WaPo's Marcus claims Sarah Palin Is 'homophobic'

*
From NewsBusters Associate Editor Noel Sheppard:

The lengths liberals will go to trash Sarah Palin knows no bounds.

On Friday, the Washington Post's Ruth Marcus actually accused the former Alaska governor of being homophobic for calling reporters "limp" and "impotent."

As NewsBusters reported Thursday, Palin, while on Sean Hannity's radio program the day before, bashed "impotent, limp and gutless reporters [that] take anonymous sources and cite them as being factual references."

From this, Marcus divined the following utter nonsense:

The Vanity Fair writer, Michael Joseph Gross, is gay, which makes matters worse -- conjuring the stereotype of "limp-wristed." But whatever the sexual orientation of the offending reporter, Palin should not have been questioning his manhood.

[...]

To begin with, Palin never mentioned Vanity Fair or Gross's name, nor did Hannity. In fact, their discussion about the media was precipitated by the former Alaska governor saying how poorly written a recent CQ Politics piece about her was.

As such, it's a stretch on Marcus's part to claim Palin was specifically talking about Gross.

[...]

This now officially puts Marcus in the same category as MSNBC's Ed Schultz who last month said Palin was sexist for suggesting Barack Obama lacked cojones when it comes to illegal immigration.

Marcus seems to be mostly just echoing criticism of Gov. Palin which was expressed in The Advocate, a gay publication which accused the governor of "gay baiting," over the weekend. Christopher R. Barron, board Chairman of the GOProud, a gay conservative group, answered The Advocate in a press release, saying:

“It is The Advocate, not Sarah Palin, who is guilty of ‘gay-baiting.’ I don’t think most people associate the words ‘impotent,’ ‘limp,’ or ‘gutless’ with being gay – I know I certainly don’t. If the folks at The Advocate think these words are euphemisms for being gay or lesbian then I think that speaks volumes about their own internalized homophobia.”

Tammy Bruce also answered The Advocate's attack on the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate:

"There are a few things to glean from this sort of ridiculous attack-including confirmation of how panicked the left is at losing their own base. Palin's crossover appeal to most segments of the American public is now obvious. The left, trying to stem the hemorrhaging of their own base, can't persuade based on the issues so they continue with a well-worn tradition of crying wolf in the effort to keep their subject from straying from the Leftist plantation."

Marcus and the Washington Post have a two-year history of trashing Gov. Palin in print.

- JP