Why she's resigning: A warrior must be mobile

From Gov. Palin via Twitter:

See letter from my attorney on baseless allegations of past 24hrs @ http://tinyurl.com/l4ct5n(excerpt)

The Palin-hating left has been salivating this weekend over lies that began at an Alaska ankle biter website, percolated up to the national nutroots and got mentioned on several major liberal media outlets.

At Conservatives 4 Palin, Mel traces the genesis of the rumors through the land of the loonies. Start at the bottom of the post and read up.

In a telephone interview with Josh Meyer of the LA Times, an FBI spokesman in Alaska dismissed the leftist lies that an FBI investigation of Sarah Palin on public corruption charges was the reason she will resign:

"There is absolutely no truth to those rumors, that we're investigating her or getting ready to indict her," Special Agent Eric Gonzalez said in a phone interview Saturday. "It's just not true."

Gonzalez added that there was "no wiggle room" in his comments that could exclude any kind of probe. 

The letter (full text here) from Gov. Palin's lawyer calls out the Palin-hating bloggers and major media outlets by name:

To the extent several websites, most notably liberal Alaska blogger Shannyn Moore, are now claiming as “fact” that Governor Palin resigned because she is “under federal investigation” for embezzlement or other criminal wrongdoing, we will be exploring legal options this week to address such defamation. This is to provide notice to Ms. Moore, and those who re-publish the defamation, such as Huffington Post, MSNBC, the New York Times and The Washington Post, that the Palins will not allow them to propagate defamatory material without answering to this in a court of law. The Alaska Constitution protects the right of free speech, while simultaneously holding those “responsible for the abuse of that right.” Alaska Constitution Art. I, Sec. 5. http://ltgov.state.ak.us/constitution.php?section=1. These falsehoods abuse the right to free speech; continuing to publish these falsehoods of criminal activity is reckless, done without any regard for the truth, and is actionable.

Although the letter is being mocked by hateful leftists such as the Kos Kidz as mere saber rattling, it serves a purpose. Sarah Plain is putting the nutroots and the liberal media on notice. Unlike former President George W. Bush, who suffered such attacks in silence and allowed the left to define him, she will stand up for herself and her family, and in so doing she is defining herself as a fighter who stands up for what matters to her.

This is one of the reasons Gov. Palin is resigning her state office. With the burden of office put in Sean Parnell's hands to carry out the Palin agenda in Alaska, she will soon have the time to devote to such a battle. And, with the income from her book deal and possible speaking fees she will be able to earn once free of the demands of the governor's office, she will be guaranteed to have the resources fighting such a battle requires. But above all, modern warfare demands that the warrior must be mobile. Unencumbered by local demand that Alaska's governor must be tethered to the state, Sarah Palin, as a former governor, will be free to maneuver.

- JP

AP Picks Up Huff-Po Blogger’s Hit Piece

By Special Guest Blogger Warner Todd Huston

If you would like a great example of how the Old Media takes a story that has no legitimacy at all and uses it as the basis for a smear job, the Associated Press offered a wonderful sampling of the tactic for you on June 8. From a headline that makes the issue seem more weighty than it is, to the lack of competent reporting from both sides of the matter, AP employed this favorite Old Media tactic by taking another swipe at Governor Sarah Palin with little by way of substantive evidence. It’s another "seriousness of the charge" story despite the complete lack of evidence as well as a lack of any gravitas on the part of the original source of the charge.

At issue is the false charge leveled by a Huffington Post blogger that Governor Palin "plagiarized" a section of her speech as she introduced talk show host Michael Reagan in Anchorage, Alaska on Wednesday, June 3. The HuffPo blogger charged that Palin lifted several sections of Newt Gingrinch’s work without attribution, and AP gleefully repeats the blogger’s claims despite that the truth turns out to be a far different case.

The headline is particularly interesting in that it seems to imply something far more formal than a mere HuffPost blogger’s blather. The AP headline screams, “Palin Slapped With Plagiarism Charge.” After reading such a headline the “slapped with plagiarism charge” almost seems to say that some legal body had “charged” the Governor with some violation of the law. But the truth is the “charge” is more like a claim and the claim is not backed up even by the person that was supposed to have been plagiarized — not that AP reports that, of course. Let’s not let facts get in the way.

AP lays out the charge in its first few paragraphs.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has been accused of paraphrasing at length from an article co-written by Newt Gingrich when she gave a speech, but her lawyer says proper credit was given to the former House speaker.

Dunn compared Palin’s speech introducing conservative talk show host Michael Reagan, son of former President Ronald Reagan, to an Anchorage audience Wednesday to the article urging Republicans to study Reagan, written by Gingrich and Craig Shirley in 2005.

Despite this blogger’s claims, Palin did mention Gingrich as the source of the words at the outset of the speech. In fact, Palin mentioned Newt twice during her remarks the first time saying, “Recently, Newt Gingrich had written a good article about Reagan,” and the second time she said, “what Newt had written in this article…” What more do you want in a spoken address to indicate a source?

On top of the false charge, AP notes that the blogger is writing a book on Palin and from his work on her thus far, no doubt it will not be a flattering look at her career. So a blogger accuses Palin of stealing from Newt Gingrich and AP reports this story despite the fact that this blogger has no legitimacy on the matter and is writing an adversarial book on her that he is hawking.

Also, notice how AP gives us the “but her lawyer says” line? Well, it turns out that through spokesman Rick Tyler, Newt Gingrich says the same thing as Palin’s lawyer. Newt’s own people say that no plagiarism occurred. Unfortunately, readers of the AP account were not informed of this fact.

The upshot of this whole deal is that AP used a flimsy charge made by a biased blogger and reported it as a serious matter and then didn’t fully report that even the person that was supposed to have been plagiarized said there wasn’t any plagiarism.

Now, don’t get me wrong, here. I am not charging that a blogger is an insubstantial source merely on the face of it. I am saying this blogger lacks any serious gravitas. I am also saying that the charge itself is silly, flimsy, and foolish made solely to get the blogger attention as opposed to revealing any deep, dark Palin misdeeds.

Sadly, AP uses this bad source anyway and presents it as if it had veracity. And thus we have another smear job on Governor Palin based on unsubstantiated claims from a biased source presented to us as if it were news.

And the hits just keep comin,’ folks.

Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago-based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on websites such as NewsBusters.org, RedState.com and many others. WTH's personal blog is Publius' Forum, where this is cross-posted.

- JP

Nutrooter: 'Don't give her the moral high ground'

A nutroots blogger's main problem with the crude and lewd David Letterman and his attack on Gov. Sarah Palin and her middle daughter is that his side should not give Sarah Palin "the moral high ground."

And, oh yeah, that misogyny stuff and the perversity of the idea of raping a 14-year old girl is kind of not quite cool too. Sorta.

Yo, Steve M. That "moral high ground" was never yours to give up. You wouldn't know moral high ground if someone airlifted your sorry butt to it.

Friends and neighbors, this is why the lunatic left will ultimately lose the battle for the heart and soul of America. Leftists are so out of step with the majority of Americans that they always out themselves, exposing all that hatred and darkness of spirit for the world to see.

- JP

Flawed Logic on the Left

The dissin' diva has a response to our recent bit of satire which had some fun at the expense of her Palin-hatin' community's abundance of hypocrisy. She figures it this way:

"I guess I'm doing something right if I've got your attention!"

Not really. While I was stopped at a red light the other day, a guy plowed right into the rear end of a car in the lane right next to me, knocking it clear out into the middle of the intersection and missing me by just a scant few inches. That got my attention, and the driver whose mind was on vacation was doing absolutely nothing right.

Guess again.

- JP