-By Warner Todd Huston
Remember when you were a kid and you and your best friend got caught doing something you two weren’t supposed to be doing? Remember the first words blurted from your mouth was, “Well, it’s HIS fault?” It’s a common reaction for a kid trying to avoid the wrath of Mom that he knows is coming after getting caught for doing what he knew was wrong in the first place. Well in essence, this is what the executive editor of the Anchorage Daily News, Pat Dougherty, did in reaction to the furious question that Governor Sarah Palin had for the editor’s choice of continuing to pursue the idiotic and insulting claim that Sarah is not the real mother of son Trig. In response to being outed, editor Dougherty blamed everyone else for his continuing to publish the ridiculous conspiracy theory that only idiots, hatemongers and fools could believe.
In a good catch by McClatchy Watch, Dougherty gets caught spreading hateful rumors about Governor Palin, gets called out on the fact by Governor Palin herself, then looks back wide-eyed in feigned innocence and points his finger at bloggers and people on the left that have persisted with their own interest in this stupid story.
Governor Mom tapped her foot and asked lil’ Dougherty why he’s promulgating known lies in his paper and he blurted out, “It’s their fault, Mom.” Of course, in the adult world, that juvenile excuse does not work. Dougherty needs to take responsibility for what HE placed in the paper HE controls. He should admit that HE just wants to find any way at all to destroy Governor Palin. His faux shock at being exposed is as phony as a three dollar bill.
At issue is the efforts by the Anchorage Daily News to continue to stir the absurd story that Sarah is not Trig’s birth mother. The Daily News just last week sent reporter Lisa Demer parading about Alaska interviewing doctors, school district employees, government employees and those familiar with the Palins in an attempt to roil the Trig-isn’t-Sarah’s story line once again.
For her part, Governor Palin released a press release that in small part addressed the Paper’s idiocy.
Meanwhile, bloggers, the Atlantic magazine and even the Anchorage Daily News continue to give credence to the sensational allegation that the governor’s child, Trig, is not hers.
“As a public official, I expect criticism and I expect to be held accountable for how I govern,” Gov. Palin said. “But the personal, salacious nature of recent reporting, and often the refusal of the media to correct obvious mistakes, unfortunately discredits too many in journalism today, making it difficult for many Americans to believe what they see in the media.”
Well, this was all just too much for innocent, little Pat Dougherty. He was all shocked and surprised that the Palins would be a tad upset that he and his paper were continuing to stir up the wild-eyed Sarah-ins’t-the-Mother conspiracy theory. Why, how could she be so upset, Dougherty wondered?
And, naturally, Dougherty pretended it wasn’t his fault that the story was appearing in his newspaper.
I want to be very clear on this: I have from the beginning and do now consider the conspiracy theories about Trig’s birth to be nutty nonsense.
If that’s true, why has Lisa Demer been asking questions about Trig’s birth?
Because we have been amazed by the widespread and enduring quality of these rumors. I finally decided, after watching this go on unabated for months, to let a reporter try to do a story about the “conspiracy theory that would not die” and, possibly, report the facts of Trig’s birth thoroughly enough to kill the nonsense once and for all.
Sure, he is only reporting that other people are still talking about this idiotic conspiracy theory.
Next week, Dougherty plans to run a long expose on how other people are still saying the world is flat, followed by a story that other people are claiming the Holocaust didn’t really happen, but these are only after he finishes his in-depth and highly intellectual story that other people are claiming the moon landing never happened. Not that he is continuing the discussion on these crazy, idiotic conspiracy theories, of course.
(H/T McClatchy Watch, cancelthebee.blogspot.com)
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, Human Events Magazine, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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Wandering around town stirring up the folks by asking them questions about the Governor’s son Trig, as though she is some type of devious criminal, and planting negative ideas in peoples minds is real classy stuff. As for the dimwit that tried to re-lauch the massive smear …what became of her. I’ll bet the silly witch got told where to go more than once!