news-record.com

Completely disagree with you,I watch tv most all day yesterday. Palin family was raped by, NBC, CNN, MSNBC. I have never heard a word about Obama father who was a muslim terrorist trained. Are the fact that his mother get pregnant before marriage, are that he hung with Bill Ayres. So this is kind of liberal bias in the media. Palin family should be left out of this, you have twice brought this up with details. If you had read the blogs yesterday after Remier raped Palin, it had over 4600 posted by noon, I of course did not read them all, everyone I read ( which was many) support Palin. So you should have stated on the liberals bring peoples family into it. I can not recall a republican, bringing one's family into it. Can you? Could be, but I know of none.

Doug J, where did you get the information that Obama's father was a "muslim terrorist trained" or that his mother became pregnant out of wedlock? Did a Republican tell you those things? Do you know they're true? Why are you spreading it around if you believe a candidate's family is off limits for discussion?

I am not a conservative and even I think Palin is being treated very differently than Obama and Biden in the press. Harsh undertones for being a social conservative and double standards for being a mother abound. Journalists and commentators need to re-examine their objectivity in covering Palin and her family. I would not be surprised to see a large number of angry conservatives turn out in November to vote
for McCain and Palin. This unfair and inequitable media coverage could work against Democrats in November.

I agree the media generally favor Obama and would subject the Republican ticket to more critical coverage no matter who McCain's running mate was. There could be a backlash. At the same time, Sarah Palin's record as a public official should be examined, and whatever family information she chooses to divulge also is fair game for conversation.

What you are going to have eventually: the only people who will run for office will be bachelor or bachelorette orphans.

Very interesting piece, Doug. I wasn't aware Easley's son was at UNC.

By the way, I've met two of the three Hagan kids, and they are about as sharp as they come. I've met Kay a few times as well, and have exchanged several e-mails with her campaign staff. Nice folks, and it's not just an act, either.

"I agree the media generally favor Obama and would subject the Republican ticket to more critical coverage no matter who McCain's running mate was."

This is going to sound racist and ageist, but it's really an artifact of consumer-based media culture: old white men aren't interesting, especially when they're talking to old white people at the VFW or the American Legion.

Sarah Palin has already changed that, and you'll be seeing her on television almost constantly from now on. Which (I believe) was the main reason she was chosen.

Doug J.:

"I can not recall a republican, bringing one's family into it. Can you?"

To give but one example, you will recall the Republicans pushing the lie during the 2000 South Carolina primary about John McCain's "illegitimate" daughter.

Scharrison,

Kay is smart to use her family so extensively in her campaign. First, for their appeal in their own right. Second, to demonstrate that hers is a born-and-raised in North Carolina family.

Now, once a candidate puts her family outfront in her campaign, it's a little harder to declare her family is "off limits" later.

Sarah Palin definitely is interesting, and partly because of her family.

But I also think McCain-Lieberman would have been interesting in a Jack Nicholson-Morgan Freeman "Bucket List" way (see my bost above) or maybe Walter Matthau-Jack Lemmon "Grumpy Old Men" fashion.

...but a teenage daughter’s pregnancy likely would remain a protected family matter. Rightfully so. It’s hard to think of circumstances that would bring such a personal development to public attention.

***************

Of course it would remain a "protected family matter". North Carolina's elected officials (at least in the state offices) are Democrats.

Come on, it has nothing to do with D-R. As I said in the column, all Richard Burr discloses on his Web site about his family is his wife's name and the fact they have two sons. Fine. Nobody's going to push him to say more, even if he is a Republican.

You're acting as if, say, Joe Biden released a statement announcing his teen daughter (I don't know if he has one) was pregnant and we in the liberal media would say, "No, please don't tell us. We simply won't report it! Democrats deserve their privacy."

Hey, no one ever reported any trouble young Kennedy family members got into, right?

Doug,

You are so far offbase with this, you are in outer space. How can you justify a woman and her family getting raped and pillaged in the media as fair game because she entered politics. That is insulting. What are you carrying the Obama water these days? I can't believe how this woman and her family are being pillaged in the name of politics, and you and the media think she is fair game. Wow. Doug Johnson is exactly correct.

And, if you think that this rape and pillage of the Palin Family is fair, take a look at Ed Cone's blog and see the doctored pictures of Sarah Palin as a porn star and the filthy, sexual comments about her that are allowed to stand on that site. Fair, huh? No woman deserves that treatment just because she was so bold to try to enter politics. So, is the bar height so much higher for a woman?

As was mentioned before, Doug, Sarah Palin had to announce her daughter's pregnancy because of scurrilous stories started on the Daily Kos about her 5-month old Down Syndrome baby not being hers, but her daughter's. She was put in the position of having to let it be known that it wasn't possible for the baby to belong to her daughter. So, now you think that forced-release information is fair game to attack Sarah Palin, huh? Guess what today? A member of the media is demanding a DNA test of the baby to prove that Sarah Palin is the mother? Where does this end, Doug? And, when does Sarah Palin get her reputation and her families' privacy back?

Wait a minute.

Tell me what you mean by "raped and pillaged" and I'll tell you if I think it's fair game.

What I've said is fair game is reporting and expressing opinions about what Sarah Palin herself announced: that her daughter is pregnant.

If you think that should not have become public knowledge, then you also must think Palin is irresponsible for accepting McCain's invitation to join the ticket. She should have said, "Thanks for the offer but I have to decline. You see, my 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, and if I'm on the ticket her condition will be reported on national news, and I don't want to put her through that."

If she had said that, no one outside Alaska would ever know or care about Bristol.

Doug, you have gone over to the dark side. You are just like all of the media sharks swimming in the water around Palin looking to make the kill.

So, you are saying that Sarah Palin should have declined to be in political office to protect her daughter's privacy and not have it played out on national television? Doug, do you not have any decency? How can you be so crude so as to say that a 17-year old girl does not deserve privacy? She isn't running for political office.

Doug, I never realized that you were such a crud. I thought that you were a decent person, but your comments above are a total joke. Why don't you just go get the doctored porn star picture of Sarah Palin and post it on your website? You can demand that she prove it is doctored.

Our comments have crossed in the email.

I took a quick look at Ed's blog and didn't see what you're referring to.

I expressed my opinion Monday of the Daily Kos.

The McCain campain said it was their plan all along to reveal Bristol's pregnancy. Only their timing changed because of the blogs. So the news itself wasn't forced out. It was impossible for the news NOT to get out unless Bristol has going to be sent into hiding in the Alaskan wilderness somewhere. And then how would you explain the disappearance of the veep candidate's daughter? So please don't suggest that it's only because of Republican-hating media that the country knows about Bristol's pregnancy.

Of course I don't condone filthy sexual comments or whatever about Sarah Palin or her daughter. I hope you're not suggesting I do or that responsible media organizations are putting out trash like that. But if you expect a news blackout about the Palin family, sorry, it's not going to happen. Coverage should be respectful and factual, but when the candidate herself makes public statements about her family, they'll be reported.

Peggy Noonan - That was a long way of saying: Dig deep into Sarah Palin, get all you can, talk to everybody, get every vote, every quote, tell us of her career and life, she may be the next vice president. But don’t play games. And leave her kid alone, bitch.”

Doug,

You didn't look very hard. Here's the strand. check out the 4th comment by Billy the Blogging Poet and the attached photo from Greensboring. Pretty crude, I'd say. A later comment by scharrison is not very intelligent about her gender. And, there are others that are quite disgusting as well, but Mr. Cone hasn't bothered to delete them.

My point is that the rape and pillage of Sarah Palin and her family is going on in the media and blogs. It just seems to me that someone with some decency in the media should say STOP, but that isn't going to happen, is it?

If this isn't rape and pillage, I do not know what is. And, this is just a small part of it. I know, she was a bad mother for having five children. She was a bad mother for delivering a Down Syndrome baby instead of aborting it. She was a bad mother for accepting McCain's offer to be VP. And, on, and on. Maybe we should just take them all out and shoot them to put them out of their misery. A news blackout on the Palin Family? Oh, no, it's selling to many newspapers for that to happen, isn't it. It's good for business, Doug, so let's milk it awhile.

Peggy Noonan is right. Of course, "digging deep" is considered "pillaging" by some.

Nowhere in her column, however, does Noonan suggest the news of Bristol's pregnancy should not have been reported.

How could she say that when the McCain campaign has stated it was its plan all along to reveal the information?

I suppose that makes McCain a crud, too.

Here's the link:

http://edcone.typepad.com/wordup/2008/09/who-is-sarah-pa.html#comments

Doug,

What don't you understand about "And leave her kid alone, bitch.”

I'm not going to take responsibility for what somebody posts on Ed's blog. And if you want to keep score, there's a long way to go to match all the "Obama is a muslim terrorist" crap floating over the internet.

People are entitled to form their opinions, but in many cases the info they get comes from the subjects themselves.

You mention the decision of have a Down syndrome baby instead of abort. How do you know that story? Because Palin decided to go public with it, even though it's a very private matter. Why? Was it to make a statement about her pro-life beliefs? Fine. Maybe you applaud that. But you can't come back at criticize other people for invading her privacy if they take a different view.

"check out the 4th comment by Billy the Blogging Poet and the attached photo from Greensboring. Pretty crude, I'd say. A later comment by scharrison is not very intelligent about her gender. "

You weren't paying very close attention. I proved that the topless photo really wasn't Sarah Palin (it was photoshopped), and Ed gave me a dressing down for my, um, "less than proper" comment about her body.

If you didn't catch any of that, you need to work on your reading comprehension. Or throw away the Evelyn Woodhead Spedreading manual.

Doug:

As Media Matters has pointed out ( http://mediamatters.org/items/200809020015 ), Republicans, including John McCain, have gone after the children of prominent Democrats.

Anonymous said:
Doug,

What don't you understand about "And leave her kid alone, bitch.”

Wow! Talking about a Republican secret coward!

McCain is Running on the Amnesia Platform, But It's Democrats Who Need to Forget Sarah Palin

During his acceptance speech, John McCain had some very strong criticism of his opponent. I'm not talking about Barack Obama; We are talking about George Bush. After rushing headlong into the embrace of Bush and the Rovian wing of the GOP, McCain has now decided that he desperately needs to distance himself and try to reclaim the maverick mantel. Not an easy thing to do when you have sided with Bush 90 percent of the time. But McCain gave it his best shot, claiming: "We need to change the way government does almost everything." Listening to the speech, you'd think it was the Democrats who occupied the White House the last seven-plus years and it was time to throw the rat anonymous bastards out