Fight the Smears!

Well, of course the Obama campaign came up with their site to debunk the whatevers.  Every campaign has their truth squad in case the other side comes up with dirt. That said, it’s kinda nice to see a site that really takes on the statements and the memes that fly around the scene in both the real and cyber worlds in the case of Sarah Palin.  

You know, if someone cannot defend their past and cannot defend their philosophies and political stances, they deserve to lose.  However, when the things that have been said about Sarah Palin and her family are completely false, it’s kind of amusing to see them racked up and bowled over – often times with a short email or phone call or a bit of research that demonstrably proves things wrong.

So here’s "Separating Palin Fact From Palin Fiction".  So if you’re wondering, here’s a few:

• No, the Downs baby (Trig) isn’t Bristol’s kid, and no, the kid wasn’t born with Downs because (a) Palin flew on an airplane (b) went home to have the baby after an amniotic leak (c) because he was the result of incest between Todd Palin and Bristol.
• No, Track (the kid who is leaving for Iraq) didn’t join the NG because he was a drug addict. He may have joined the NG because he was tired of people saying his Mom was getting him into the good hockey leagues. (Yes, that one was original reporting. I’ve got sources in Wasilla.)
• Yes, it appears that she has a Big Dipper tattooed on her ankle. She lost a bet.
• No, no one seems to be able to even find swimsuit pictures of her from her beauty queen days; God knows I looked. The bikini pictures that are around are photoshopped, just like the Vogue cover I have up.
• Yes, it seems unlikely that she’s going to be in hiding for the next two weeks, seeing as she’s been in rallies twice in the last two days. Or at least it’s going to be real rough, given that she has three media interviews scheduled today (September 6) alone.
• Yes, barring immaculate conception virgin birth (whatever), Bristol appears to have had sex with her fiancee. No, Bristol didn’t receive only “abstinence-only” sex ed. (The biggest item of controversy in this whole process has been, of all things, details of Christian doctrine and sectarian differences.)
• Yes, she did fire the Wasilla police chief as mayor; yes, it was because he was lying to the city council.
• Yes, she did try to cut her own salary as mayor by $4000 a year; yes, she had voted against the $4000 a year raise while on the city council.
• No, she didn’t cut funding for unwed mothers; yes, she did increase it by “only” 354 percent instead of 454 percent, as part of a multi-year capital expenditures program. No, the Washington Post doesn’t appear to have corrected their story. Even after this was pointed out in the comments on the story.
• No, she didn’t cut special needs student funding; yes, she did raise it by “only” 175 percent.
• Yes, she did try, clearly unsuccessfully, to get Bristol married off to her fiancee before the story came out.
• Yes, she did ask the librarian if some books could be withdrawn because of being offensive; no, they couldn’t; yes, it was “rhetorical,, at least as was reported contemporaneously in 1996 (and thanks to Cecil Turner@ Just One Minute for this); yes, she did threaten to fire the librarian a month later; no, that wasn’t over the books thing but instead over administrative issues; no, the librarian wasn’t fired either; yes, the librarian was a big supporter of one of her political opponents; yes, the librarian was also a close friend of the chief of police mentioned above; no, this is not the first time in the history of civilization that someone has been threatened with being fired over a political dispute.
• No, she’s not from another planet. No, I haven’t actually heard that one yet, but you wait. Okay, I have now heard it.
• No, she doesn’t believe in “abstinence only” education. Yes, she thinks abstinence is an effective way of preventing pregnancy. Duh. Yes, she believes kids should learn about condom use in schools.
• Yes, she did smoke marijuana, when it was legal in Alaska. Yes, she apparently did inhale.

If something is truly false, expose it.