Via Ed Morrissey, the LA Times's James Rainey has a devastating takedown of CNN's report on Sarah Palin and the Alaskan Independence Party
Rather than deliver a single revelation, the 24-hour cable news channel coughed up a reheated, overwrought and misleading story that seemed designed to yoke Sarah Palin and her husband to the most extreme secessionists in Alaska. ... CNN centered Tuesday's report on an interview with Salon.com reporter David Neiwert, who acknowledged that Sarah Palin never belonged to the party and that her husband joined but "wasn't active at all." That didn't stop the cable network and anchor Sanchez from front-loading its report with outrageous pronouncements from AIP founder Joe Vogler, now deceased. "The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government," Old Joe, as he was known, once said. "And I won't be buried under their damn flag." Sounds a little like Barack Obama's old pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Yet, to my knowledge, no direct connection between Vogler and Gov. Palin has been reported. ... Sanchez and the CNN crew instead ran their report off into the underbrush, reaching a low when the anchor tried to draw a parallel between the Alaska party and the forces behind the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. "Not comparing them to actions [sic] but comparing them in terms of ideology, not actions but ideology, are [members of the Alaskan Independence Party] similar to the group that blew up the [Alfred P.] Murrah building?" Sanchez asked, seemingly apologetic for that stinker, even as he unleashed it. Even Neiwert, whose reporting makes him no Palin fan, seemed a bit taken aback by that line. "Well, of course, that was an individual lone wolf who was associated with the patriots" movement, Neiwert said of the Oklahoma City attack. "But, yes, they basically come from the same, uh, sort of ideological background. That's correct." I still had trouble seeing what that had to do with Sarah Palin. And John McCain's presidential campaign had the same problem. "CNN is furthering a smear with this report, no different than if your network ran a piece questioning Sen. Obama's religion," said Michael Goldfarb, a McCain-Palin spokesman. "No serious news organization has tried to make this connection, and it is unfortunate that CNN would be the first." Responding to the reference to Obama's religion toward the end of the segment, Sanchez either ignored or was too dull to understand that the McCain camp was complaining about unfairness. Instead, he turned to the Salon reporter and asked: "Is this in any way a religious organization, the AIP?"
Here's the video of CNN's interview:
I eagerly await CNN's report on Obama's association with the socialist
New Party.