Andrew Sullivan Defends His Trig Palin Birther Obsession

by Glynnis MacNicol | 3:28 pm, July 1st, 2010

» 16 comments

The other day Andrew Breitbart offered $100,000 to anyone who would provide him with the entire Journolist email correspondence. The offer elicited a lot of amusing responses and fun counter-offers, but no one appeared terribly upset by the ethical connotations of the offer other than Andrew Sullivan, who had this to say:

When Andrew Breitbart offers $100,000 for a private email list-serv archive, essentially all bets are off. Every blogger or writer who has ever offered an opinion is now on warning: your opponents will not just argue against you, they will do all they can to ransack your private life, cull your email in-tray, and use whatever material they have to unleash the moronic hounds of today’s right-wing base.

So yes, probably overstating matters just slightly. Breitbart posted a long response, essentially calling Sullivan a hypocrite for a variety of reasons including his obsession with Sarah Palin and her youngest son Trig (something we have documented here before).

Sullivan’s disgusting, ends-justify-the-means obsession with the personal family life of Sarah Palin breached every ethical and journalistic boundary known to the cosmos. Between airing Palin’s hacked private emails and making a cottage industry out of challenging the maternity of her son, Trig, sometimes the word “irony” or “hypocrisy” is not descriptive enough.

Sullivan has now posted an equally long response, which included this graf justifying his interest in Palin

Palin held her new-born infant up at the RNC Convention like some scene from the Lion King; she told the crazy story of her wild ride to the Anchorage Daily News long before she was picked by a Google search to be the back up for the leader of the free world. She has written a book full of extremely private details – the nature of her contractions, for example – and made a fortune off it. She is the one who first mentioned “amniotic fluid leaking” and “water-breaking”, not me. She has made speech after speech citing her infant son – just as her teenage daughter has been pushed into every public arena imaginable. There is nothing private about Palin’s story about her child with Down Syndrome. Nothing. To examine the details of a story already told in such detail in the public sphere as a core campaign platform is violating no one’s privacy. It is asking relevant questions of a narrative plainly and publicly provided by Palin herself. I have used no facts except those already in the public domain. I have learned a lot from of-the-record chats and none of it – none – has appeared in this blog. So there is neither a shred of hypocrisy nor an iota of inconsistency in my record on this.

Sullivan’s argument boils down to his believing that since Palin made her children a focal point of her vice presidential campaign (and arguably her subsequent life/celebrity campaign) the kids are fair game. Which may be true in so far as Palin opened the door to her family and practically walked the press in, but doesn’t hold up when the subject of your often over-zealous inquiring mind is an infant. That said, while inappropriate I’m not convinced it qualifies as hypocrisy.

Andrew Breitbart, Andrew Sullivan, Sarah Palin, Trig Palin

stoogedudes

Ok, this never happens, but I’m gonna side with Breitbart and say that Sullivan needs to let this ridiculous notion go. Doesn’t he have anything better to write about?
C0nstant

sullivan doesnt he know what his ass is for…
Phocus2

Sullivan is such a girl.
MichelleF

That said, while inappropriate I’m not convinced it qualifies as hypocrisy.

I’m absolutely shocked, Glynnis!
slickerwick

Sullivan is a misogynist.
BatBoy

Leave the kids alone Andrew….

Andrew Sullivan has had nothing important to say in years…

I could live a happy life if I never saw his name or quotes for the rest of my life.
TfT

Sullivan is sick. Shame on ya glynnis…every politician brings their kids o stage but none have been slandered the way the left did to the Palins. Shame on all the left wing hacks for attacking the family and sarah personally. The politcs of personal destruction is alive and well in the left
avoidswork

While I go back/forth regarding Sullivan Trig Palin commentary, he does make a valid point. Whether that needs to be brought up in frequency is a different debate. He’s spot on regarding the fact that it is Palin (Sacred Sarah) that opened the door regarding her children and the…interesting…story of the birth of her 5th child.

That said, I agree with his comments regarding Breitbart’s $100K offer. More drama from BigBreit and if you look up this JournoList, you’ll see a lot was being blathered about in 2009 with Michael Calderone (Politico) discussing it, then Kaus (Slate) posting snippits from it – in March 2009. Don’t recall a Breitbart reward being offered then. So why the urgency for an award now? 15+ months later?

And, in the context of the JournoList blurb Sullivan wrote on June 30th, the Breitbart BigGov rant is ridiculous. But, so is Breitbart – the man you brought you the “pimp” that wasn’t.
felixw

Ah, Andrew Sullivan obsessing on Trig Palin. If you ever took Sullivan seriously — which I did, at one date in the distant past — that time has come and gone.
Chudi

I guess Obama’s kids have been hidden all this time…
kit9

‘since Palin made her children a focal point of her vice presidential campaign’

Sullivan’s and this writer’s hatred of Palin is in full display here. How did Palin make her children a ‘focal point’ of her vp campaign, exactly? By having them at the convention? So does every other candidate, including Obama, who used his children more than Palin did. Obama actually had them interviewed and photographed in both print and tv interviews. Worse, gossipy celeb tabloid print and tv mags. Palin didn’t do that. Nor did she do the truly disgusting move of whoring out family tragedies like Gore, with his son’s accident throughout his career. Edwards is another. Both he and his wife used his son’s death shamelessly for votes. Not to mention his wife’s cancer. In comparison, Palin’s use of her children is trivial. There’s that.

Then there’s the pesky point that whether Palin used her children for her political career is irrelevant to Sullivan’s absurd obsession with her amniotic fluid, uterus and Trig’s parentage. One doesn’t justify/explain the other any more than criticizing Obama’s tacky and irresponsible use of his kids during the campaign would justify anyone claiming Malia was really Obama’s grandmother’s son. The fact is, Sullivan loathes Sarah to a disturbing degree and that is what fuels his idiotic Trig obsession. Note how he seethes that Sarah held up Trig like the Lion King. Um, no, she didn’t. She held him. Period. Go back and read Sully’s ineffing sane real time comments of Sarah’s convention speech…Sully is literally exploding with irrational hatred over Trig’s presence at the convention. It really is/was creepy how a grown man can get so worked up over a little baby.

Remember, Sully’s own magazine reprimanded him and temporarily suspended him for his insane Trig commentary.
Barney

Many physicians have gone on record saying that Sullivan is probably suffering from HIV-induced Dementia based on his incoherent scribblings.

….you’d think a committed “married” man who was very critical of the promiscuous gay lifestyle wouldn’t engage in this type of behavior:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010606105110/milkyloads.tripod.com/bareback/index.html
http://www.facebook.com/people/Dona-Barone/1060506711 Dona Barone

Sullivan makes very good points out of $arah’s contradicting points…that’s all.

Palin is a liar. She is a showman.

Thanks to Sullivan there is a actual record of all the lies and inconsistencies in one place. THANK YOU, ANDREW.
News Hounds Ellen

You wrote:

Sullivan’s argument boils down to his believing that since Palin made her children a focal point of her vice presidential campaign (and arguably her subsequent life/celebrity campaign) the kids are fair game.

————-

I beg to differ. His argument boils down to his believing that since Palin made details about THE BIRTH OF HER CHILD, Trig, as well as details about her other children, that Palin’s odd account of Trig’s birth is fair game.

And I agree.
Dave Richards

News Hounds Ellen wrote:

I beg to differ. His argument boils down to his believing that since Palin made details about THE BIRTH OF HER CHILD, Trig, as well as details about her other children, that Palin’s odd account of Trig’s birth is fair game.

Please, do tell us about the “odd” account of his birth. I have a feeling that you and Sullivan need a reason to attack Sullivan. Using the children along the way is disgusting.
Sheryn

The question about who was the Mama for Trig came up much earlier than when McCain selected her as his running mate. When Sarah announced to her staff at seven months that she was pregnant, none of them believed her. Her own staff–Sarah has a reputation for twisting facts to try to make them true. Her staff knew that Bristol was missing school for several months already because of “mono” and both Willow and Bristol had a reputation for being wild. They were unsure whether the baby was really Bristol’s; Willow’s or whether Track had gotten a girl pregnant while living in Michigan. According to the staff, Sarah was completely thin one one day; and then the next day she looked like she had padding and announced that she was seven months along. Fellow state workers figured that she wanted to save her family member’s reputation; also her reputation as a loving mother; and also wanted State insurance to cover the special needs child. Most Alaskans believe that Sarah adopted the baby–and there is no medical records of Sarah giving birth to this child.

Gray area–who knows the truth? But it is not fair for Sarah Palin to cry foul and that the lamestream media is picking on her. Alaskans were questioning this birth long before the media. And they question a lot of the comments that Sarah made in her book–something sounds fishy about Sarah’s tall tales. We even are upset that the Sarah has named her video series: Sarah Palin’s Alaska. We do not trust her and would not vote for her if she ran for President–so who in the hell does she think she is taking possession of the 49th State?