Conservative Response to Palin Tabloid Stories

Image from ABC News

Remember the fairness doctrine? It's been demonized lately, but I think it was generally a good idea. One side has some airtime, the other side gets some too. It would surely be a better balance than we have today, but probably will never return in our divided country.

And I can't claim (and never have) to be fair and balanced on this blog. Of course, the primary outlet that uses that slogan isn't either. But for a change of pace, I thought I'd bring to light the other side of an issue, that of the tabloid reporting on Sarah Palin.

To say that the people at uber-conservative Free Republic are irritated by the coverage (here called "the MSM" even though tabloids are usually not considered mainstream media). The response to John McCain's pick of Palin has been met with uncharacteristic near-universal praise at FR, and they're very defensive of just about anything said about her or her family.

Oddly, they did not feel the same way about The National Enquirer's John Edwards stories, even though they also included an out-of-wedlock birth. And I can only imagine if Barack Obama's daughters were older, and in a similar situation, their take might also be a bit different. So without further ado, some choice comments about this story, "Tabloids Go After Sarah Palin."

[Excerpts]

"Who owns that supermarket tabloid, Time-Warner?"

"Jan Wenner who owns Rolling Stone. A teen aged boy buggering faggot....who left his wife to be a chickehawk. [sic]" Editor's Comment: Nice.

"Ah, that explains a lot."

"Wow. When the MSM goes this far out of their way to discredit the family of a political candidate, they must really be worried. Personally, I think all of this is going to backfire on the MSM. "

"Lying efn scum! I wouldn’t use their rag to wipe my dogs a$$! Time to fire up the letters to these slimeballs- set them straight. This is war."

"Obama is really afraid of this little soccer mom. he is spending hundreds of millions to smear her in the media. She must threaten his short man syndrome tremendously"

Editor's Note: To my knowledge, Barack Obama has disavowed these types of stories, and has not participated in them.

"Liberals are just plain nasty. They don’t care who they destroy so long as they can advance their socialist agenda. It is ugly and getting uglier."

Editor's Note: Yep, Republicans never get down in the gutter for stuff like this.

"A bit of yellow journalism from the DNC’s Pravda Publishing. Orwell warned us of Stalinist tactics."

Editor's Note: And when we get to Republicans criticizing Democrats of being Orwellian, and in charge of the tabloid press, we've reached my level of irony. That'll do it for this experiment in "equal time."

Source: Free Republic