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Journolist Founder Ezra Klein Defended Sarah Palin, Called Her a ‘Wonderful Mother’

by Tommy Christopher | 9:53 am, July 27th, 2010

» 24 comments

Glynnis MacNicol noted that yesterday’s daily Daily Caller Journolist leak deviated from previous entries, in that it was simply a “dump” of emails on the subject of Trig Palin, with no accompanying editorial content. While the posting drew a sharp rebuke from Sarah Palin, it made me wonder why Daily Caller wouldn’t have hyped these more, since assaults on Trig figure to outrage pretty much everyone. A cynical person might say it was to avoid a headline like this.

The previous Journolist posts have all featured varying degrees of the hard sell, with headlines that didn’t quite deliver on their promise. The most “incriminating” emails have been from avowed partisans, yet are all lumped together as a mainstream media conspiracy.

Why, then, would you bury truly outrageous emails that, in some cases, made veiled incest references, in a dump of raw emails? Certainly, this could be explained as a way to highlight the sheer volume of them, but it would also have been impossible to cherry-pick the bad ones, without also including the many Journolisters who gave no quarter to the Trig conspiracy. Chief among these was Journolist founder Ezra Klein:

Aug 30, 2008, 10:15am

Seriously, folks? Best case scenario, what’s your outcome here: Her daughter, hounded by the tabloids, breaks down that it was her child, and her mother heroically took on the burden and welcomed the disabled boy as one of her own? Palin’s relationship with her children — however they may have come to her — strikes me as pretty far out of bounds. By all accounts she’s a wonderful mother, and devoted to her fifth son. Leave this be.

Credit Daily Caller for not just cherry-picking the worst, of which there are plenty, but I think it’s a shame they didn’t offer a fuller analysis of this batch. They could have certainly had their fun with the many J-listers who either bought into the story, or even when pooh-poohing it, couldn’t resist speculating on what would happen if it was true, while also pointing out that there are decent people on both ends of the political spectrum.

There are also assholes on both sides, and this email dump has plenty of them to go around. Aside from completely spoiling the ending to Chinatown (you are warned), I felt especially queasy at this:

Brad DeLong
Aug 30, 2008, 8:12pm

Which is why I think the balance of probabilities is that it is her kid–unless Trig has not Down but fetal alcohol syndrome, in which the balance shifts back the other way.

No human being could fault Sarah Palin for being revolted by that kind of talk, but I hope someone takes the time to point out to her (I wouldn’t expect her to wade through them herself) that there were many on the list who clearly defended her. You can add me to the list of people who think that no parent should ever have to read such cold, cruel things about their own child.

Update: Since I wrote this, Daily Caller has published a “Heroes of Journolist” entry, which makes no mention of the Trig emails, but does dole out some praise to a few select J-listers.

daily caller, Ezra Klein, Glynnis MacNicol, Sarah Palin, Trig Palin

MichelleF

Let’s give some credit where it’s due. Some JListers stood up:

Dan Froomkin, previously at the Washington Post and now at HuffPo, gets credit for defending a story published at the latter under his editorial control that exposed some of the machinations between the Obama administration and the pharmaceutical companies on ObamaCare. The deal was unpopular with the Left and the entire bill was unpopular with the Right, and Journolisters complained that the story made ObamaCare less likely to pass. Froomkin scolded them in a brief but telling reply:

“I’m awfully sorry this makes Obama look bad. Not my problem,” said Froomkin.

James Surowiecki offered a longer exposition on the same theme after Journolisters started debating whether the media should report on Fort Hood terrorist Nidal Hasan’s ties to radical Islamist terrorists. When Luke Mitchell of Harper’s argued that reporting on the ties would lead to something “alarmingly dangerous, such as the idea that there is a large conspiracy of Islamists at work in the United States,” Surowiecki reminded Mitchell and others of the entire purpose of journalism, emphasis mine:

“I find it bizarre that anyone would argue that an accurate description of what happened is somehow pointless,” Surowiecki said. “That is, that it’s not useful to offer up an accurate picture of Hasan’s actions because nothing obvious follows from it. We want, as much as possible, to have a clear picture of what’s actually going on in the world. Describing Hasan as a violent Islamist terrorist is much closer to the truth than describing him as a disturbed individual.”

The media in this country is a joke and has been damaged beyond repair.
MichelleF

Sorry, forgot to post the link:

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/07/27/journolist-day-6-heroes/
http://apostrophejones.com Apostrophe jones

And Ez knows mothers .
Bootleghaircut

Heroes of Journolist????

BWAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Wait that’s not the meme!!!!!
Azarkhan

“Heroes of Journolist????” Bootleghaircut

Don’t worry. Out of over 400 subscribers, only five “heroes” are mentioned. The rest are assholes like you.
Bootleghaircut

I LOVE IT WHEN A CONSERVATIVE MEME DIES A HARD SAD DEATH!!!

HEROES OF JOURNOLIST!!!!!

WHO SAW THAT ONE COMING!!!!

CERTAINLY NOT THE MYOPIC STOOGES WHOHAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT
IT ALL WEEK!!!!!

WHAT A WAY TO END THE STORY!!!!

LONG LIVE THE HEORES OF JOURNOLIST!!!!!!

TOO FREAKING FUNNY!
NORBIT

The same group that wanted to coordinate RACIST SMEARS against innocent people!

The Left’s use of the PHONY RACE-CARD ——HAS BEEN EXPOSED FOR ALL TO SEE!!!

Liberals are the TRUE RACISTS IN 2010 AMERICA!! – and Finally, people are watching them IMPLODE over it!!!!

- gotta’ love it!!!
http://TheDividedStatesBlog.com Publius219

Maybe the discussion to be had is about what constitutes racism anymore.

It’s funny to hear one partisan say that the other party is racist, especially conservatives/Republicans saying that liberals/Democrats are racist. Because, you know, the head of the RNC apologized and admitted that his party used the so-called “Southern Strategy” for 30 years to play on underlying racial prejudices.

Nonetheless, racism is being thrown around far too much. Obviously such things like “Hey black/hispanic guy, you’re a nigger/spic” is racist. But is saying something like “Blacks/hispanics love welfare and government handouts” racist? I say yes, but I am sure there are those who would argue to the contrary.

Lastly, the demographic element has to be taken into account. The oldest generation grew up pre-integration, and undoubtedly there’s a larger segment of them that harbor racial prejudices than the younger generations.

As for me, I realized long ago that stupid comes in all colors, and that’s the real enemy our country faces today.
Bootleghaircut

“Because, you know, the head of the RNC apologized and admitted that his party used the so-called “Southern Strategy” for 30 years to play on underlying racial prejudices.”

UH OH!
The_Reasonable_Lib

Not surprising here, but I’ll bet Michelle Obama is a terrible mother, eh?
Jackie_Treehorn

The_Reasonable_Lib said:
Not surprising here, but I’ll bet Michelle Obama is a terrible mother, eh?

No she just dresses her daughters like ghetto trash and make monkey noises at them….
lazzzlo

Maybe this just had to happen. “Oh gosh, it’s a teaching moment!”

I never did understand the attacks on Trig Palin. To say that they were mean spirited is an understatement.

I’m obviously a “lost audience” because when someone attacks a person via their kids; their message is lost.

Whether anyone learns from this or not is a separate issue; but I would hope that, in the future, writers just stick to opinionated facts and not conjecture.

I will give you credit for this phrase: “No human being could fault Sarah Palin for being revolted by that kind of talk, but I hope someone takes the time to point out to her (I wouldn’t expect her to wade through them herself) that there were many on the list who clearly defended her. You can add me to the list of people who think that no parent should ever have to read such cold, cruel things about their own child.”
TfT

The email in question is about the trig postings on j-list, but still look back at the other emails wherein it was suggested (and then implemented by Campbell Brown) to attack her as an unfit mother because she would have to campaign and leave her children behind.

So despite the comment in the email that “by all counts she is a wonderful mother” it didn’t stop j-listers from proposing the meme that she is an unfit mother by accepting the VP position on the McCain Presidential ticket.

There are no hero’s on j-list…..despite the infrequent email of sanity, overall the whole cabal was to cover-up for Obama’s problems and to campaign for him by trashing anything McCain or Palin.

J-list is a huge media scandal.
Nachi

MG! What type of mother do you suppose Ezra had as a role-model??
DrFunke

There is no point in articles like this

Whether he did or didn’t is irrelevant.

The right-wing wants to paint everything and anything in the list as TERRIBLE, LEFT-WING CONSPIRACY, AMERICA-KILLING writings!

Even though nobody outside of their sheep seem to think any of these emails are even an ounce of that
MichelleF

JournoList: Food for Plants

http://bigjournalism.com/cmuir/2010/07/27/journolist-food-for-plants/
yweston

Is that her only qualification for becoming President. She took care of her “kids”.
yweston

MichelleF…..
Still NO JOB. Still living off my tax dollars.
Sean68

I think Klein comes out of this thing looking rather good. I knew he was smart as hell, but now there’s good evidence he deserves respect too. Also, his brief interjection bout Jack Nioholson definitely not turning out normal made me laugh out loud.
TfT

Sarah responds to the whole Trig jounolist exchange:

“There is a sickness and darkness in today’s liberal media. With revelations like the JournoList exchanges, may the light keep shining to expose the problem.”

http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/
Sean68

It should also be underscored that you have many big name journalists on journolist–e.g. Joe Klein, Katha Pollit–disussing in serious terms the possibility that Trig Palin was NOT Sarah’s child but actually Bristol’s. Why isn’t MSNBC spendings hours of low-rated prime time gibber-jabbing calling them kooks? Well, of course I know why MSNBC doesn’t. But where the fuck is fox?
Sean68

Sean68 said:
I think Klein comes out of this thing looking rather good. I knew he was smart as hell, but now there’s good evidence he deserves respect too. Also, his brief interjection bout Jack Nioholson definitely not turning out normal made me laugh out loud.

Let me clarify, I mean Klein, Ezra not Klein, Joe.
juan

Sean68 said:
I think Klein comes out of this thing looking rather good. I knew he was smart as hell, but now there’s good evidence he deserves respect too. Also, his brief interjection bout Jack Nioholson definitely not turning out normal made me laugh out loud.

If he’s sooo good, why did he start a secret Cabal?

Why doesn’t he reveal everything?
MDT

Why shut it down..?

So the cool J-list guys say…

“Hey, as ‘journalists,’ we write things that influence thought in daily life. We drive issues, create agendas and help carry them out. That’s cool power. People count on us for the straight facts and news (suckers) but they’re sheep. We can humiliate people we don’t agree with and even go after children…”

“Some people in our little group get a little queasy at some of the stuff we do (and think) but nobody’s leaving…so it’s all good”

Yeah, some of the assholes were less asshole-ish than others as they bashed the Tea Party and people not “center and to the left but they’re still assholes for being part of a conspiracy that committed fraud on an entire country on a daily basis (and still do).