As part of the promotional tour of his unauthorized and scandalous Sarah Palin biography The Rogue, author Joe McGinniss appeared on The View today. The discussion inevitably turned to rumors of whether or not Palin, in fact, the birth mother of young Trig Palin, as has been suggested by such notable “Triggers” as Andrew Sullivan, among others. To be clear, he doesn’t believe the rumors to be true, but he sure seems eager to discuss them.

From time to time, our readers will challenge us to cover a story they think we’ve missed, so when one such reader alerted us that First Lady Michelle Obama thanked “CNN and the rest of the mainstream media for all its support and kindness,” we got right on the case. Sure enough, Real Clear Politics had the goods, under the headline Michelle Obama: “Fortunately, We Have Help From The Media.”

Aha! Proof that the in-the-tank lamestream media is in the tank, right? Not so much.

I spent a lot of time reading through Sarah Palin‘s pretty much completely uninteresting emails last week. Yes, there were some amusing moments, but overall, they proved that she was running a functional government, the emails of which don’t make for particularly spicy reading. One thing that stood out to me was the email she wrote before the birth of her son Trig.

Jack Stuef, the Wonkette editor who rendered the intertubes a sputtering mess of indignation following the misfired jokes in his post about Trig Palin‘s birthday, has written a farewell post as he leaves the world of political blogging to try his hand at entering the much less toxic world of TV writing.

In the wake of last week’s Wonkette/Trig Palin controversy, people keep sending me updates, related stories, and new slights against the special needs population, the latest of these being a Los Angeles Times editorial that calls Sarah Palin a “special-needs case.”

This is as good a time as any to clarify a few things about the issue of special needs-bashing.

For those wondering where the mainstream media is in covering the brouhaha over Wonkette’s birthday attack on Trig Palin (since deleted), CNN’s Reliable Sources answered the call Sunday morning. Host Howard Kurtz gave a quick recounting of the offensive post (and perhaps too much credit for an apology), and while the panel unequivocally disapproved, the [...]

Those looking forward to Keith Olbermann‘s installation of a new rear entrance for Wonkette in his Worst Persons segment might be a little disappointed in the web impresario’s denunciation of Jack Stuef‘s Trig Palin story, but the segment is somewhat redeemed by Olbermann’s clever (so clever he hyped it in two separate tweets!) “special greeting” for Trump: “FOK off!”

Red Eye host Greg Gutfeld is, as you may have guessed, none too pleased with Wonkette writer Jack Stuef‘s recent post about Trig Palin – a post that frequently referred to the three-year-old as “retarded” and insinuated he may have been the product of rape and incest. Stuef has since apologized for some of the more offensive choices he made in writing his article, but stands by the post’s basic idea – that Sarah Palin uses her son’s disability as a “prop” to get attention and support.

Update: Wonkette has deleted the post, and replaced it with this message: (h/t Little Miss Attila) Rude Post Deleted By Editor; Author Apologizes A post on this page satirizing Sarah Palin using her baby as a political prop was very badly done and sounded like the author was mocking the child and not just Sarah Palin/Sarah [...]

Wonkette’s post about Trig Palin‘s birthday – and Tommy Christopher‘s take on the issue – have been surging on Mediaite today, but another story about a politician and his child has been quietly slipping beneath the radar.

Political humor website Wonkette has long been trending toward nihilistic snark for snark’s sake, but Jack Stuef‘s column “honoring” Trig Palin’s birthday is about the most irredeemably vile, unfunny thing I’ve ever seen. As if jokes about Trig’s Down Syndrome aren’t bad enough on their own, Stuef goes the extra mile to pen kneeslappers about incest, child rape, and fetal alcohol syndrome. I don’t want to reproduce too much of it here, but this quote is fairly representative

Conservative site Newsbusters is going after Wonkette for a recent post the liberal political humor site published about Trig Palin, the youngest son of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

Newsbusters prefaces its story by asking “What has become of today’s liberalism that makes it acceptable to attack the mentally handicapped if they or their parents are conservatives?”

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.

Most of the time it’s hard to muster sympathy for Sarah Palin when it comes to her treatment at the hands of the press; this is a woman who could teach an advanced course in media relations. In fact every day I wonder if she’s doing just that with her Facebook notes. However, when it comes to the ongoing, and inappropriate speculation about her youngest son Trig, I think she has a point.

Dave Weigel is guest-blogging (from Alaska!) this week for Andrew Sullivan — an prime guest post if there is one. In one of his posts today he addresses an issue that has come to be synonymous with Sullivan: Trig Palin.

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 plenty to say.

Is President Obama going to manage to get Elena Kagan confirmed to the Supreme Court without addressing her sexuality? Well, not if Andrew Sullivan has anything to do with it. Sullivan attacked Kagan’s sexuality, or the lack of public mention of it, in a series of posts yesterday, with a ferocity that was reminiscent of his determination to find out the true parentage of Trig Palin. It seems to be working.

Keith Olbermann is going through some tough times: his father is dying, and his father wanted to die. It was a powerful statement Wednesday, replete with details and emotion and just the right amount of political grandstanding that makes Olbermann one of the most powerful left-wing talent on cable news. Most were driven to compassion. Glenn Beck was mostly disgusted.

Americans can’t separate Sarah Palin‘s person from her politics– that is the conclusion The O’Reilly Factor came to on Friday after having Fox News’ resident pollster Dr. Frank Luntz survey Philadelphia voters on their reactions to the Trig Palin-inspired Family Guy episode. The polling showed that “Republicans” were much more repulsed by the program. “Democrats have a reputation of being more compassionate,” Luntz noted, “yet the Democrats didn’t find that offensive.” Watch the segment here.

Seth McFarlane was a guest on Real Time with Bill Maher and of course spoke about the recent controversy surrounding his alleged portrayal (satire?) of Sarah Palin’s child Trig (who has Down’s Syndrome.) McFarlane told host Bill Maher “I saved my Sarah Palin virginity for you” after Maher had shown a clip of Palin criticizing Family Guy. McFarlane and Maher laughed off the criticism and cited the actress who played the “retarded” character who had claimed that Palin “doesn’t have a sense of humor.” Video after the clip.

Andrea Fay Friedman, the actress who played the character with Down syndrome on this week’s much-talked about Family Guy, and who actually has Down syndrome in real life, has responded to Sarah Palin’s wrathful criticism of the show in an email to the New York Times. SNAP.

Early this morning, Fox News contributor Sarah Palin blasted Fox Hollywood for the recent Family Guy episode that took a pretty hard-to-miss jab at her special needs son, Trig Palin (Family Guy son Chris Griffin was dating a girl with Down’s Syndrome…whose mother was the former governor of Alaska). On Facebook, naturally.

Um…did that really happen? And on Fox? Last night’s episode featured a “unique” story line where character Chris Griffin was dating a girl with Down’s Syndrome. A dangerous territory for comedy to be sure, that turned ugly, when Ellen (the character with Down’s Syndrome) revealed that her mother was the former governor of Alaska. Cue deserved outrage…now! (Video after the jump)

WaPo reporter Anne Kornblut’s new book about women in politics hits shelves today. In an excerpt that captures the McCain campaign right before it made a left turn into Bizarro world senior McCain staffer Nicole Wallace recounts the first time she was contacted by a “real” reporter regarding the maternity of Trig Palin.

There has been no love lost between Andrew Sullivan and Sarah Palin to put it mildly. Sullivan has over the last year or so, appeared to lead the so-called Trig-birther charge, calling numerous times for Palin to produce evidence that Trig is actually her son. And today he responds to criticisms aimed at him in Palin’s new memoir Going Rogue.