Sarah Palin claims this photoshopped image of her cuddling an Alaskan media enabler--a fundraising thermometer for investigating her corrupt administration--is an outrageous attack on her Downs Syndrome son, whom she was cuddling in the original.
Are you stupid enough to believe her?
During the Palin/Letterman kerfuffle, the smartest thing written or said came from Alaskan blogger Shannyn Moore, whose diary "Top 10 Reasons Sarah Palin's 'Outrage' is Misplaced and A Little Late..." received far too little notice, even though it was picked up by Huffington Post. As Moore wittily revealed, there was, unfortunately, absolutely nothing new or unique about Letterman's joke, it's just that Palin had run out of more appealing options:
10) Last September, a skit on Saturday Night Live suggested incest in the Palin family. "What about the husband?" asked a mock Times reporter. "You know he's doing those daughters. I mean, come on. It's Alaska!" No outrage. Sarah Palin appeared on the show one month later in late October.
No poutrage over this earlier photoshop with David Letterman.
9) Days after the announcement of Bristol's pregnancy, Conan O'Brien joked, "It's true, John McCain's running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, has revealed that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant. Palin said, 'We should never have introduced her to John Edwards.'" Where was the outrage? Was Conan promoting infidelity with an underage girl?
8 ) From two different Tonight Shows: "Governor Palin announced over the weekend that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter is five months pregnant. Oh, boy, you thought John Edwards was in trouble before, now he's really done it!" AND..."All the Republicans are heaping praise on Governor Palin. Fred Thompson said, as an actor, he could see them making a movie about Sarah Palin and her family. Didn't they already make that movie? I think it was called 'Knocked Up!'"-Jay Leno
7) Craig Ferguson's skit of "Larry King vs Levi Johnston" asks about "kinky sex" with the drapes open. Craig Ferguson's honorary Alaska citizenship, granted by Governor Palin wasn't rescinded.
6) "According to expense reports, Sarah Palin charged the state of Alaska over $21,000 for her children to travel with her on official business. In fairness to Gov. Palin, when she leaves them home alone they get pregnant." -Seth Meyers (SNL). Sarah Palin was in a sketch with Meyers a week earlier.
5) On October 8, 2008, Sarah Palin walked out on the ice with six year old Piper and 13 year old Willow, before the game, Conan O'Brien said, "Saturday night, Sarah Palin is going to drop the first puck at the Philadelphia Flyers' hockey game. Then Palin will spend the rest of the game trying to keep the hockey players out of her daughter's penalty box."
Oh, yes he did. You get the outrage...but not a peep then. According to the new "logic", O'Brien was advocating for some really sick stuff.
If there's one thing Palin knows how to do it's repeat idiotic moves indefinitely. So only Condi Rice could not have predicted that empowering her Letterman victimhood poutrage would have had the totally predictable results.... this time attacking another Alaska blogger, Linda Kellen Biegel (aka Celtic Blue Diva), for the photoshopped picture at the top of this diary. Here's the backstory, from a third Alaskan blogger, AKMuckraker:
Local Alaskan political watchdog and blogger Linda Kellen Biegel is in the middle of a project. She's working in virtual obscurity in Alaska, to get email records released that she feels will reveal questionable communications between the Palin administration and a local gossip columnist, and a local pro-Palin conservative radio talk show host. Palin herself has appeared on the show many times, in addition to her family members, her lawyer, her spokeswoman and various other members of the administration.
The talk show host in question, Eddie Burke, recently showed up at an Anchorage Assembly meeting to give public testimony about an upcoming Municipal gay rights ordinance wearing this.
A few months ago, security forcibly removed him from another Assembly meeting.
Biegel believes the release of these emails will show a concerted effort between the Palin administration and these two members of the media to coordinate attacks on local watchdogs. She won't know for sure until she can pay the $5500 the state is charging her for costs associated with her records request. Last week she began a fund drive to raise the money online, and each night posted a "thermometer" showing the progress and featuring a different image.
Here's where the fireworks begin. On Tuesday, a picture of Palin holding up her son Trig during that famous speech at the RNC convention became the thermometer graphic. Only in this picture, Trig wasn't Trig. In the image Biegel used, the governor is cuddling a photoshopped baby with the face of Eddie Burke. Disturbing, yes, but meant to illustrate the governor's strange and cozy relationship with this controversial Alaskan figure, according to the blogger.
Of course, the real outrage here is the state charging Biegel $5,500. (The price tag was originally $65,000!) No, wait, the real outrage is that Palin is still in office, given that the State Legislature's investigation found that she broke the law. (See Anchorage Daily News, Columbia Journalism Review, me).
Linda has blogged for years. She walks with a cane, and has physical disabilities. She has a bi-racial child and is always on the righteous side of fighting discrimination. She attended the Anchorage assembly meetings this week to testify in favor of the ordinance banning discrimination against the GLBT community. Burke attended the same event, protesting the civil rights ordinance with a shirt stating: "Homophobic, Red Shirt, Bible Thumping Nazi, Gay Bashing, Tea Bagging, Rascist (yes misspelled), White Guy, Bigot." Yes, Sarah Palin pals around with this fine example of tolerance.
The Palin administration is now calling on Alaskan Democrats to condemn Biegel. Where was the condemnation on Crooks and Liars for photoshopping the same picture with David Letterman last week? Oh, that's right, they don't have a records request on the governor, Linda does.
The attack on Biegel is another example of Palin's "faux outrage." The false victimization spin from of Sarah is her antidote for criticism.
No, I am not. The Democratic National Convention Committee selected 56 blogs as "State Blogs" to represent their states (and territories, and ex-patriots) at the Democratic National Convention in August 2008. That was it!
Other info: I'm a wife, mother of a beautiful daughter and a disabled person myself. Any other biographical information can be found on the left-hand column of the blog.
What exactly is the story behind how the "photoshopped" picture came to be?
I was doing a fundraiser to gather the exhorbitant monies needed for the release of public records from the Governor's Office ($5,552.64) -- a State of Alaska Record's Request. Some of these emails involve Palin-worshipping talk-show-host Eddie Burke and Anchorage Daily News Gossip Columnist and Editor Sheila Toomey.
I had already started so I really couldn't use any of the "thermometer" programs out there (tracks donations and creates a graph) because I had no idea how to make it count the money already in the Paypal account. So, one of my readers offered to photoshop "thermometers" each day for me so the donors could have a visual of how we were doing. He came up with a nice version of the State of Alaska for the second day (we skipped the first...I just put the total up without a thermometer). I wanted to "take that image back" because Conservatives4Palin, a completely non-Alaskan blog, used it for their web-a-thon. On the third day, he sent me the same graphic with the updated percentage, which I put on the blog. Later, he sent the one in question which showed in a humorous way (we thought) the relationship between Palin and Burke. He thought I should have a different one for every day. I didn't have a chance to use it then (I already had the other one up and was away from home) but I told him to do it again for the new percentage tomorrow. He did and, well, you know the rest....
We were both absolutely floored that anyone would take it for anything than what it was...poking fun at the Governor and Eddie Burke. We also realized that because of my "digging" and writing about the questionable activities of Governor Palin, they were just looking for anything they could twist to try and discredit me.
Finally, here's yet another poutrageous picture from Biegel's blog:
You can tell what a menace she is! Just like the whole lot of us.
