The tabloid style attack hypes the ridiculously out of context claims of the Huffington Post that Sarah Palin ridiculed State Senate President Lyda Green in an interview with radio talk show host Bob Lester on the popular Bob and Mark radio show.
On January 15, Alaska governor Sarah Palin laughed along with an Alaskan shock-jock DJ who called her political rival Lyda Green a "cancer," a "b#@ch" and ridiculed her weight. (Green is a cancer survivor.)
The Us magazine cover story is filed under the URL slug "sarah-palin-very-difficult-to-work-with". This particular smear job on Sarah Palin was literally spoon fed to the magazine and bloggers on the left by the Huffington Post that featured a hacked up YouTube version of the interview that was edited to take Governor Palin out of context and make the incident sound worse than it really was. (Full interview here)
The claim is that Palin should be held responsible for the comments made by morning radio host Bob Lester as he interviewed the Alaska Governor about Senate President Lyda Green's animosity toward her. In that interview Lester called Green "a cancer" for standing in the way of Alaska's political progress as well as "a bit@#". In all instances Palin appeared to be caught off guard and gave a short laugh while Lester continued to criticize Green.
But that synopsis left to stand on its own is woefully out of context. It doesn't explain why the media suddenly loves a socially conservative Republican insider that opposed reform nor does it honestly portray Sarah Palin's conduct in the interview.
The interview focused around Lyda Green's attempt to delay the start of the Senate's legislative session to coincide with the start time of Sarah Palin's state of the state address. A month earlier Palin had requested and received approval from the House for a special 6:00 p.m. start time so that she could attend her son Track's Army boot camp graduation to the infantry. Green was well aware of this fact and appeared to be stonewalling as some sort of plan to make life difficult for Governor Palin. This became evident as the excuses for not being able to make the 1:00 p.m. scheduled start of the Senate legislative session began to fall apart. All of this was explained by Palin in the full uneditied clip of her radio interview.
Lester specifically took Green to task for standing in the way of a mother's attempt to attend the graduation of her son before potentially being deployed to Iraq. He further criticized Green for playing games with Alaska's political process for the sake of making life difficult for Palin.
The Alaska Daily News substantiates the rift between Palin and Green. According to their report much of the animosity between the two stemmed from the fact that Green was a Republican insider that opposed Palin's reform efforts. It seems that Green made it a point to take issue with Palin, which she apparently did often and continues to do today. Thus making Green an instant hero of the American left that has suddenly found all sorts of reason to defend and support a Republican insider. In the case of Us Magazine their hit job is framed within the context of Green's perspective. She how this works?
Green appeared in the Us Magazine article to specifically take pot shots at Governor Palin and criticize John McCain's vetting process. You can actually feel the cynicism when Green mentions that Sarah Palin personally called her to apologize.
Green's comments were followed up by quotes from a pro-abortion activist from NOW that conveniently attacked Palin on the issue of abstinence because her daughter is pregnant.
So what did Green think when she heard Palin was John McCain's vice presidential candidate? "It's been very difficult to work with her," she tells Us Weekly. "I wish there had been more vetting."
Monday, Palin released a statement confirming that her daughter Bristol, 17, was five-months pregnant.
See more shocking teen pregnancies.
Mom-of-five Palin is antiabortion (even in cases of rape) and opposed to sex-education classes (she believes in abstinence instruction for teens).
In the wake of the announcement about Bristol, questions have begun to arise about the governor's candor and McCain's judgment (The New York Times reported that McCain's camp vetted Palin only the day before her selection was announced.
"It's conceivable a 17-year-old girl just screwed the GOP," Democratic strategist George Lakoff tells Us Weekly.
Though hailed by many family-values supporters for standing by her daughter during her difficult time, Barbara Belknap, former president of the National Organization of Women's Juneau chapter, is less glowing: "Here's a textbook case of how abstinence - only doesn't work in practice, even if your mom's the governor."
Yes, and here is a textbook case of political activism being perpetrated upon the American public by an over the top supporter of Barack Obama.
Us Magazine reaches about 12 million readers, most of whom are female. As a grocery checkout aisle fixture it will be seen by many more. Wenner, who is also the publisher of Rolling Stone and Mens Journal is well aware of this. It is only a matter of time before this twisted reality makes its way into one if not both of his other publications.
Terry Trippany is the publisher of Webloggin and holds the post as The Watcher at Watcher of Weasels.
