews has admitted it openly on his show. Their tea party coverage has been constant and relentlessly positive out of proportion to their numbers and influence because that’s the WaPo mission now – relentless criticism of Obama, promote the Real American (TM) teapartiers, publish every brain fart of Palin’s, stroke the Jewish neocons and provide sinecures for the journamilists like Dickwhisperer et al. who still think they’re committing journalism but are grasping social climbers who desperately want to stay in the Village fold. Ezra and Greg Sargent are window dressing, but they’re going to have to go, a la Froomkin. The transformation to the Republican Pravda on the Potomac will be complete. Good riddance.
Mary
Fallows tied it up a bit when he said he agreed with all of his colleagues and listed Sullivan, Ambinder, Friersdorf and Sanchez and said he therefore disagreed with “Goldberg’s “initial condemnation of Weigel, later modified in several posts.” Goldberg, the mature and measured professional, actually wrote 5 rat-a-tat posts on Weigel, walking his malevolency back a bit at a time.
I say, Goldberg is starting to remind me of Marty Peretz with his ill-advised rants that make him look the fool. And, it must be said, there have actually been more negative posts on Goldberg today than there have been on Weigel.
Joel
FWIW, Yglesias slyly backhanded Goldberg in his daily summary by linking a piece (written in 2006) criticizing Gildberg for being such a wankish chickenhawk. That’s as close as you’re going to get for intenal criticism at te Atlantic.
Felix Holt
@Joel: Sometimes I get the feeling that Yglesias couldn’t be happier to have left the Atlantic. Gee, I wonder where I got that idea.
MikeJ
@Joel: Or would be if Yglesias worked at the Atlantic.
Mark S.
I don’t know, I don’t think you should cover the Catholic Church unless, you know, you’re a pedophile.
Warren Terra
Note, of course, that the Exra Klein tweet in question that has him so upset is from January 2008 (if not earlier), long before Klein worked for the WaPo (and about 6 months before Tim Russert’s unexpected death). At the time, Klein was less than 24 years old.
I rather liked Charlie Pierce’s take on the then-Nontroversy, apparently written before the resignation, that the embarrassing event was not the offense but apologizing to Drudge:
The other classic line from all this is from Yglesias:
Josh
Whew. I thought I was the only one, DougJ, that felt that way about Jeff Goldfart.
I mean, there are asshats, and then there are ASSHATS.
I usually rue the fact that print media is dying (in no small part because of my own endeavors), but things like this make me wish it would die faster–preferably in a fire.
Redshift
@FlipYrWhig:
Nope. To the wingnuts, anyone who deviates in the slightest from the movement party line (e.g. David Frum, John McCain) is automatically a “liberal.” Since almost the only meaning for “conservative” any more is to be relentlessly opposed to anything liberals support, it almost starts to make sense. Almost.
(And if they want to label 70% of the country as liberals, who am I to argue?)
beltane
I’d be very, very surprised if Sully did not comment on this, He likes David Weigel and he hates the Washington Post’s editorial board. Stories on Weigelgate are ubiquitous today and I just can’t see Sullivan staying mum. Look, he even posted the picture of Drudge in flames: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/06/dave-weigel-quits-ctd.html
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@The Truffle:
I would just say, he was what he wrote. No more, no less.
On social issues, I am about as libertarian as could be, I suspect. On other domestic issues, probly pragmatic prog, or liberal, or whatever. But I don’t write for a national newspaper. When you do that, you are what you write. Everything else is just for cocktail party small talk.
Corner Stone
@beltane:
Is anyone involved pregnant?
Ecks
@Joel: Yglesias is not at the Atlantic….
kdaug
Between the general reactions to Weigel’s resignation today and to Michael Hastings’ reporting on a certain 4-star general, seems like all the cool kids are now the fucking reporters. Let’s keep it up.
Liked this quote from Hastings: “Reporting is what someone somewhere doesn’t want known. Everything else is advertising.”
beltane
@Redshift: Yeah, I forgot that David Frum and the Little Green Footballs guy are now liberals according to the true guardians of conservative values. This country is every bit as much in an intellectual crisis as in an economic one.
Josh
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
I have to be honest, I hate parties. I hate them with a passion, no matter what kind of party it is.
If I had to go to a party like that, I’d make sure to be extra caustic so that I’d never be invited back.
After all, a man of the people can’t be attending those high-brow elitist “cocktail” parties, can he?
I wanna go to a BBQ and get drunk off my ass, then have someone record me tipping into a pool and proudly holding my beer above my head, saving it from mixing it with the water.
You know, because being an actual person is how you really connect with people. Not making up hypocritical hypothetical and imaginary characters.
Redshift
A “semi-public forum”? Grrr…
Ecks
@Corner Stone: More importantly, is there a tiny chance that a case could be assembled that maybe possibly they could be pregnant while maintaining they are not.
Lord, please make Jeff Goldberg pregmant. For all the good it would bring, all around.
beltane
@Corner Stone: Yes, Doug should tell Sully that amniotic fluid is leaking everywhere; then he’ll get a response.
Seriously, this is all kind of exciting. It feels like a statue of David Broder has just been toppled in the town square.
Josh
@Corner Stone:
I don’t trust Palin, so form my point of view, everything Sullivan pushed was all valid and fair-game to me. It got annoying, sure, but then I’m also sick of all of the fucking fawning over that dumb bitch.
God, if those fuck-heads would stop wanking off to her DDs, we might actually be able to stroke upon good reporting.
mclaren
I guess I’m baffled at this particular explosion of outrage by the left. Yes, it’s an atrocity, and yes, we’re losing a credible responsible mainstream press — in fact, we lost it 30 years ago, when the press started giving blowjobs to the senile sociopath Reagan by reporting his demented gibberings about the Laffer Curve as though it was serious policy, instead of self-deluded nonsense.
But, c’mon, folks, we’ve got some real problems in America. Rampant drone strikes murdering thousands of people in Afghanistan (none of whom seem to be insurgents, they’re all wedding parties and funerals), massive NSA surveillance now targeting people for additional suspicion if they use the wrong words in their e-mails… Runaway global warming, Peak Oil predicted to force the price of oil up to $175 a barrel within 3 years, at least according to Deutsche Bank’s commodities analysts. Government paralysis. A military that believes civilian control of the army is not proper. A corrupt “deficit commission” that uses phony statistic to gin up the appearance of a crisis in social security when there is none, the better to axe entitlement payments so as to transfer even more trillions of dollars from the poor to the rich…
And now Obama’s list of American citizens targeted for assassination has expanded from three people to “dozens.” How long before it becomes hundreds? Then thousands? And then we’re off and running, in the realm of the TSA “no-fly” zone…
And in the midst of all this, everyone’s worried about some liberal blogger in a dying newspaper that will implode and vanish soon, like the rest of its dead-tree industry?
This is what people are worrying about?
This is what people are talking about?
Corner Stone
@Josh: Can you boil this down to a few more internet rules for us?
I’m a little iffy sometimes.
NobodySpecial
Well, at least this post didn’t autoaccuse liberals of being the reason Weigel was forced out at WaPoPo.
Mark S.
Serious question: Who the fuck still reads Drudge? He has a scoop about once a decade, and there are now dozens of sites that do the same thing (basically newslinks).
Anya
@andrewtna: when they insult the poor they are exercising their rights to free speech – enshrined in the Constitution by the Founding Fathers (the original Christians). Also, too, you must respect the troops.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Mark S.: Other reporters read Drudge, not only read him, but suck up his puke funneling horseshit and then spill it out on the national political dialogue. I think that has waned a fair amount in recent years. But at one point, if you read something stupid about anywhere, there was a high likelyhood it was generated from his pod down south.
Josh
@Corner Stone:
You do realize those were in jest, right? Each rule actually violated another in some way.
The real issue is that you really had nothing to say in response to my opinion on the matter, which is fine with me.
demo woman
Kathleen Parker writes a conservative column but takes offense at some of Palin’s phony conservatism. It’s fortunate that she won a pulitzer because she’d be on the hit list also, too.
Corner Stone
@Josh: I enjoyed them all. That’s why I asked for more.
Corner Stone
@Josh:
BTW – which opinion on what matter?
I’m building lego UFO’s with my son so I may have lost track of whatever it is your panties are bunched over.
Josh
@Corner Stone:
If that’s the case, I apologize for jumping on you. I’ve been dealing with an extremely…interesting person in a private discussion.
For the last three years I’ve been compiling a list of “wingnut buzz-words” for both left and right extremists.
In the first comment, in the same breath, he brought up Geroge Soros and the NWO. Obviously, those are on my list. This list doesn’t just exist for me to use as a strategy.
It’s my “these people are not rational, just engage in mocking them” list. So right off the bat I called him a fucking moron and pushed him out of the discussion. After that, me and a few other conservative and liberal fellows had a really great conversation. Later he made some comment about how all liberals are like that–misunderstanding, of course, that I don’t consider myself a liberal so much as I consider myself Josh the Tactless.
I guess what I’m trying to say with my sleep-deprived mind working in overdrive (or underdrive?) is that I assumed you were attacking me.
I guess from now on I’ll change my handle to “Josh the Tactless.”
Josh
@Corner Stone:
I’m more interested in the Lego UFO than my bunched panties, to be honest.
I still have a Lego Millennium Falcon that I got nearly ten years ago.
I’m really not ready to grow up yet.
Mike Kay
@beltane: I’m with sully on the Immaculate Conception.
An exhibitionist who can’t keep her mouth shut about anything keeps her pregnancy secret for atleast 7 months? doesn’t add up.
Wile E. Quixote
Wow, Dave Weigel got in trouble for wanting Matt Drudge to set himself on fire. I wonder what kind of trouble I’ll get in for actually wanting to set Jeff Goldberg on fire, oh, and if I have any gasoline left over I’d be happy to use it on Krauthammer, Drudge, Kristol, Will, Broder and Fred Hiatt.
matoko_chan
@demo woman: kathleen parker is just another apologist for the chattel slavery of women aka pro-LIFE!
The core thesis of feminism is autonomy over our own bodies.
A pro-LIFE! feminist is an oxymoron….they cannot exist.
Sanchez had it right…..conservatism is an inferiority complex masquerading as a political philosophy……..even their smart people are retards….and they know it.
That is why Wapo HAD to hire a liberal to cover conservatives.
they simply aren’t bright enough to do it themselves.
Craig
On the other hand, Jeff Goldblum? Still awesome.
Mike Kay
@Josh:
She’s a c-cup. I mean if she was a Double-D, then she would have been elected.
Corner Stone
@Josh: You shouldn’t be sorry.
I’m about to put my son to bed.
Then we shall see who amongst us here earns the right to be called “tactless”!
Corner Stone
@Josh: We have a bunch of sets but I recently bought 6 pounds of mixed Star Wars lots.
It sets the imagination free when you’re not sure what the hell all of it is supposed to look like.
matoko_chan
@Mike Kay: Oh, trig her’s alright. she hushed it up cuz she was considering termination right up to third trimester…..prolly not legal in Alaska.
but about the plane ride? she was tryin’ for a fundie abortion.
Putting it all in god’s hands.
Lettin’ Jesus take the Wheel.
kdaug
@mclaren: Add this to the list
kdaug
@Mark S.: The same ones pining for the days of AOL and Compuserve
Josh
@Mike Kay:
During the 2008 elections, my roommate was a Republican. I’m not a Democrat, but I am left-of-center (in the modern political spectrum, if you define it with the meaningless labels we tend to use today). There was a lot of tension, so instead of debating about issues or the relative worth of the candidates, I debated with her the size of Palin’s breasts.
She argued that they were DDs. I argued for a high C (ha ha, now I’m thirsty). I figured, though, that since she was a woman she probably had more experience with breasts than I did.
I’m generally of the opinion that she wouldn’t still be popular if her breasts were smaller than a D.
matoko_chan
Thas why no one can see her medical records.
She seriously considered termination right up until it became a “late-term abortion” and was warned about proper delivery care by her doc.
matoko_chan
@Josh: she popular with the over 35 white guy.
under 35, she’s a GILF, not a MILF.
an’ GILFs are yucky.
kdaug
@Josh: Whaaa? The sex appeal of a mid-menopausal grandmother?
Not getting it.
Josh
@kdaug:
2008 was a tense time. Like I said, she was a Republican, and I was not. She supported McCain, and was a Palin fan. I support Obama and I generally like Biden.
To ensure that we didn’t bicker and get at each other’s throats, we decided to debate on something we thought was actually quite humorous.
The next topic for discussion was me dressing as a moose for Halloween while she went as Palin with a shotgun.
It was just fun to ease the tension. I dabble in stand-up and one of my topical jokes was about how we played a drinking game during one of the debates. Every time McCain said “my friends” or took a nap, she took a shot of cheap rum. Every time Obama said “hope” or “change” or rainbows shot out of his nipples, I took a shot of cheap whiskey. In the end I got so drunk that “Obama gave me alcoholism I can believe in.”
Morzer
@Ecks:
If God truly wants to hit a home run, make Levi Johnson the father!
Chad N Freude
@Mike Kay:
This is not possible. He does not possess the relevant organ.
Chris G.
@Josh: Given how much of Palin’s appeal is wrapped up in her looks, I’m wondering when she’ll either age out of favor or take drastic (ie, surgical) steps to look younger (which, of course, will only have the opposite effect), and how this will affect her base in the starburst caucus.
Joel
@Ecks: That’s the point.
He *was* there.
Corner Stone
@Craig:
Still..fucking awesome.
(it’s hard to properly type Goldblum’s speech intonations and cadence)
sven
Via a listening device I placed in his car, I heard JGlo call Arianna Huffington a ‘bitch’. I’d like to see him fired, who do I give the tape to?
Texas Dem
Weigel is a solid reporter and will not be out of work for very long. If Arianna has any sense, she’ll snap him up before anyone else gets a chance to hire him. All this sorry episode does is confirm just how hopelessly out of touch the Post really is. The journalistic profession is changing, with opinion-style journalism becoming much more popular because it allows the reader to know where the writer is coming from, yet the Post desperately clings to a dying model because it’s all they know. They’re like the Polish cavalry waiting for the German blitzkrieg. The world has changed but they don’t yet know it.
Kered (formerly Derek)
I actually read “Goldblum” in this post, at first. I was like, “Aw man, bummer…wait, what?”
(+2, but that was a couple hours ago!)
arguingwithsignposts
Wow. I’m gone for one day and the village erupts in flames over some ginned-up bullshit said on a listserv. Sad Weigel resigned. Someone mentioned above that journolist was “now defunct,” although I had been under the impression it had died after the last time it stirred up controversy. Nevertheless, the lesson here, for Weigel and the rest of the “cool kids” in the Village is that none of these people are your friends. Politics ain’t tiddlywinks.
You want to vent about work, pick a good friend from high school or someone else you know well and bitch and moan in person and don’t post it to a listserv (hint: off the record is as useful as the paper it’s printed on).
I am continually amazed at how many people put shit in writing in emails or memos (think about the WV mining disaster, or Goldman Sachs) that just creates a digital trail for their idiocy.
asiangrrlMN
@Mike Kay: She’s a c-cup at the most. Believe me, I know the DD, and she’s not it.
@Craig: Glad I’m not the only one to make that constant comparison.
As for Goldberg, words fail me. The hypocrisy is strong in that one.
Joey Maloney
@top:
The problem is one of size, not count. To get an idea of the scale involved, imagine Mark Ambinder’s balls nestleding between his thighs. It’s as if you took 2 billiard balls and put them against opposite walls of the Grand Canyon.
Capn America
@Wile E. Quixote:
You’d probably get called an anti-semite from all corners. Goldberg, when retreating from his earlier posts hating on Weigel, actually tried to make it all about how Journolist hates him for loving Israel so much (actually, he said he got a lot of hate mail about killing himself because he loved Israel, and put that a couple sentences after saying Journolist bashes him a lot).
matoko_chan
The kapos at the Atlantic stick up for conservative retardapundits if they are or have been atlantic cobloggers…its some kind of creepy esprit de couer. Sully mercy
fuckslinks that twodigit McMeghan McFailsauce even when shes always WRONG and sticks up for “goldblog” even if he privately loathes him.TNC banned me for ripping on Pudgy Reese Whitherspoon Douthat even though i pointed out righteously that him defending Douthat to me and other women would be like me defending Pat Buchanan to blacks.
uloborus
@Chris G.:
It will take awhile. She’s already showing her age, but have you heard of the word ‘butterface’? She dresses like she’s promiscuous – no, she dresses like she’s *easy* – and her figure is passable. To way too many men, especially the quietly misogynistic, that makes her their ideal. And since most Tea Partiers are slightly older than the Appalachians they infest, she’s going to look young to them for some time yet.
Matthew Yglesias
@Joel:
I started at The Atlantic before Goldberg did. I thought the decision to hire him was disgraceful, and the fact that senior managers at the company think highly of Goldberg reflects extremely poorly on their judgment and ethics. I haven’t worked at The Atlantic for about two years now, and though I think they continue to publish a fair amount of good stuff I certainly consider “not having Jeffrey Goldberg as a colleague” to one of the big upsides to not working there.
Kryptik
@Matthew Yglesias:
I suppose the next big upside is ‘not having McMegan as a colleague’, no? :D
Phoebe
@matoko_chan: That makes perfect sense!
And Sullivan has clobbered Goldberg enough to satisfy anyone, if you go back and look at yesterday.
litbrit
@matoko_chan:
Oh, trig her’s alright.
No way. While anyone who’s had more than one baby will tell you, every pregnancy is slightly (or a lot) different, anyone who’s had more than one baby will ALSO tell you that with second (and third and fourth, etc.) pregnancies, you get much bigger, much sooner (and labor is shorter and greatly accelerated, too). Dated photographs of Palin from assorted Alaska media that show her allegedly in her seventh and eighth month, depict a woman with no evidence of a real 7 or 8 month pregnancy “bump” (with the exception of one staged shot that was released by the McCain campaign well after her being picked for his VP slot, where she’s suddenly grown an enormous stomach in the space of a few days).
Futhermore, as any woman who’s had any number of babies will tell you, when you’re 43 and in labor–having broken your water, no less!–there is no way in hell you could or would skip going to a hospital (or at least a doctors’ office) and instead, stand at a podium, deliver a speech (complete with jokes!), not have anyone notice, then fly across the continent on two separate flights (with no flight attendants noticing that you’re that far along, either, much less in labor), then drive through the state–still in labor, mind you, and about to give birth to a premature, special-needs infant who will undoubtedly need emergency care upon birth–bypass not one but two large hospitals with specially-equipped Neonatal Intensive Care Units, and go to a small regional hospital in a small town, and have a general practitioner (not a high-risk OB/gyn, as would be required) deliver your premature, special-needs baby with jaundice and a heart defect. No way.
The media has been inexplicably squeamish and hands-off about reporting the truth of this lying woman’s fifth child–which would not be anyone’s business if (a) she were a private citizen and (b) had not made said child’s existence the center–indeed, the be-all and end-all–of her pro-life cred, thus “energizing the base”, as they say. I attribute this to the overwhelming rightwing bias of our mainstream media.
People need to stop bashing Sully and commit some real journalism for once.
litbrit
P.S. Being in labor is painful.
At first, in the early stages, you simply cringe a little and double over. For intervals, you are not able to speak, much less give a speech. People would definitely notice something was wrong.
Then, the pain gets unbearable–drawn-and-quartered unbearable. You beg for drugs; you might even ask to be killed (with my third child, I had no anaesthesia, and I requested exactly that. Other mothers who’ve delivered sans drugs, please weigh in). You scream like a banshee. People would definitely notice that something was wrong.
Instinct takes over, and as the labor progresses to delivery, and your screams reach the wild-assed, paint-peeling, scare-your-partner-out-the-door point, you assume whatever physical position you need to and begin pushing the baby out. It is unspeakably, shockingly messy and primal, to use delicate terms. (Mothers reading this are all nodding, aren’t you?)
Now imagine the sitting governor of Alaska, a woman who places high value on her appearance, risking such a thing taking place on an airline–twice in one day–in full view of passengers.
There. Is. No. Way. I don’t know whose baby Trig is, but I know, with 100% certainty, whose baby he is not.
sapp3r
Atlantic blogger TNC offers his .02 about it:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/06/the-thing-about-dave/58771/
shrek2
Dave Weigel did no more or no less than any other Washington Post reporter or any reporter on any given days. He said some things in private no worse than anyone else. The only thing different is that his emails became public– against his will– something that could happen to anyone.
Weigel was young. He was a blogger. He had a non-traditional background. No matter that he is a great reporter. That is the kind of guy published at the Post.
Who keeps their job at the Post and other places?
Those who espoused the WMD lies of the Bush administration.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58127-2004Aug11.html
Those who have plagiarized.
http://www.cjr.org/regret_the_error/to_catch_a_plagiarist.php
And those who have engaged in unethical or sloppy journalism.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/16/AR2006041601027.html
Corner Stone
@sapp3r: Yeah. We’re done here:
ETA – that’s a blockquote from TNC’s post. IMO, it’s pretty determinative.
matoko_chan
@litbrit: oh but you’re believing the lies she told about giving speeches while in labor.
she didnt.
but she did take deliberate risk by driving to a second tier podunk hospital without a neo-nate unit.
the best liars incorporate some truth in their lies.
she admits to considering termination…..i think that is true…that is why she concealed her pregnancy. but she couldn’t rid of it for some reason…and then a third trimester termination became both illegal and bothersome…ie , a paper trail…..
nasty peice of work, grandmaw palin.
Joel
@Matthew Yglesias: Not one iota of disagreement here.
The problem with Goldberg is that he seems reasonable enough. Makes him all the more dangerous.