Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin blasted CNN and anchor Carol Costello for apologizing to Politico instead of directly to her family after Costello told her audience to “enjoy” a frantic audio tape of a young woman (Bristol Palin) telling police that an adult man assaulted her.
Costello, herself a domestic abuse victim, found the audio tape hilarious. She apologized but refused to do so on the air or directly to the Palins. CNN, the network that essentially accused Palin of inciting an attempted murder without any evidence after Gabby Giffords’ shooting, gleefully reported on the gossip previously and was even shamed by its own media reporter.
In a Thursday evening Facebook post, Palin wrote that though CNN routinely contacts her for requests for comment, the network never “contacted my family regarding an apology”:
I understand that the CNN host who laughed at my daughter describing her assault has issued an apology to Politico. (Why Politico needs an apology is anyone’s guess. No one at CNN contacted my family regarding an apology, in case you were wondering. CNN contacts us directly on a regular basis with inquiries and requests for comment, so it’s not for lack of contact information that they didn’t reach out. But perhaps Carol Costello should phone Martin Bashir. He knows how to reach us.)
Palin said “what happened on the night in question wasn’t funny” because “Bristol’s bruises on her arms and legs” were from “being dragged by a man”:
What happened on the night in question wasn’t funny. It was humiliating and frightening. The broken ribs, black eyes, and messed up elbows and knees suffered by people in our party that night were no laughing matter. Neither were Bristol’s bruises on her arms and leg from being dragged by a man. My kids aren’t proud of what happened, nor are they seeking sympathy by playing the victim card – that’s why they haven’t commented on this for all these weeks. Instead, they had to have faith that the truth would come out, despite those who did the cold-cocking actually using social media to brag, “’bout to get famous!” Screen shots of tweets captured their bold intentions, and they’ve certainly enjoyed the publicity.
Palin urged Americans to read Bristol Palin’s recent posts about what really happened on the night in question and said that “looking at the reports, it strikes me as bitterly ironic that the same people who tell us there is a ‘war on women’ have no problem laughing at the recording of my daughter crying as she tells police about being assaulted by a man.”
“I’d like to say shame on the media and those on the left laughing at her or at any young woman in a similar situation, but I no longer think they have any shame,” she concluded before noting that she and Todd were “headed to an exciting middle school girl’s basketball game along with dozens of other families proud to cheer on their daughters.”
Bristol Palin wrote, of the night in question, that their “friend got knocked out from a cheap shot from behind” because someone wanted to “get famous,” as he indicated on Twitter:
When Willow saw all this happening she looked at the guy’s mom and said “get ahold of your son.”
But apparently the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree, because his mom pushed Willow. A grown woman pushed my little sister.
By this point, I’d already gotten into the car. But when Willow ran to me crying, telling me that some lady had pushed her down, I got out of the car to go talk to her. Any big sister would do this.
Next to God, family is the most important thing to me. In fact, that day, we’d had a surprise party for my dad. We all secretly gathered in garage and yelled “surprise!” when he walked in. The real surprise was that we’d gotten him a truck too.
But the evening that began so well took a turn for the worse when this guy decided he wanted to “get famous.”
After I got out of the car, I didn’t get far. I never even got to talk to his mom, because a guy in his late thirties or early forties got in my face. He was towering over me – probably at 6 foot something and over 200 pounds. He puffed his chest out and started yelling.
Bristol said the grown man yelled, “”You c-nt!” She explained that “it got even worse when this guy started pushing me. He had his hands on me, pushing me down. That’s when I swung and hit his face”:
Some would say I should’ve never retaliated in defense against him, but certainly he should never have pushed a girl. It didn’t phase him. He pushed me down to the ground and kept me there.
It was scary and awful. He held me down until someone got me out of the situation.
That’s it – that’s the story.
I didn’t “swing and hit him seven times with a strong right hook” as so many so-called news stories have reported. After this incident, I still had a perfect manicure on all ten of my nails. Plus – I’m left handed. I wouldn’t even begin to know how to begin “swinging” at someone.
The incident was scary and infuriating. I had bruises all over me from being pushed down.
Rumors still run wild, unsubstantiated claims are printed as true, and random people who weren’t even there are considered “eye witnesses.”
Bristol mentioned that there was no media feeding frenzy when Vice President Joe Biden’s son got booted from the Army for failing a cocaine test. “In the meantime, I was pushed and held down by some guy… and the media salivates like a dog that’s just been given a bone,” she wrote.
She continued by blasting the left’s and the media’s hypocrisy regarding the supposed conservative “war on women”:
Here’s the thing. Violence against women is never okay… Even if that violence occurs against conservative women. Imagine for a second the outrage that would happen if Chelsea Clinton had gotten pushed by some guy. Had she tried to defend herself, the liberal media would’ve held her up as some feminist hero.
But it wasn’t Chelsea.
It wasn’t Hillary.
It wasn’t someone they liked or someone they agreed with.
It was a conservative.
And once again, the hypocrisy of the media is laid bare.