As I’m sure many of you still remember freshly, former contributor Alex Knepper published a front-page smear of Sarah Palin on this site during the RNC. I repsonded by challenging our contributors and readers to defend Ms. Palin if they could.
Well, it appears that non-partisan FactCheck.org has confirmed what we suspected. Alex had been taken in by a pack of complete, utter lies. This should be an object lesson to everyone interested in politics: take a deep breath and do the research. Alex fell for this Democrat propoganda, and he lost all of his credibility – not to mention a friend or two on the way down. But, it remains true that Republicans often take the Party’s talking points as gospel without considering them critically. Doing so is just as terrible a mistake as Alex’s, as it presents a very real threat to our own credibility. I remain as convinced now as I was when I endorsed McCain before the primaries – we will win this election with John McCain as our candidate. But, like McCain, we are going to have to maintain our credibilty if we are going to advocate for a conservative agenda during the next four years.
UPDATE:
To our Commenters:
I hope that this post is not taken by our readers as a swipe at Alex. As I said in his defense in one of the linked posts in this piece: as a fellow libertarian, I am very sympathetic to Alex’s point of view. And I certainly have no personal problem with him. I’ve never met, or spoken with, Alex.
The purpose of this post was to get the FactCheck.org report out there so that our readership could combat the lies being spread about Governor Palin. But, without referencing Alex’s post, the FactCheck.org report may have had no context to many of our readers – particularly those who may have missed last week’s fracas.
In any event, this entire episode, and FactCheck’s exoneration of Gov. Palin seemed to be a good reminder to us all that we do not have license to propogate false, scurrilous, or unsubstantiated allegations, merely because we write on the Internet. At least, not if we want Race42008.com to continue to be the well-respected channel of Republican opinion that it has become under Kavon’s leadership.
September 9th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Michael Lawrence rulez…. outstanding post, spot on!
September 9th, 2008 at 9:29 am
Well said, Michael.
September 9th, 2008 at 9:34 am
This kind of Liberal is back-firing in Eastern Ohio, I hope it does in many other places as well.
September 9th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Think I’m ready to move past Alex.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Michael, I find it interesting that some Republican’s were critical of Palin, without checking facts, yet a pro-Clinton feminist group is defending Sarah.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0908/Hillary_backers_come_to_defense_of_Palin.html
September 9th, 2008 at 10:05 am
Hey, how is this for incredible, I mean, over-the-top incredible.
The dean of our business school is an academic from Mexico. He and I are bus comrades. We talk as we ride home together. Yesterday he told me that the buzz in Mexico City is that Mexican President Felipe Calderon will throw his support behind John McCain’s candidacy for President because of Mexican perceptions that Obama treated Sen. Clinton unfairly (Mexicans love the Clintons both for NAFTA and the bailout of Mexico when they endured their own banking crisis in the mid-90s), because of McCain’s views on immigration, and because John McCain took the time to visit Mexico shortly before his convention.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25513090/
Dudes. this could be nearly as important as Sarah Palin in terms of votes and resources in states with significant numbers of Mexicans.
Anyway, file this under wild rumours. But even so. Keep watching the skies!
September 9th, 2008 at 10:10 am
I thought that Congresswoman Ferraro did an admirable job defending our nominee as well. It was very intersting to see Rosario Marin, Jane Swift, Geraldine Ferraro and others all defending Gov Palin and many of them calling the media out for being sexist.
As a side note – may I reccomend to all some insightful and entertaining listening this afternoon/evening: Jay Severin is on 96.9 WTKK in Boston from 3p-7p EST. Jay is a very libertarian minded, conservative, agnostic, opinionated political commentator. His show is available in a live feed from the WTKK website. I would be curiuos to hear what others think of the man I drive home from work every day.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:11 am
dotan – what are we watching the sky for? is it falling?
September 9th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Trying to make a joke. Keep watching the skies is a slogan used by sci-fi geeks and UFO believers. My point is simply that the President Calderon rumor may be just that, a rumor, as likely as a UFO but something still worth watching for.
Even if—GOD FORBID—Obama gets elected the sky will remain steadfastly in place.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:14 am
here you go alex.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/157986
p.s. I think it would be in good taste for Alex to front post an apology letter to Race42008 for his abuses and to the McCain campaign.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:18 am
OK., wait, I just found evidence that supports the rumor—it’s not a rumor!—President Calderon supports McCain!
http://kikka-roja.blogspot.com/2008/09/mexican-right-wing-party-supports.html
September 9th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Ok, I think Alex’s main problem with Gov Palin was her personal views on social issues (which some aren’t exactly mainstream) and the fear that she would use the post of VP to become a culture warrior (as other posters feared/fear). Because of that, he was more susceptible (eager, even) to any scandal that came up concerning her. Being his first Presidential election, he went overboard in his reaction to her, did some dumb things, and justifiably lost his posting priviledges.
I’m not sure there’s anything else that can be said about the situation. Can we move on already? I don’t see a point in continuing to beat up on a young guy who did some stupid things he hopefully will learn something from.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:58 am
I agree with Richard M#12.
Alex made some mistakes. They had all the earmarks of callow youth. We’ve all done it.
Grinding his nose in it is not going to help anyone except those who want to gloat. Let it go. It’s time to move on.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:03 am
dotan – it’s alright. My question was an attempt at humor from a non-sci fi, UFO guy.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Not sure why we are rubbing Alex’s nose in things.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Dude. You only have the entire internet at your disposal. Please: start your own blog. Then you can defend yourself and no one will be able to bury anything but you. Also, you can publish your thoughts and views and use digg.com, reddit.com, technorati, blogpulse etc. to develop an audience.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:55 am
So if there is some negative information about Palin, it is automatically “Democrat propaganda”? I really think people here have their panties too tightly wound. Alex didn’t post those points as gospel doctrine; he asked them to be discussed. Yeah, his tone sucked, but I think the result and intent would have been much the same regardless.
September 9th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
#10 neorep04,
Thank you for sharing the link to the Newsweek article that debunks many of the rumors about Palin. Because of this article, my respect for Newsweek has gone up. I had thought almost ALL of the MSM was in the tank for B.O., it’s nice to see that some still have integrity.
September 9th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
act, don’t ask questions like that. it’s grounds for being banned.
September 9th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
I for one miss Alex’s contributions to this website, personally I think there were many lies attributed to Romney that were not quite defended in the way this post indicates.
Regards,
September 9th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
#21
Huh? Not sure what you mean by “lines attributed to Romney that were not quite defended…”
Can you explain?
September 9th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
#21
Huh? Not sure what you mean by “lies attributed to Romney that were not quite defended…”
Can you explain?
September 9th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Well, as I understand it… there were plenty of cases made against Romney for his failed bid in for the Senate in 1994, one of them being gay support. Romney was never for gay marriage, he was for equal treatment and opportunities. The second is that there were post made either in the comment section or perhaps as direct front post that potrayed Romney as the intellectual author of certain legislations that he signed as governor that were passed by congress that Romney couldn’t do anything about.
Really, these things are in the past. Perhaps this can be disscussed further for 2012, at the momment I’m happy with the McCain/Palin ticket.
September 9th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
OMG it’s happening again. This thread has been hi-jacked by enraged Romney dead enders!
Someone delete this post before it spreads.
September 9th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
deg – I think those things were defended about a thousand times over the last year and a half but many anti-Romney people on here continued propogating the lies even after they had been shot down many times over. They just didn’t care. If they thought they could just get a few more people to grab hold of the lie, they considered it a good day. Sad, but true.