MSM on Palin: Stretching “No Wrongdoing” to Fit “Abuse of Power” Narrative
MKFreeberg at House of Eratosthenes on Oct 13 2008 at 10:09 am | Filed under: Election 2008, Feature Article, Media Watch
I was looking up Jake Tapper’s column and in that very instant, Mr. Tapper pops up on channel 10 as a “political correspondent” or some such.
Maybe he’s balanced and centrist the rest of the time. He isn’t here.
I can’t do a better job of fisking his list of complaints than this fellow did.
Hey Jake, it’s not that simple of a matter. It started out pretty simple…but then Stephen Branchflower put out a report in which his factual conclusions went in one direction, and his opinionated conclusions went in the other direction. For whatever reason. And now we have a mess.
Great report, Mr. Branchflower. You started out with one question, now you’ve generated a whole fistful of ‘em.
Tapper did do something fair, though: He included Taylor Griffin’s comments at the end of his own column in an “update” (albeit, while misspelling Griffin’s last name). These comments of Griffin’s do a serviceable job of addressing both sides of the issue fairly, I find:
The investigation set out to determine whether Gov. Palin had acted properly in reassigning Walt Monegan, it concluded that she absolutely did. The Legislative Council’s investigation offers an opinion based on a very tortured reading of the Ethics Act, but, as Legislative Council Chairman Kim Elton pointed out yesterday, it has no force in law.
Unable to find wrongdoing under the original investigation, Mr. Branchflower tried to stretch the Ethics Act to fit facts that are well beyond the scope of the law. To say she is in violation because she did not stop Todd Palin from raising concerns with appropriate authorities about a rogue State Trooper who had threatened their family and abused the public trust really defies commonsense and has no basis in the law. Besides, as Todd pointed out in his interrogatory responses, she did ask him to “drop it.”
Also, the Council made clear that the vote to make the report public was not an endorsement of its findings. In fact, five members of the council spoke up to say they do not agree with the report’s findings. The lengths that were taken to stretch the scope of the investigation to find something damaging to say, when the facts bore out that the Governor acted appropriately, show that our concerns about the politicization of this investigation were entirely justified.
Trooper Wooten has a history of violent and intimidating behavior and threatened the life of Sarah Palin’s father. As anyone would, the Palins raised these serious concerns to the proper authorities. As Todd Palin said in his interrogatory responses, “I make no apologies for wanting to protect my family and wanting to publicize the injustice of a violent trooper keeping his badge and abusing the workers’ compensation system.”
Go on, moonbats. Tell me Taylor Griffin is owned by the Rothschilds and is spreading his lies in Karl Rove fashion…and how…and where he lied. Can’t wait to see it.
[Discuss this Topic with MKFreeberg]
