When anonymous sourcing attacks

Props to David Carr for this mocking attribution of a silly blind quote from a representative of Sarah Palin about her new TV show:

“It’s not the kind of thing that’s going to excite you guys on the East Coast, but everyone else is dying to hear stories like these,” said one of her representatives who was not authorized to speak on the record but was authorized to slam the East Coast.

Comments

[David]

Speaking of anonymous sourcing, yesterday's NY Times outdid Palin. Reporter Scott Shane evidently wanted to establish a narrative. He wanted to demonstrate that conservatives generally have not labeled as "terrorists" the members of the Hutaree Christian sect in Michigan who were charged with plotting to kill police officers and then bomb their funerals.

Shane's evidence for the conservative POV was a single post by an anonymous commenter on the Lucianne.com message board:

At Lucianne Goldberg’s conservative Web site, Lucianne.com, a contributor calling himself kanphil rejected the labels: “Not Christians. Not terrorists. Just dimwits that couldn’t organize a decent deer hunt.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/weekinreview/04shane.html?scp=1&sq=dropping+the+word+bomb&st=nyt

Note that reporters presumably know the identity of the Palin spokesperson to whom they granted anonymity, whereas the Times knows nothing about this anonymous commeter.

[Rob]

On the subject of the Michigan terrorists, two interesting points. First, at least one of the alleged terrorists is a registered Democrat who's voted in recent Democratic primaries. As with the anti-Bush nutcase who crashed his plane into an IRS office building, most media outlets choose not to let this inconvenient fact change their chosen narrative that these perpetrators or planners of acts of violence have been right-wingers.

Second, it's interesting that the New York Times noted that the improvised explosive devices planned to be used by the Michigan militia members are based on designs used "by insurgents in Iraq." When terrorists use IED's in Iraq, the Times semi-legitimizes them by calling them insurgents. The Times would never use the term "insurgents" for allegedly right-wing militias in the United States, nor should they. They shouldn't use the term for Iraqi terrorists either.

[metrichead.blogspot.com]

Michigan is an open primary state. We don't have registered Republicans or Democrats.

In other news, I guess Sarah Palin has just forsaken her supporters on the east coast or just written the entire east coast out of the United States.

[David]

It's routine for politicians to have unidentified spokespeople state their positions. Would the New York Times be as smarmy, and would Brendan be offering props, if a leading Dem were involved instead of Palin?

E.g., I cannot imagine that the Times would write (or that Brendan would offer props for):

“It’s not the kind of thing that’s going to excite conservatives, but everyone else is sick and tired of the Tea Parties,” said one of the President's representatives who was not authorized to speak on the record but was authorized to slam Tea Parties.

ISTM that liberals are conducting a campaign to demonize Sarah Palin. Because she's in their cross hairs, anything she says or does is apt to be criticized. Thus, they mock her for using an anonymous spokesperson, even though that's normal and common practice.

[Howard Craft]

Why would one need to (or want to) demonize someone who keeps track of her policy points by writing them on her hand ? That's just comical.

Maybe Sarah Palin is just being herself, and when someone points to her behavior (or her actual statements) you consider it an act of demonizing.

Joe stack, the IRS building suicide pilot, wasn't anti-Bush - he was anti Federal bail-outs. Sounds like he was more a Tea Party type guy, but the biased media failed to make that connection too.

BTW, good opinion piece by Scott Shane. But his point was that the main-stream media wasn't using the term "terrorists" in reference to the Hutaree group, not that conservatives had failed to do so. And he attributed that comment to David Dayen.