Tuesday, we published this story about a bizarre attack launched against Governor Sarah Palin at, of all places, Glenn Beck’s site The Blaze. It was an attack made up of whole cloth, the kind of thing we’re used to seeing from the mainstream media and leftists, not from those who claim to be on our side. Palin’s not above criticism, but when Newsweek asks her to write about life with her son Trig, a Down Syndrome child, and she writes about life with her son Trig — what’s the problem?
Well, according to the Blaze, the problem is that the selfish, self-involved Governor did what Newsweek asked of her and didn’t write enough about … Rick Santorum?
Huh?
What?
Well, it’s easy to do that when you choose not to tell your readers that the Governor was fulfilling the Newsweek request. Through a glaring lie of omission, the Blaze chose not to inform their readers of that little fact because, obviously, that would’ve undermined the foundation of the attack.
From my Tuesday article:
What the Blaze is intentionally doing here, is misleading its readers into believing Governor Palin was supposed to write a piece about the Santorum family and their daughter Bella. Moreover, The Blaze obviously wants their readers to believe that Palin selfishly exploited what happened to the Santorums so that she could write something all about herself.
That’s the only explanation for why the Blaze counts the number of times “Rick” and “Santorum” are used, or why there’s a count of how many words are dedicated to the Santorums. Why would those word counts matter otherwise?
The lie the Blaze tells here, is one of omission. But it’s a lie nonetheless, because the truth happens to be the COMPLETE opposite.
Once the news got out about what the Blaze had done, this “update” that was later added to the piece.
The last sentence is especially important:
Many Palin supporters have read this post and taken issue with the fact that it does not mention Palin was actually asked by “Newsweek” to write about her experience raising a special needs child. She did not approach the publication and that is a crucial piece of information that should have been included for BLAZE readers.
This post was a brief analysis of the perception I, among others, had of Palin contributing to a magazine she regularly criticizes. And though my thoughts on Palin’s column still stand[.]
So we’re supposed to believe that the Blaze stands by the piece. We’re supposed to believe that had the original article included the contextual truth about Newsweek asking Governor Palin to write about life with Trig, that the Blaze would’ve still published an article totally devoted to attacking the Governor for writing the very piece Newsweek asked her to write.
That is utterly absurd.
But the Orwellian nature of all this doublespeak doesn’t end there. Beck’s writer of this article is Eddie Scarry who, if you recall, called Conservatives for Palin writer, Stacy Drake, a “whore” in a tweet after she criticized him for his hit-piece. According to tweets he sent me, Scarry called Drake a “whore” because she called him a “jackass,” and then he scrubbed the tweet because he “was getting way too many replies.”
Dissembling. Memory-holing. Rationalizing. Lies of omission. Scrubbing. Double-talk. Calling a woman a “whore.”
If Glenn Beck was at all interested in “restoring honor,” he would start with a full retraction and end with a full apology.
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