Obama 2007 Hampton Speech Bullet Points: Jeremiah Wright And JournoList 'Deflect' Meme Still In Effect

 By Susan Duclos

First the full video of the speech Barack Obama gave in 2007 at a ministers conference at Hampton University, a historically black school in Virginia, then a couple notable issues about Jeremiah Wright and the racial divisiveness heard throughout the speech, from Obama's deliberate adaption of a fake accent to his constant references of us vs them type rhetoric. Liberals respond predictably with a meme they created and implemented in 2008.

[WATCH] - (Via The Daily Caller)



Starting with Jeremiah Wright because it is important to remember not just the controversy but the coordinated decision, caught in leaked emails, from liberal journalists at major news outlets and blogs, to ignore the Wright controversy and label anyone that brought it up a racist.

From the transcript of Obama's remarks, prepared for delivery, which he deviated from considerably at points during his speech, he starts out with a shout-out to Rev. Jeremiah Wright and  Trinity United Church of Christ.

It was also there – at Trinity United Church of Christ on the South Side of Chicago – that I met Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., who took me on another journey and introduced me to a man named Jesus Christ. It was the best education I ever had.

Via The DC, more on Wright from Obama:

....To the audience at Hampton, Obama describes Wright as, “my pastor, the guy who puts up with me, counsels me, listens to my wife complain about me. He’s a friend and a great leader. Not just in Chicago, but all across the country.”

Soon after the Hampton speech Obama stopped referring to Wright, withdrew from the Trinity United Church of Christ, where he had been attending for almost two decades, and stopped using Wright as part of his campaign because audio and video was released of Wright saying "No, no, no, not God Bless America, God Damn America" and asserting that 9/11 was America's chickens "coming home to roost" and accusing the U.S. government of “inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color, among many other controversial statements made during his sermons.

Flashback

At the time these statements were released, liberal members of the now defunct "JournoList" list serv, liberal bloggers, media personalities and writers, via leaked emails from that list serv, plotted to spike the Wright story by creating racist memes.

Via DC, who obtained these leaked messages to and from the hundreds of  JournoList members, at the time:

Others went further. According to records obtained by The Daily Caller, at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate. Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.

In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.”

The email:

I do not endorse a Popular Front, nor do I think you need to. It’s not necessary to jump to Wright-qua-Wright’s defense. What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger’s [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously I mean this rhetorically.

And I think this threads the needle. If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they’ve put upon us. Instead, take one of them — Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists. Ask: why do they have such a deep-seated problem with a black politician who unites the country? What lurks behind those problems? This makes *them* sputter with rage, which in turn leads to overreaction and self-destruction.

Page two of that DC article:

The letter caused a brief splash and won the attention of the New York Times. But only a week later, Obama – and the journalists who were helping him – were on the defensive once again.

Jeremiah Wright was back in the news after making a series of media appearances. At the National Press Club, Wright claimed Obama had only repudiated his beliefs for “political reasons.” Wright also reiterated his charge that the U.S. federal government had created AIDS as a means of committing genocide against African Americans.

It was another crisis, and members of Journolist again rose to help Obama.

Chris Hayes of the Nation posted on April 29, 2008, urging his colleagues to ignore Wright. Hayes directed his message to “particularly those in the ostensible mainstream media” who were members of the list.

The Wright controversy, Hayes argued, was not about Wright at all. Instead, “It has everything to do with the attempts of the right to maintain control of the country.”

Hayes castigated his fellow liberals for criticizing Wright. “All this hand wringing about just
how awful and odious Rev. Wright remarks are just keeps the hustle going.”

“Our country disappears people. It tortures people. It has the blood of as many as one million Iraqi civilians — men, women, children, the infirmed — on its hands. You’ll forgive me if I just can’t quite dredge up the requisite amount of outrage over Barack Obama’s pastor,” Hayes wrote.

Hayes urged his colleagues – especially the straight news reporters who were charged with covering the campaign in a neutral way – to bury the Wright scandal. “I’m not saying we should all rush en masse to defend Wright. If you don’t think he’s worthy of defense, don’t defend him! What I’m saying is that there is no earthly reason to use our various platforms to discuss what about Wright we find objectionable,” Hayes said.

JournoList members at it again 

So, although portions of the Hampton speech were previously reported, it was during a time where, as shown above, members of JournoList, coordinated a response of no response, changing the subject to racism, and to ignore Wright, so what we see today, is some of those very JournoList members, still attempting to do the same.

Example: Jonathon Cohn, The New Republic, member of JournoList (#30 on the list here), today headlines under the discussion of the full video above from DC, "Thank You, Daily Caller, for Your Dud of a Story."

Example: Ed Kilgore, Washington Monthly, member of JournoList (#26 on this list), headlines today with "Barack Obama: Bigger and Blacker Than Ever!"

Just a couple examples of the actual journoList members, although out of about 400, less than 200 names became public at the time.

The meme though, is still alive.

Anyone listening to the 30+ minute speech above will notice a very obvious fake accent from Obama in 2007 at Hampton, that no one ever hears in his speeches now, but mentioning it brings on the coordinated racism meme that the liberal media used to "deflect" the conversation as they did back during the 2008 campaign season.

If Conservatives dare mention the obvious fake accent he used and the divisive rhetoric of us (meaning blacks) against them (meaning whites) to capitalize on his race, or his relationship to Wright, then liberals deflect from it and his relationship with Wright, by calling conservatives racist or downplaying the full video as "been there, done that" without acknowledging that yes, "been there" but they refused to "do that" by reporting it back in 2008.

Examples from Memeorandum discussions and headlines from deflecting liberals:

Racism Meme

Jack and Jill Politics: "The Niggerization of Barack Obama"

Howard Kurtz, The Daily Beast "RIGHT HYPES OBAMA ‘RACE’ VIDEO"

John Cole, Balloon Juice "Barack Obama, Racist Monster"

Wonkette "Tucker Carlson Wants You To Enlist In Race War Against Jive-Talking President"

No More Mister Nice Blog "JOE RICKETTS GETS THE CAMPAIGN ATTACK HE WANTED" (meaning the Wright controversy that liberals buried in 2008 by "deflecting with charges of racism)

Rumproast "Battle of the Doughboys: Hannity and Carlson Criticize Obama for Pretending to be Black"

The the "Pretend it was all fully covered before, so nothing to see, move along folks," crowd:

The Atlantic Wire "Tucker Carlson Already Reported on That Tucker Carlson Exclusive"

The Caucus "Obama's Wright Ties Highlighted Again"

New York Magazine "Conservatives Reveal October Surprise: Another Old Obama Video"

Guardian "Conservative media release old video of Obama in failed ‘explosive’ exclusive"

TPM "Drudge-Hyped Obama Video Turns Out To Be Publicly Covered 2007 Speech"(Publicly covered? How about very publicly ignored in a coordinated attempt by liberal media and bloggers, to "deflect" as evidenced by the emails from the JournoList list-serv)

Business Insider "The Obama Video That Drudge And Others Are Freaking Out About Has Already Been Extensively Covered" (See comment in parenthesis above- DITTO)

rubber hose "reruns again? — i think the latest drudge “bombshell video” … "

Gawker "Drudge, Hannity Hype Five-Year-Old Video of Obama That Was Extensively Covered in 2008"


The video above shows Obama mimicking Jeremiah Wright's racially divisive rhetoric that he spent almost two decades sitting in a church listening to, learning from and agreeing with and in 2008, when the story broke, liberal media members coordinated a deflection campaign, ignored the story and now they pretend it was covered extensively.

It worked in 2008, but the jig was up as soon as those leaked emails came out showing how they colluded on messaging to protect Obama, yet here they are, trying to do it again.

[Update] I see I am not the only that notices the rerun of the liberals playbook here.

Via Matthew Boyle:

Now that The Daily Caller has uncovered and published video of President Barack Obama’s “other race speech,” liberal media figures are once again trying to quell coverage of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright story — just like in 2008.

Records obtained by TheDC in mid-2010 showed that “at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate,” after ABC News’ Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos asked then-Sen. Obama about his controversial reverend during an April 2008 debate.

Media Needs More 'Trolls' Please

By Susan Duclos

 Dave Weigel writes "How a small band of conservatives generated half of the Democratic Convention’s headlines" and calls it "The Age of Trolling."

Incredible coming from one of the members of JournOList, a list-serv of hundreds of members of the liberal media from major publications, some Obama officials and a variety of liberal bloggers and liberal political operatives who were outed as coordinating stories for the national press, making decisions on what news to not write about or tell their readers about to shape the coverage in 2008.

Some examples, shown in leaked emails, include their colluding to ignore the Jeremiah Wright connection to Barack Obama, coordinating attacks against Sarah Palin,  discussing tactics to "distract" from a news story by creating a meme of "racism" about a conservative activist.

JournOList was disbanded after their collusion became mainstream news. Weigel himself ended up resigning from his former gig at Washington Post after his JournOList emails became public."

Example: “This would be a vastly better world to live in if Matt Drudge decided to handle his emotional problems more responsibly, and set himself on fire.”

More on JournoList, including a look at those leaked emails showing the major liberal media collusion, coordination and  messaging, HERE, for those that weren't paying attention in 2010.

Now, Weigel, thinks that conservatives reporting on anything that isn't part of the liberal mainstream media meme, what they want reported, should be considered trolling.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, so if we want unscripted news instead of what liberals think people should know while hiding what they don't want people to know, we should thank heavens for these so-called Weigel trolls?

Alright.

More trolls please.


Others discussing this, via Memeorandum:

JustOneMinute, his vorpal sword, Ace of Spades HQ, American Power, American Thinker, Taylor Marsh, Ed Driscoll, The Other McCain and Instapundit


 

Politico's White House Correspondent Suspended For Anti-Romney Comments And Tweets, Cites 'Standards'

By Susan Duclos


Joseph Williams, who according to his Politico bio page is the "White House Correspondent for Politico," has been suspended for televised comments in conjunction with Tweets he sent out to his followers.

One instance is captured on video where Williams explains that Mitt Romney is relaxed around "white folks," other examples of his strange tweets below the Politico announcement of his suspension.

[WATCH VIDEO]






Note- The show Williams is on is not a "news" show, so opinions are part of the interaction between hosts and guests, and the network itself should not be held accountable for what a guest says on an opinion show, just as on Fox News Channel they have shows that are news coverage and also shows similar to the MSNBC show that Williams is on above. Despite many claiming that opinion shows should somehow be representative of a network itself, it isn't so.

It is Williams, the guests, especially if they are so-called objective journalists, that need to police their own comments for the sake of journalistic integrity.

Williams failed miserably to do so.

Via Politico:

On MSNBC today, Williams made a remark suggesting Mitt Romney was only comfortable around white people. The video was first flagged by conservative website Washington Free Beacon. Breitbart.com ran the video and also flagged a series of tweets Williams had written that made fun of the Republican candidate, particularly in regard to his wealth.

"Regrettably, an unacceptable number of Joe Williams's public statements on cable and Twitter have called into question his commitment to this responsibility," POLITICO's founding editors John Harris and Jim VandeHei wrote in a memo to the staff. "His comment about Governor Romney earlier today on MSNBC fell short of our standards for fairness and judgment in an especially unfortunate way."

"Joe has acknowledged that his appearance reflected a poor choice of words," the continued. "This appearance came in the context of other remarks on Twitter that, cumulatively, require us to make clear that our standards are serious, and so are the consequences for disregarding them. This is true for all POLITICO journalists, including an experienced and well-respected voice like Joe Williams."

"Following discussion of this matter with editors, Joe has been suspended while we review the matter," they wrote.

Breitbart captured some of Williams' Twitter comments, which need to be seen there because as of now, Mr. Williams Twitter account is suddenly protected and the offensive tweets might disappear by the time he opens it back up.




An example of the Williams' tweets Brietbart captured below:



That is just a small sample, go to Breitbart to see more tweets from Williams showing that he is a partisan journalist with the liberal bias that is so prevalent within Politico and many other mainstream news outlets.

The surprising thing here isn't that Williams made these types of remarks but that Politico actually suspended him for them, citing "our standards for fairness and judgment."

A number of Politico writers were part of the left wing, now dismantled, JournoList list serv, where left wing media operatives discussed how to coordinate their messaging in favor of Barack Obama and Democrats among other things.

Examples of Politico's JournoList members include: Ben Adler, Mike Allen, Lisa Lerer, Laura Rozen, Ben Smith and Avi Zenilman.

JournoList partial Membership list found HERE.

Politico citing "standards for fairness and judgment" in Williams suspension, is laughable in light of the JournoList scandal.

DC's Next Installment On Media Matters: Tax Exemption Status

By Susan Duclos


The Daily Caller is out with it's next installment in their series on Media Matters, after previously showing coordination and collusion with liberal media writers, liberal bloggers, former JournoList members and the White House representatives, and this time they target Media Matters tax exempt status and provide copies of Media Matters for America and Media Matters Action Network's 2010 tax returns.

One central requirement before an organization like Media Matters can achieve the gold-standard nonprofit status — known by its place in the tax code, Section 501(c)(3) — is that it may not “attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities” or “participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.”

Via the IRS.gov website:

Exemption Requirements - Section 501(c)(3) Organizations

To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.

Organizations described in section 501(c)(3) are commonly referred to as charitable organizations. Organizations described in section 501(c)(3), other than testing for public safety organizations, are eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions in accordance with Code section 170.

The organization must not be organized or operated for the benefit of private interests, and no part of a section 501(c)(3) organization's net earnings may inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. If the organization engages in an excess benefit transaction with a person having substantial influence over the organization, an excise tax may be imposed on the person and any organization managers agreeing to the transaction.

Section 501(c)(3) organizations are restricted in how much political and legislative (lobbying) activities they may conduct. For a detailed discussion, see Political and Lobbying Activities. For more information about lobbying activities by charities, see the article Lobbying Issues; for more information about political activities of charities, see the FY-2002 CPE topic Election Year Issues.

Back to The Daily Caller's top ten interesting nuggets from the Media Matters' tax returns we see a few that possibly hit grays area in the Exemption Requirements.

•During 2008, Media Matters entered into a fundraising-sharing agreement with the liberal Center for American Progress, which is run by former Bill Clinton chief of staff John Podesta. According to the agreement, “both organizations agreed to collaborate to raise funds to create a definitive progressive nerve center,” and to “split, equally, all contributions raised for the progressive nerve center.” In 2010 Media Matters paid the Center for American Progress $212,000 as its share of the fundraising take.

•Media Matters Action, the organization’s lobbying arm, gave away $125,000 of its donors’ money to the Herndon Alliance, a Seattle organization that advocates for universal healthcare. The grant was earmarked for “rapid response media capability for countering misinformation and obstructive rhetoric.” It also gave $135,000 to ProgressNow, an online grassroots organizing project that supports Democratic causes.

•Media Matters For America gave $200,000 to the Citizen Engagement Laboratory, the parent group of Color of Change, which was founded by former White House “green jobs czar” Van Jones. The grant was described as funding a “campaign to expose Glenn Beck’s racist rhetoric in an effort to educate advertisers about the practices on his show.”

The Daily Caller reports that "Congressional Republicans are now interested in examining Media Matters For America‘s tax-exempt status."

(RELATED: The Daily Caller’s full coverage of Media Matters For America)

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Media Matters, Liberal Media, JournoList Members and White House Collusion?

By Susan Duclos

Anyone remember JournoList? The list-serv founded by Ezra Klein which included liberal bloggers, liberal media writers and certain Obama officials, where leaked emails from the group showed coordinated attacks and message collusion favoring Barack Obama? The group was dismantled after The Daily Caller produced email after email showing the collusion between the group's messaging then the media's copying of said messaging.

Old news? Not so much. The name of the group might have changed but the players are still the same. Keep the names below in mind as you read the quoted excerpts of the DC piece.

Ben Smith- Former member of JournoList.
Greg Sargent- Former member of JournoList.
Sam Stein- Former member of JournoList.
Nico Pitney- Former member of Journolist.

More identified members of JournoList found HERE.

The Daily Caller has a multi-paged detailed article by Tucker Carlson, Vince Coglianese, Alex Pappas and Will Rahn, showing the same type of media coordination with liberal bloggers and liberal mainsteam media along with White House representatives, and Media Matters.

From Page #3

“The entire progressive blogosphere picked up our stuff,” says a Media Matters source, “from Daily Kos to Salon. Greg Sargent [of the Washington Post] will write anything you give him. He was the go-to guy to leak stuff.”

“If you can’t get it anywhere else, Greg Sargent’s always game,” agreed another source with firsthand knowledge.

Reached by phone, Sargent declined to comment.

“The HuffPo guys were good, Sam Stein and Nico [Pitney],” remembered one former staffer. “The people at Huffington Post were always eager to cooperate, which is no surprise given David’s long history with Arianna [Huffington].”

“Jim Rainey at the LA Times took a lot of our stuff,” the staffer continued. “So did Joe Garofoli at the San Francisco Chronicle. We’ve pushed stories to Eugene Robinson and E.J. Dionne [at the Washington Post]. Brian Stelter at the New York Times was helpful.”

“Ben Smith [formerly of Politico, now at BuzzFeed.com] will take stories and write what you want him to write,” explained the former employee, whose account was confirmed by other sources. Staffers at Media Matters “knew they could dump stuff to Ben Smith, they knew they could dump it at Plum Line [Greg Sargent’s Washington Post blog], so that’s where they sent it.”

If Media Matters cannot get a reporter to follow the progressive script, they bully them:

Reporters who weren’t cooperative might feel the sting of a Media Matters campaign against them. “If you hit a reporter, say a beat reporter at a regional newspaper,” a Media Matters source said, “all of a sudden they’d get a thousand hostile emails. Sometimes they’d melt down. It had a real effect on reporters who weren’t used to that kind of scrutiny.”

Then The Daily Caller shows the White House collusion, pages #3 and #4:

A group with the ability to shape news coverage is of incalculable value to the politicians it supports, so it’s no surprise that Media Matters has been in regular contact with political operatives in the Obama administration. According to visitor logs, on June 16, 2010, Brock and then-Media Matters president Eric Burns traveled to the White House for a meeting with Valerie Jarrett, arguably the president’s closest adviser. Recently departed Obama communications director Anita Dunn returned to the White House for the meeting as well.

It’s not clear what the four spoke about — no one in the meeting returned repeated calls for comment — but the apparent coordination continued. “Anita Dunn became a regular presence at the office,” says someone who worked there. Then-president of Media Matters, Eric Burns, “lunched with her, met with her and chatted with her frequently on any number of matters.”

Media Matters also began a weekly strategy call with the White House, which continues, joined by the liberal Center for American Progress think tank. Jen Psaki, Obama’s deputy communications director, was a frequent participant before she left for the private sector in October 2011.

Every Tuesday evening, meanwhile, a representative from Media Matters attends the Common Purpose Project meeting at the Capitol Hilton on 16th Street in Washington, where dozens of progressive organizations formulate strategy, often with a representative from the Obama White House.

In the past several years, Media Matters has focused much of its considerable energy on the Fox News Channel. The network, declares one internal memo, “is the de facto leader of the GOP and it is long past time that it was treated as such by the media, elected officials, and the public.” At the end of September 2009, Burns made the case publicly in an interview on MSNBC.

Fox, he said, “is a political organization, and their aim is to destroy a progressive policy agenda.”

Less than a month later, in language that could have been copied directly from a Media Matters press release, White House communications director Anita Dunn leveled almost precisely the same charge, dismissing Fox as “more a wing of the Republican Party.”

The source had no direct knowledge of the message collusion between the official White House statements and the Media Matters meetings, but that make the coordination of messaging quite the coincidence wouldn't it?

Read the entire six page piece, it is quite enlightening.

Is it any wonder that 60 percent of the American public sees media bias and 47 percent say it is a liberal bias with only 13 percent saying they see a conservative bias? (Source- Gallup)

At least the American people are not being fooled into believing the liberal media, Media Matters and White coordinated messaging.

Kudos once again to The Daily Caller for ripping the roof off of hell and exposing the liberal so-called journolists playing inside.

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Video- Rick Perry Takes Politico's Mike Allen To The Woodshed

By Susan Duclos

John Nolte calls the video exchange between Rick Perry and left wing Mike Allen from The Politico, "a thing of beauty."

Video below:



Text via Big Journalism:

Allen: “These are members of your staff.”
Perry: “You got a name?”
Allen: “Who say –”
Perry: “You got a name?”
[pause]
Allen: “You won’t listen to –”
Perry: “You got a name?”
Allen: “Uh.”
Perry: “If you don’t have a name to tell me this individual said this, then I don’t take that as a corroborating source

There is more after the initial exchange, watch the whole thing.

For any that doubt the "liberal" label given to Mike Allen and The Politico, remember he and two others we know about, were members of the now dismantled Journolist which caused some Politico writers major embarrassment.

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Has Trust Been Compromised In Media Outlets Still Associated With Journolist Members

When the Daily Caller started releasing the leaked emails from the Journolist list-serv, founded by Erza Klein and reportedly consisting of approximately 400 members, most in the media business, the blogosphere pounced.

Some attempting to justify the obvious collusion to kill stories in the media and some denouncing such tactics from names associated with major news outlets such as Washington Post, Bloomberg, TIME, The Politico, The Guardian etc....

Dave Weigel was the first and only casualty so far, with his leaked emails being exposed first and resulting in his offering his resignation to the Washington Post which was accepted.

Erza Klein, founder of Journolist, still writes for Washington Post.

The Journolist scandal, documented in release after release from The Daily Caller can be found here.

To this day I have not found a full list of Jounolist members but as more emails were provided by the Daily Caller, more and more names were added to the list as well as more and more major news publications, high profile blogs and even political operatives, Obama appointees and White advisers.

Collectively, the leaked emails pointed to a severe scandal for some media journalists involved with Journolist, while others were Liberal bloggers and pundits so their bias was already known and there was no perceived objectivity to begin with.

Excluding those that were admitted partisans to begin and simply focusing on those that slant toward Liberal but write for organizations that are supposedly objective, I wonder why more has not been made about those specific organizations and the continued presence of Journolisters on their staff.

Roger Simon, also with The Politico, quotes Erza Klein as stating "If people had been getting together and deciding on a message and then publishing that message, that would have been clearly unethical, and I would not have allowed it, and it didn’t happen."

Oh really?

Issues brought to light from that series of leaked emails showed Liberal media members colluding to kill stories (Jeremiah Wright) by creating a racism meme by accusing conservatives "any" conservative of "racism" to distract from the story. Showed a concentrated planned attack against Sarah Palin when she was announced as John McCain's vice presidential running mate. Showed the intense gossip session discussing rumors created by Daily Kos within days of that announcement about Sarah Palin's fifth child, Trig, who has Down Syndrome. (Yes some did "report" on those rumors)

(Those familiar with the Journolist scandal already know this information, those that did not can follow the links above to see for themselves).

Other direct lies from Klein regarding Journolist include; when he claimed no "government or campaign employees" were part of his group should be wondering why he still has a political forum at Washington Post after it was proven beyond any doubt that Obama appointees, White House advisers and other political operatives were, indeed, part of the group.


Why is Joe Klein from TIME is still associated with TIME?

Why is Mike Allen, Lisa Lerer and Ben Smith are still associated with The Politico?

So on and so forth.

In researching a couple pieces I have written on the Journolist issue, I have often come across pieces in the New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Bloomberg and many others that focused on the exact issues and "spin" the Journolisters had just discussed in the leaked emails.

The first question that popped into my mind is: "Was this reporter/journalist part of Journolist?"

The second question, just as concerning is: "Did they get their storyline idea and exact phrases they are using from those Journolist members' writings about that issue, therefore allowing the narrative to be set"?

The answers to those questions and the fact that they are even relevant is damning to any and all news outlets.

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Obama Advisors And Appointees Part Of Journolist To Shape News Coverage

The other shoe finally drops and The Daily Caller provides the information that it was not only Liberal media journalists, editors and academics that were part of Journolist, the list-serv created by Erza Klein with approximately 400 members, but political operatives including Obama advisors and appointees that partook in the discussions to try to shape political news.

The collusion to destroy Sarah Palin by Journolist members, the disgusting gossip fest showing obsessive group-think about rumors over Palin's fifth child Trig, the fear and loathing with desire to have Fox News gone, the collaboration on how to distract the public from Jeremiah Wright: all of that while distasteful, doesn't connect the Obama administration officials with partaking in that collusion.

Until now.

Two of the administration’s chief economic advisors, Jared Bernstein, the vice president’s top economist, and Jason Furman, deputy director of the National Economic Council, were members of Journolist until they began working officially for Obama.

Ilan Goldenberg, now an advisor on Middle East policy at the Pentagon, was a member until he joined the administration. Moira Whelan left Journolist to work at the Department of Homeland Security. Anne-Marie Slaughter left to work at the State Department. Former Journolist member Ben Brandzel is now a top staffer at Organizing for America, the political arm of the Obama White House.

Josh Orton, a former spokesman for Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), became Obama’s deputy director of new media during the 2008 presidential campaign. After the election, he joined Journolist.

Journolist founder Ezra Klein, a staffer at the Washington Post, says he “tried to be very strict” in making sure no active political operatives joined Journolist. “It’s possible I missed someone,” he explained in an email.

Read the entire 2 page piece at The Daily Caller.

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Andrew Sullivan On Liberal Media: 'Devoid Of Any Balls Whatsoever'

I blame the Daily Caller for this. For taking away our vacation from Andrew Sullivan's sick paranoid obsession with Sarah Palin's fifth child, Trig.

They just had to get him started again right?

Remember all those liberals and lefties huffily denouncing this blog's attempts to make sense of Sarah Palin's bizarre stories about the pregnancy and birth of her alleged fifth child? I was nuts, crazy, vile, disgusting, etc etc to indulge in what Dave Weigel, with no working knowledge of the story, calls "nonsense." You may also recall that the liberal media didn't touch this with a barge-pole - and still hasn't (apart from a NYT puff-piece that I found utterly credulous at the time). Newsweek has even put its entire reputation behind the details of the story as outlined in Going Rogue, without doing any independent reporting on the subject.

Admittedly, he is spot on when he uses the leaked Journolist emails the Daily Caller has provided to show that there were many others, like him, that obsessed over Sarah Palin's youngest son, Trig. The only difference is many on the 400 member list-serv, Journolist, understood the political ramifications of using an infant with Down Syndrome as political fodder.

To give credit where it is due, a few people partaking in the Trig Palin discussion the Daily Caller has produced, showed extreme distaste for the line of attack that others were discussing.

The obsession with Trig revolved around his birth and how many Liberal pundits accused Sarah Palin's eldest daughter of giving birth to Trig and Sarah Palin of hiding the information and raising the child as her own.

Andrew Sullivan publicly obsessed over this, as his many posts on the subject shows, while members of Journolist obsessed over it in their supposedly private cocoon of a world in their Journolist emails, many only refusing to write about it because they believed it would hurt their candidate, Barack Obama.

The discussion from Journolist members starts with Ryan Donmoyer of Bloomberg News on August 30, 2008- 12:07am, who states:

I actually hesitate to bring this up…

But is anyone following this:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/29/17933/7330/417/579267

Off and running Journolisters go, with members such as Dylan Matthews who was given a forum on Erza Klein's (creator of Journolist list-serv) American Prospect page as well as Klein's Washington Post column, who states "Obama absolutely cannot touch this. Even if it’s true."

Read more

Page 1 2 3

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Andrew Sullivan On Liberal Media: 'Devoid Of Any Balls Whatsoever' #2

A couple voices of reason jump in, one being Harold Pollack, who writes over at Huffington Post, writing "Yuck on several fronts. We don’t have any evidence she did anything wrong here. If the baby was her daughter’s, what’s the problem here? Unless she actively prevented her daughter from having an abortion, we should leave this alone." (Later in the back and forth emails he does state he thinks the rumor is "intriguing")

After more emails back and forth where the list-serv group continues to obsessively go through the rumors which had started flying fast and furiously, Kathleen Geier of The Nation, seems to straddle the fence:

Aug 30, 2008, 9:13am
Obviously, neither Obama nor any other Democrat should touch this story. At all.

But — and that’s a big but — if it’s true, *of course* it would be an issue. And should be! Forget the issue of whether or not she denied her daughter the choice of ending her pregnancy — that’s not the issue. The issue would be if Palin is lying to the McCain’s people, and voters, and basically the world, by trying to pass off a child as hers, if it really wasn’t. Your kids are as much a part of your basic life story as when and where you were born, who you married, and where you went to school. If she’s trying to pass off a child as her own, when that child is actually her granddaughter — that is a huge freaking deal.

Now, that said, this does sound like a pretty wacky conspiracy theory. If there’s no evidence to it other than the fact that Palin allegedly did not look pregnant, and her daughter was allegedly absent from school, that’s an extremely slim reed to hang a story on.

However, if a reporter investigated this story and came up with compelling evidence that it’s true — such as documents or eyewitness testimony from medical professionals and the like — the media should have no compunctions about running with it.

But it’s such a wild story I seriously doubt there’s much to it. On the other hand, I thought the idea that John Edwards would risk having an affair and a love child in the midst of a campaign for president was preposterous as well. So you never know . . .

Obama and Dems shouldn't touch but it "could be true", wacky conspiracy but hey, you never know.......

Talk about keeping your options open... sheesh.

Back to Harold Pollack ( where he admits the rumor is intriguing), providing some statistics on Down Syndrome, to which the instigator of this thread Ryan Donmoyer rebuts:

Aug 30, 2008, 9:20am

> Biologically speaking, 18-year-old moms have
> better birth outcomes than 32-year-olds when everything else is right.
> After the baby is born–that’s another matter!)

Look, I’m not trying to stir this pot, but this thing is gaining traction on the chat boards.

Biologically speaking, most children with Downs Syndrome are born to women under age 35 (just as most children PERIOD are born to women under 35). I have no way of knowing, but let’s not assume there’s a statistically significant difference here. Let’s not immediately conclude that of course it’s Sarah Palin’s because she’s 44 years old.

Biologically speaking, which is more unlikely anyway: 1) A 17-year-old having a child with Downs Syndrome or 2) A 43-year-old woman conceiving without the help of medical intervention?

For what it’s worth, here is a photo of her from the Anchorage Daily News from mid-March, when she would have been 7 or 7 1/2 months pregnant:

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/345168.html

Right, not trying to stir the pot as he is holding the dripping wet spoon that he used to stir it.

Read more

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Andrew Sullivan On Liberal Media: 'Devoid Of Any Balls Whatsoever' #3

Kathleen Geier jumps back into the discussion again:

Look at these family pix here:

http://tinyurl.com/5zf8xx

And here:

http://tinyurl.com/6pg7ss

It looks like the daughter *could* be pregnant — especially in the first picture.

And it seems odd that Palin would wait until her 7th month to announce her pregnancy.

None of this is evidence of anything, of course — but I do relish the idea that if this were true and discovered, Palin would take the crown from Eagleton as the most disastrous veep choice ever.

I am really hoping Palin will self-immolate and bring down the ticket with her. Because if she proves to be a popular choice who doesn’t screw up too badly, she could be really, really dangerous in the years to come.

Finally, founder Erza Klein, 10 hours after the gossip, rumor session between Journolist journalist began, speaks up:

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.

Over 80 more emails to that thread, leading into the next day, showing that Klein was once again basically ignored. Some showing distaste for the story but the majority discussing rumors and the validity of claims that had no basis in fact and no evidence to back them up.

So when Andrew Sullivan finds vindication in the fact that he was not the only one obsessive about the unfounded Trig rumors, he has a point.

Sully concludes:

All great points. Especially the latter. But nothing was to be aired in public, for fear of backlash from the right.

This is your liberal media, ladies and gentlemen: totally partisan, interested in the truth only if it advances their agenda, and devoid of any balls whatsoever. And people wonder how this farce of a candidate now controls one major political party and could well be our next president. One reason is that we do not have a functioning adversarial media uncorrupted by partisan loyalty and tactics.

What is notable however is that this Daily Caller addition to the previous pieces revealing leaked excerpts from Journolist, provides more names to add to the lists others have already compiled on known Journolist members.

When the Daily Caller concludes their piecemeal theme stories revealing discussions on specific topics, perhaps since they seem to have a large part of the archived emails, if not all of them, they should go through them individually and compile a comprehensive list which would brings us closer to knowing more of the approximate 400 members.

That is a list I know many are waiting to see........... Come on Tucker, do a girl a favor.

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Video- JournoList The Movie: I Am A Liberal - I Hate Violence - But Sometimes...

Video found at The Daily Caller (53 seconds) ... your entertainment of the day.



Quotes from video were from email discussion between Journolist members.

First quote from Spencer Ackerman, then of the Washington Independent:

I do not endorse a Popular Front, nor do I think you need to. It’s not necessary to jump to Wright-qua-Wright’s defense. What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger’s [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously I mean this rhetorically.

And I think this threads the needle. If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they’ve put upon us. Instead, take one of them — Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists. Ask: why do they have such a deep-seated problem with a black politician who unites the country? What lurks behind those problems? This makes *them* sputter with rage, which in turn leads to overreaction and self-destruction.

Second quote from video above, from David Weigel, then writing for Washington Post (he no longer works there), via MediaBistro.

Weigel's Words:

•"This would be a vastly better world to live in if Matt Drudge decided to handle his emotional problems more responsibly, and set himself on fire."

Last quote from video above from Sarah Spitz who was a producer for NPR affiliate KCRW for the show Left, Right & Center), via Daily Caller.

If you were in the presence of a man having a heart attack, how would you respond? As he clutched his chest in desperation and pain, would you call 911? Would you try to save him from dying? Of course you would.

But if that man was Rush Limbaugh, and you were Sarah Spitz, a producer for National Public Radio (update: Spitz was a producer for NPR affiliate KCRW for the show Left, Right & Center), that isn’t what you’d do at all.

In a post to the list-serv Journolist, an online meeting place for liberal journalists, Spitz wrote that she would “Laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out” as Limbaugh writhed in torment.

In boasting that she would gleefully watch a man die in front of her eyes, Spitz seemed to shock even herself. “I never knew I had this much hate in me,” she wrote. “But he deserves it.”

This has been your daily dose of entertainment.

The whole Journolist saga at The Daily Caller.

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An Answer To Wapo's Kathleen Parker On Journolist Gotcha 'Flap'

Kathleen Parker writes a column in the Washington Post that asks questions and she describes the gotcha "flap", as she sees it, over the revelations from leaked emails from Journolist, a list-serv Erza Klein started with approximately 400 members associated with media in some way, shape or form.

Those leaked emails the Daily Caller has been doling out has shown collusion between media members in how to frame the national debate on a variety of topics, such as Sarah Palin where they discussed what should be the general lines of attack or how Obama's "non-official campaign" (meaning Journolist members) could directly help Obama win the 2008 election by distracting from the Jeremiah Wright issue.

Just friends at the "watering hole" as she refers to the email list and their discussions?

Usually folks that go to a "watering hole", such as writers from CNN'S TIME, Bloomberg News, The Politico, The New Yorker, Nation, Mother Jones, New America Foundation, Human Rights Watch, just to name a few, do not collude and work in conjunction with each other to coordinate a line of attack and use their individual publications to further that line of attack publicly.

Do not forget that Jared Bernstein, chief economist for Vice President Joseph Biden, served in 2008 as an economic adviser to the Obama campaign, was part of that "watering hole", being made aware of every line of attack being discussed and in some cases implemented, as I have shown here with the help of Google search engines.

Started by prodigal blogger Ezra Klein for a few friends, it grew in numbers and popularity, attracting a few mainstream luminaries (Joe Klein of Time magazine) along the way. But mostly it was a consortium of far lesser-known folks (academics, mid- to low-level producers, etc.) who enjoyed the camaraderie of the like-minded.

Does she have the entire list of members? So far, last I saw, the public only knows of less than a hundred names of the 400 members on the list?

How does dear Kathleen know what it consists of in totality?

It is one of the last two paragraphs of the two page attempt to change the national discussion that really caught my eye.

In the meantime, we have to ask ourselves: Are we better off never having the ability to speak offhandedly among friends, to say in private what we could never say in public, to think aloud and uncensored?

Question for Kathleen: If and that is a huge IF, the 400 or so members, are a "consortium of far lesser-known folks", bloggers, op-ed columnists, academics, mid to-low-level producers, etc.... then why can they not say in public what they say in private?

My answer to Kathleen's question here would be yes, we are better off, because innate honesty would dictate that people, so-called opinion journalists, should have the balls to say exactly what they are thinking on their own publications.

To say one thing in private (if 400 people can be called private), but say another thing in public on your blog or newspaper implies a certain dishonesty on the part of the writer.

If you are an opinion writer and you cannot say something out loud, publicly, then perhaps you should ask yourself if you should be saying it at all, or even thinking it.

The Daily Caller has been exposing the mindset of the Liberal journalists who were part of Journolist and shining a light on their media bias.

The Daily Caller deserves their "Gotcha" moment.

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Exposing Erza Klein's Lies About Journolist- Produce The List Of Members

NewsBuster calls Erza Klein's statements and claims about Journolist, the list-serv he created that gave a forum to coordinate attacks against conservatives, conservative politicians and help Democratic candidates in conjunction with each other the publications they wrote and/or worked for, "provably false" and headlines stating those claims of Kleins were "not accurate".

In other words, they were lies. The hell with political correctness.

The Daily Caller's revealing excerpts over the last few days, from the Journalist archives has shown coordination in lines of attacks, methods to use, suggestions and outright statement by one calling them Obama's "non-official campaign."

Now, via NewsBusters and Volokh Conspiracy, we see that when Klein stated "There are no government or campaign employees on the list", he was lying.

That was written in 2009, yet now we find out that at least one member, Jared Bernstein, chief economist for Vice President Joseph Biden, served in 2008 as an economic adviser to the Obama campaign, was a member of Journolist until December of 2008.

Which made him privy to the thread discussing how to attack Sarah Palin as well as the suggestion by Spencer Ackerman to distract from the Jeremiah Wright issue by accusing conservatives, any conservatives, of RACISM!!

Asked when he left JournoList, Bernstein replied, ‘‘I think I left the list around the time I came here.” Bernstein was announced as Chief Economist and Economic Policy Adviser to the Vice President-elect on December 8, 2008.

One question that has arisen in the last week is how closely JournoList members, not only discussed how to shape the news to advance the fortunes of Barack Obama, but coordinated with the Obama campaign. Jared Bernstein’s position as an unpaid adviser and surrogate shows that there was at least one direct link between JournoList and the Obama campaign.

NewsBuster (linked above) also mentions another worrisome little fact:

Since joining the White House (and after being removed from JournoList), Bernstein has held meetings with high-profile liberal bloggers - all confirmed or likely JournoList members - at the White House.

Read both NewsBusters and Volokh Conspiracy 's entire pieces, they are very informative and provide the links to back it all up.

With every day's new revelations by the Daily Caller, more and more names are being added to the known Journolist member list, still only a quarter of the approximate 400 member list, are known.

I would love to see an entire list of members, then perhaps people can see for themselves by searching their particular written works, how many actually did coordinate and use their individual publications that they wrote and/or worked for, to shape the nation political discussion in conjunction with each other.

Not to mention, the entire list would either confirm or negate the speculation about the claims that mostly opinion columnists were on the list.

Many believe the list would confirm the presence of mainstream media figures on the Journlist member roster.

Perhaps that is why Klein, nor members of list that aren't known of yet, simply refuse to provide the list to the public.

It would confirm everything they are trying to deny.

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Latest Salvo In Daily Caller/Keith Olbermann Fued: Journolisters Hate You Too!!!

Today's Journolist revelations by the Daily Caller are not blockbusters, they are more of an "in your face" smack down of Keith Olbermann, by making sure he knows that members of Journolist, a list-serv started by Erza Klein with approximately 400 Liberal journalist members, dislike him and disrespect him.

The only reason this is an ouch moment for Olbermann is because he considers Liberals to be his base, his adoring audience, who it seems doesn't adore him quite as much as he thought.

The Tucker Carlson (Editor-in-cheif of The Daily Caller) Keith Olbermann feud heated up recently when The Daily Caller acquired the domain name keitholbermann.com and redirected the URL to their own front page with a very large photo of Olbermann with the headline screaming "WE OWN YOU".


(Screenshot from both Daily Caller and http://www.keitholbermann.com/ main page which is directed right back to Daily Caller)

That resulted in Olbermann suggesting he would sue to obtain the domain rights to his name and some twitter amusement with Olbermann calling Carlson "Tuckie".

Which brings us to day four of leaked email excerpts from the Journolist archives that the Daily Caller has been doling out day by day, the others being far more political in nature.

It started with leaked emails from the Journolist list-serv, with media members discussing strategy to change the national topic in 2008, from Obama's Pastor Jeremiah Wright, to accusing conservatives of being racist, continued the next day with members discussing Fox News and one member asking why the "FCC couldn’t simply pull their broadcasting permit once it expires?", and yesterday's leaked emails showing a concentrated effort to attack Sarah Palin.

The Latest salvo in the Carlson/Olbermann/Daily Caller feud produces email where the Liberal members call Olbermann "misogynistic", "predictable", and "pompous". That is just the beginning headline!

Georgetown University Professor Michael Kazin- "He’s become O’Reilly on the left– completely predictable, unfunny, and arrogant."

New America Foundation’s Michael Cohen- "To my mind, what they do is no different form Hannity and O’Reilly. At least Hannity and O’Reilly engage with the other side (if mainly just to yell at them). Olbermann is just an echo chamber."

After a brutal Olbermann segment regarding Carrie Prejean, the former Miss California, when she answered a question by defending traditional marriage, Journolisters were not pleased with Olbermann.

The Nation’s Katha Pollitt- "He and Michael Musto did this whole long riff about beauty contestant Carrie ‘opposite marriage’ Prejean’s breast implants, stupidity, breast implants, tacky clothes, earrings, breast implants. They went on and on about how she was ‘part plastic’ and pathetic. You’d think they were celibate vegans who spent their lives zen meditating. It was just a whole TV humiliation of her, and it made me feel sorry for her, which wasn’t easy."

Michael O’Hare, a professor at the University of California calls the segment "about as funny as a rubber crutch," and goes on to suggest some type of intervention.

Julian Zelizer, a Princeton professor and CNN contributor- "I can’t take him anytime. I think to write off his mysogyny (sic) as limited to Musto is just not accurate. That very much defined much of how he talked about Clinton as well as others."

Others joining in that discussion were The Washington Independent’s Spencer Ackerman, Salon’s Rebecca Traister, University of Chicago Professor Harold Pollack, and Harper’s editor Luke Mitchell.

Good news for those that have been compiling a list of known Journolist members in today's revelations.... more names added to the list already compiled by Mark Levin.

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Daily Caller Provides More JournoList Fodder: List-Serv Members Coordinate To Destroy Sarah Palin

The majority of the discussion on the Journolist, a list-serv, started by Erza Klein and consisting of 400 members, most of which involved in journalism and/or the media, regarding Sarah Palin, seemed to be just a bitching session, complaining about John McCain's pick.

I said the majority, but once again, what the leaked Journolist emails provide everyone, is a look inside the mind of the Left, but more importantly, the minds of media talking heads on the Left.

For example:

Daniel Levy of the Century Foundation noted that Obama’s “non-official campaign” would need to work hard to discredit Palin. “This seems to me like an occasion when the non-official campaign has a big role to play in defining Palin, shaping the terms of the conversation and saying things that the official [Obama] campaign shouldn’t say – very hard-hitting stuff, including some of the things that people have been noting here – scare people about having this woefully inexperienced, no foreign policy/national security/right-wing christia wing-nut a heartbeat away …… bang away at McCain’s age making this unusually significant …. I think people should be replicating some of the not-so-pleasant viral email campaigns that were used against [Obama].”

Obama's "non-official campaign".

Think about that for a second, members in that thread, journalists from publications such as Bloomberg News, The Politico, The New Yorker, Nation, Mother Jones, New America Foundation, Human Rights Watch, discussing Sarah Palin and just how to approach negating her impact on Hillary Clinton supporters and on Obama's campaign.

The Daily Caller did not release any portion of the thread that showed even one member of the 400 members denying or disagreeing that Journolist and the journalists that belonged to it, were "Obama's "non-official campaign".

I have not been one to suggest that Erza Klein produce the complete archives from his list-serv, but I will say that if he has even one email from that thread that shows members disagreeing with being considered Obama's "non-official campaign", now would be the time to produce it.

Using Journolist to coordinate the message

It has been pointed out by NRO and Hot Air that Time’s Joe Klein, who was a member of Journolist, used the "ideas" thrown around at Journolist, and linked to his own column where he did so.

Time’s Joe Klein then linked to his own piece, parts of which he acknowledged came from strategy sessions on Journolist. “Here’s my attempt to incorporate the accumulated wisdom of this august list-serve community,” he wrote. And indeed Klein’s article contained arguments developed by his fellow Journolisters. Klein praised Palin personally, calling her “fresh” and “delightful,” but questioned her “militant” ideology. He noted Palin had endorsed parts of Obama’s energy proposal.

Another instance provided by the Daily Caller is the Nation's Chris Hayes directly asking for more talking points from Journolist members:

“Keep the ideas coming! Have to go on TV to talk about this in a few min and need all the help I can get,” Hayes wrote.

The idea to accuse John McCain of sexism in picking Palin as his running mate came from Suzanne Nossel, chief of operations for Human Rights Watch, who said “I think it is and can be spun as a profoundly sexist pick. Women should feel umbrage at the idea that their votes can be attracted just by putting a woman, any woman, on the ticket no matter her qualifications or views.”

The response from Mother Jones' Jonathan Stein was "That’s excellent! If enough people – people on this list? – write that the pick is sexist, you’ll have the networks debating it for days. And that negates the SINGLE thing Palin brings to the ticket."

Another writer from Mother Jones, Nick Baumann, had this idea: “Say it with me: ‘Classic GOP Tokenism’.”


Not having a full list of members who belonged to Journolist, we work with what we have.

For example, using the keywords McCain, Palin, sexism and tokenism, from the thread above, Google provides us with results that include those exact keywords.

All of this coincidence? You decide.

American Prospect (where Journolist creator Erza Klein had his full time blog) headlines with "McCain's Sexist VP Pick", sub header "The GOP seems to think women will eagerly vote for any ticket that includes a member of their gender. That's Republican tokenism and pandering at its worst."

That was written by Ann Friedman, and we do not not yet if she was or was not a member of Journolist because a full list of names has not been provided, although Mark Levin has gathered up a partial list. (65 out of approximately 400 members).

Here is another "coincidence" for you.

Salon, (same exact date as the Palin announcement of GOP VP nominee and hours within the list-serv "discussion"), the Prospect piece, and the Klein piece linked above:

But perhaps even more damaging, Palin's almost total lack of qualifications makes McCain's pick look like blatant tokenism. It is painfully clear that he only chose her because she fills a symbolic/demographic niche. Of course, vice-presidential picks are always driven by such concerns, by the need to shore up political weaknesses and appeal to crucial swing voters. But rarely, if ever, has that Machiavellian truth been so obvious.

Well that little experiment worked out, so I decided to try another.

Amidst this debate over how most effectively to destroy Palin’s reputation, reporter Avi Zenilman, who was then writing about the campaign for Politico, chimed in to note that Palin had “openly backed” parts of Obama’s energy plan. In an interview Wednesday, Zenilman said he sent the information as a means of promoting a story he had written for Politico.

Back to Google. Keywords, "Sarah Palin, Obama and energy plan."

The Politico piece linked in the thread was August 5, 2008.

NBC News' First Read, "Palin praised Obama's energy plan", and the First Read story uses the exact press release from the Politico article that Zenilman linked to in the Journolist thread.

I figured, why not keep Googling specific keywords from the leaked emails and the hits just keep coming.

Going back to the original quote from Daniel Levy of the Century Foundation where he said, "bang away at McCain's age making this unusually significant."

I come up with yet more "coincidences".

New York Times, writes "The question is particularly acute for Mr. McCain, who turned 72 on Friday and would be the oldest person elected to a first term as president if he won in November." Also stating "scare people about having this woefully inexperienced, no foreign policy/national security/right-wing christia wing-nut a heartbeat away."

Washington Post, writes "Democrats immediately seized on her lack of political experience, noting that McCain, who turned 72 on Friday, will be confirmed next week as the oldest first-time presidential nominee in history."

Wall Street Journal, writes "They were quick to note that Sen. McCain turned 72 Friday and would be the oldest person to enter the White House, yet he is trying to put a heartbeat from the Oval Office a woman who has spent less time in the governors' mansion than Sen. Obama has in the Senate. Just a few years ago, she was mayor of Wasilla, a town of 9,780 people."

Then we have Eric Alterman, a known member of Journolist, whom we did not see any emails saying he participated in the Sarah Palin thread, but the theme seems to be there.

McCain aside--is Sarah Palin ready to assume the presidency? The media is surely anxious to hit this softball out of the park. McCain ran a year-long campaign based on the virtue of experience, and then chose a vice-president who, the last time there was a presidential election, held Mayor of Wasilla as her largest electoral accomplishment.

The Guardian, (We already know that one writer for the Guardian, Daniel Davies is a known member of Journolist from excerpts in the leaked Fox News thread emails), writes "The Democrats will also raise questions about whether Palin passes the "commander-in-chief test" — that is, would she be able to assume the presidency should McCain, 72, become incapacitated."

Search engines are such a wonderful tool. Admittedly, with the announcement of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate, it was guaranteed that there would be a tremendous amount of ink dedicated to the pick and there is no doubt in my mind that some of the "themes" used were coincidental in nature.

But all of them? All hours after members of Journolist discussed the best line of attacks?

From the Daily Caller piece:

In the hours after Sen. John McCain announced his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate in the last presidential race, members of an online forum called Journolist struggled to make sense of the pick. Many of them were liberal reporters, and in some cases their comments reflected a journalist’s instinct to figure out the meaning of a story.

But in many other exchanges, the Journolisters clearly had another, more partisan goal in mind: to formulate the most effective talking points in order to defeat Palin and McCain and help elect Barack Obama president. The tone was more campaign headquarters than newsroom.

I am definitely not a conspiracy theorist but I also do not believe in this much coincidence and after the previous leaked excerpts showing Journolist members working in conjunction and using well known publications to further their own political agenda, such as the Racism meme again Republicans when Jeremiah Wright became an issue, threads discussing fear, anger and the desire to see Fox News gone and the continuing ripples from each day's Daily Caller releases, one has to at least be suspicious of how well coordinated these lines of attacks are with the timing of the emails sent along the Journolist list-serv.

What a better way to end this post than with Sarah Palin giving the "sick puppies" a piece of her mind.

From a remote location on an island off Alaska’s coast, former Governor Sarah Palin is blasting what she describes as the “sick puppies” in the media who immediately and ruthlessly attacked her when Sen. John McCain picked her as his running mate during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Read what else Palin has to say at... where else.... The Daily Caller.

[Update] Quick note here. The problem we all face right now is the Daily Caller obviously has a treasure trove of emails but no one has published a list of members, a full list.

Until someone does, everything written by any member of the press is going to have people asking... was the writer a member of Journolist and can we trust what they are writing?

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