The date on this tombstone should state September 22, 2011. That fateful Thursday morning is the time we shall all look back upon as the last gasp of hope that the insidious Babygate scam fell into its final depth of oblivion. Let us travel back into our recent memories to see how this tragedy unfolded.
The small resistance to the powerful forces of the Republican Party and the mainstream media can be divided into two entities, bloggers and authors. For simplicity's sake, let's put You Betcha! and the upcoming Game Change movie into the book department. The U.S. release of the Broomfield film opens this Friday, but Game Change will not premiere on HBO until some yet unspecified date later this year or in early 2012. In either case, neither film is likely to concern the real monster issue hiding in the closet, Babygate. This leaves the books. As anyone who has been reading the blogs with an open mind can see that most of them have seen to it that my own book, Paradigm Shift, has been summarily denigrated and marginalized. Since it is the only book in which all the blogs, all the Babygate theories, and all the more nefarious activities of the media have been discussed, a thinking person would ask herself exactly why this book has not been promoted all over the anti-Palin faction of the Internet? The next book released, in chronological order, was Geoffrey Dunn's The Lies of Sarah Palin. Although Dunn's book is very academically and professionally written, Dunn clearly took the chicken way out in his compilation of material that included everything but Babygate. There is practically nothing in Dunn's book that has not been covered in the mainstream media. Yes, he may have fleshed out a few issues, but the fact remains. The controversial Blind Allegiance brought us a little closer to the Babygate truth, particularly when you consider the previously unreleased photos of Ruffles included in the book. We have just last week experienced the long-awaited release of Levi's Deer in the Headlights and McG's The Rogue. Considering all of Levi's past interviews and the fact that the Palin-controlled Alaska penal system still has his mom under house arrest, we should never even have hoped that Levi Johnston would unravel the truth of Babygate in his book.
This leaves us with Joe McGinniss and his ultra-controversial tale of the real Sarah Palin. Let me say first of all that I have not read the book because my copy is still in the mail. The day it arrives, it shall receive the same treatment that Dunn's book did, an immediate, complete and delicious devouring of its contents. I want to make it clear right here that I think every person who is interested in the subject at hand should read all of these named books, with the exception of Levi's, which deserves only an optional reading category. The others should leave you breathless and informed to the max! Although each author is speaking to you about the same subject, the viewpoint and concept of each book is totally different. As a totally unknown, yet somewhat experienced, author, I wanted to present all the controversial hoopla in Paradigm Shift. My book presents the big picture from a socioeconomic and historical perspective. Whatever is theory or speculation is presented as such. Joe McGinniss is the only known potential Babygate author who has been writing longer than I have or published more books. His perspective is more professional, journalistic, and commercial. He is an investigative journalist; I am an entertainer. Like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, he smears investigative journalism on tabloid entertainment and I coat my serious, personal message to all Americans with hyperbole and nostalgia.
My disappointment with Blind Allegiance concerns its amateurish use of language and editing, its repetitive proselytizing to an Evangelical audience, and a story that begins with a fascinating look inside a localized campaign, but ends in a slow ride to redemption. My disappointment with The Lies of Sarah Palin is that I was already familiar with practically every one of them, not because I spend most days completely at my computer, but just from watching cable news during prime time. The author could have at least dug up one new source or one new anecdote about Sarah Palin that had not already been covered on television or the blogs.
I have no such apprehension about the material contained in The Rogue. It has already been made clear from leaking news stories and interviews with McGinniss that more than a few new sources or anecdotes are included in the book. This brings us to the legendary, agnostic Chapter 19 of the book. No, I do not expect Joe to split open the blog theories like a moose hanging in a slaughterhouse, as I did in The Palin Matrix, but I do know that The Rogue takes the delicate plunge into Babaygate that should have been taken by Dunn, Bailey, and Levi. This fact alone should bring a badge of honor to Joe McGinniss for a duty to his country clearly shirked by the other three authors.
The Rogue was released 9/20/11, a few days after The National Enquirer published a few juicy elements of gossipy details covered in the book. The mainstream media outlets had already had months to prepare their attack on the book the moment it was released. The Enquirer simply provided the first clip of ammo. The mainstream media has been the Number One most insidious, treasonous benefactor and enabler of The Palin Phenomenon since early 2008. This is the same time at which the Babygate hoax was hatched. As noted in Paradigm Shift, the AKM Mudflats blog was launched exactly one week after The Traveling Baby story, as detailed in the book, occurred on 5/3/08, the same day the infamous secret photo of Ruffles was taken in the Palin kitchen. What was the first blog most of you discovered after you cringed from the insidious RNC speech in September 2008? What incredibly successful news site likely led you to that same blog in the first place? Is the whiff of opportunism not obvious to your nose? I have been beating this dead elephant for three years now! Imagine a football game in which every time a certain team gets near the goal line, a fumble, an interception, or some other grievous mistake gives the ball to an opposing team member who runs as fast as he can toward the opposite goal post. You cannot blame the opposing team for trying their best to win. The ball was not illegally taken from the first team. The first team fumbled.
Fumbling has been my soapbox for a long time now. You can compare me to Jim Garrison or Ralph Nader. Either one is probably appropriate. Just because I think President Obama should never have appointed Tim Geithner, does not mean that I am against Obama. The same applies to the other bloggers. I call the plays as I see them, and I have been witness to fumble after fumble after fumble. The fumble that happened last Thursday morning was the last bendy straw for me. Joy Behar began an interview with Joe McGinniss at 9:32 p.m. Wednesday night that I have been waiting three long years to see. Joy asked Joe about the Babygate issue and he explained his knowledge of and position on the controversial topic. Of course that is not to say that Behar did not act like the usual CNN/HLN celebrity jackass when Joe diligently did his best to answer the question. As I spelled out in a humorous manner in my story entitled The Blockade long before any of us ever heard of Dr. Brad Scharlott's Spiral of Silence, Behar did her best to appease her corporate masters using her best argumentative approach. The point is that Babygate was finally, openly discussed on a cable news channel! Of course a few million TV viewers, several times the audience size of The Joy Behar Show, saw her and the rest of the hen house cackling over Joe McGinniss earlier that same day on The View, setting the stage quite appropriately for the Behar interview about eleven hours later.
Here we had Babygate not only being at least mentioned on network television before a very large daytime audience, but we had the subject covered in more detail, albeit to a smaller audience, that same day! We have the ball on the five yard line and we are finally ready to score! First the officials have a flag on the field. The last play was not properly videotaped for later play to an online audience. Of course I am sure it was taped, but that tape somehow disappeared with The Moon is Blue on one of the more original M*A*S*H episodes. Hawkeye and BJ were anxiously waiting to hear the controversial word virgin spoken in a movie and we have been anxious to hear a certain mysterious pregnancy discussed on television. If you were in the right place at the right time, you have seen the long awaited, and now hidden, video clip. For those who have missed it, here is the link to the official CNN transcript. I am presenting the key section of this transcript below, but you had to see the complete thing, facial expressions, and celebrity interviewer butt-ins and all, to get the full effect.
BEHAR: Now, the one big allegation in the book that I think is a problem is that the rumor that Trig was not her baby, this Down syndrome child, that you and Andrew Sullivan are putting this out there, right?
MCGINNISS: No. No. No. All Andrew`s been doing for two years is asking why the mainstream media has not looked at the story she has told about the events leading up to her birth, the hours before Trig`s birth ...
BEHAR: What`s the implication?
MCGINNISS: Because the story -- because if that story, which really defies belief, if you look at it step by step by step, if that story isn`t true, why would she make it up? Why would she be telling it and why would she be claiming that this was happening?
BEHAR: Why would she? Why would she?
MCGINNISS: I have no idea.
BEHAR: OK, let me tell you what her son-in-law said.
MCGINNISS: Good.
BEHAR: He was just here and I asked him that question. And he said, she was in the hospital, he was in the hospital, he went to visit her when she gave birth to Trig. She was on IV and the baby was there in the hospital. He was there ...
MCGINNISS: He got there -- he didn`t witness the birth.
BEHAR: Oh, no. How many people witness a birth?
MCGINNISS: I witnessed the birth of all five of my children.
BEHAR: Yeah, but that`s your children. He was not the father of the child. He was just a guy who slept with her daughter.
MCGINNISS: The point is she was in Dallas, Texas. Her water breaks. She waits nine hours, she doesn`t go to a hospital in Dallas, Texas. She`s a high risk mother ...
BEHAR: Yeah.
MCGINNISS: having a high risk pregnancy, having a special needs child, she`s thousands of miles away from home, she doesn`t do anything once her water breaks and she goes -- starts having contractions, what does she do? She`s having contractions, she makes a speech.
BEHAR: But how do you know she`s having contractions?
MCGINNISS: She makes up political speech.
BEHAR: How do you know?
MCGINNISS: She said so.
BEHAR: So, then you`re saying that she then got on a plane, went to Seattle and gave another speech or something, or -- right?
MCGINNISS: She waited -- she flew for hours, she stopped, she changed planes, she waited for hours, she flew more hours, all the while getting closer and closer to birth bypassing major medical facilities with neonatal intensive care units to get to a tiny little backwoods hospital in Wasilla ...
BEHAR: Yes.
MCGINNISS: ... where all of a sudden the next day here is this baby, and here is Sarah and this is her story.
BEHAR: This is kind of a bombshell allegation or theory or rumor whatever you want to call it.
MCGINNISS: It is not -- Listen, I don`t want to call it an allegation, I don`t make an allegation.
BEHAR: Yeah.
MCGINNISS: I say that the mainstream media has been very derelict in its duty to inquire into this, because this is a woman whose political candidacy was based on her proving that she`s a right to lifer. And how does she prove it? She proved it by giving birth to a Down syndrome baby yet there are a whole series of unanswered questions surrounding the circumstances of that birth.
BEHAR: Well, that -- why don`t you investigate this?
MCGINNISS: And I`m only one person ...
BEHAR: You`re an investigative reporter, go investigate more.
MCGINNISS: I`ve been up there -- You know what, I have to write a book. I wrote the book. Now, the media can pick up from where my book takes them. I take you right to a point where I say, I don`t know what happened. Here`s what I do know. Here are the facts, now, let somebody else investigate.
Not only was this video clip never made available online, but several other key issues in this story transpired first thing Thursday morning after McG's interview with Behar. Most of Thursday morning's activity revolved around a logical, legitimate e-mail message sent by Joe McGinniss to Jesse Griffin on January 27, 2011. Of course I cannot prove this, and it is totally my own best guess, but I bet that this same message was sent to Jeanne Devon and/or Ken Morris. Why is that, you ask? Joe was clearly working at that time with Devon, if not Morris directly, on the research for The Rogue. Devon and Morris would not discover that McGinniss allegedly leaked the pre-release manuscript of Blind Allegiance until several weeks later. Stated clearly, there is every logical reason to think that Joe sent the message to Gryphen and either sent the message directly to Devon and/or Morris at the same time or forwarded the same message later or Gryphen forwarded the message to Devon. I doubt that Morris was involved in this e-mail exchange, since he was and has been throughout this whole fiasco, outside Alaska. Below is Gryphen's statement about this message, as posted on his own blog.
"No I was NOT hacked. In fact nobody was hacked.
I cannot go into details, but the e-mail leak did not happen on my end. If it had, I would tell you.
It also should be noted that the e-mail that Joe and I communicated on is NOT my... account.
E-mails I receive are private, and remain private.
Period!"
(I have deleted the e-mail address included in the note.) This note was meant for the popular Anon 238 Me Again commenter at The Immoral Minority. To my eyes, these words look a mite testy and defensive. My contention is that the particular e-mail message in question was never hacked or leaked to Andrew Breitbart by Jesse Griffin in any manner whatsoever, but the message was sent, by someone other than Gryphen, to Arianna Huffington, one of her minions at The Huffington Post, or some other unscrupulous contact who then sent it to Breitbart. My contention is that Gryphen knew within moments, or at most, hours, of the Breitbart story's release exactly who originated the leak. I am also contending that he was too busy pulling his hair out over how he was going to handle this knowledge and his situation within it that he was distracted at a crucial moment in the potential distribution of the legendary Babygate news story. He fumbled the ball at the critical moment, and by the time he noticed Babygate disappearing into the stinky MSM ether, it was too late. As I stated earlier, I am not trying to assess blame. My position is that of the behind the scenes observer of The Big Picture. Just as with the Babygate story itself, if the circumstantial evidence of this sloppy ball handling was not so obvious, I would never risk making every Babygator and flying piglet come after me to shoot the messenger!
What do you all think? I would hope by now that the readers of this blog or Paradigm Shift, or even some of my comments on other blogs have realized that I am on your side of the goal post. I want to save the sanity of my country. I want someone to successfully score the desperately needed touchdown. I am on everyone's side and no one's, also too. The big story IS the media and we must put the big story IN the media. Joe McGinniss has already done his part at a higher level than anyone else. It is up to his teammates to help him take the ball between the goal posts. We are not facing just another upcoming election. This one could be the paradigm shift.
13 comments:
I think someone with a DVR has that Behar interview on record and needs to upload it to youtube and then the blogs should post it and make if go viral. I'm hoping MeAgain blows this wide open. It's a team effort. I suspect insurance fraud, Ruffles is dead and Trig is never going to be seen from again, thanks to Cindy McCain's money and John McCain's connections plus Joe Leiberman and Rupert Murdoch/Ailes. Get it out there, bloggers! Make it go viral should be at the end of every post. Bypass that corporate- owned, complicit media.
nswfm
It was my understanding when Babygate broke that there was dissension amongst bloggers about who was going to take top credit for exposing it. As human as that is, I agree time was wasted and the ball fumbled.
As with Paradigm Shift (a good read, by the way, and highly recommended), and Chapter 19 of The Rogue, I agree that the big story IS complacency in the media. It is no surprise that they refuse to give it coverage.
Thank you for your support! I have been amazed how few people have caught on to the events of the past few days. It is quite sad for the future of our nation, I am afraid. I sincerely hope I am wrong about the death of the Babygate issue, but as I have said, the fumbling, and the fumbling, and the fumbling....
Bravo, Floyd. Great summary of what happened!
As you know, I missed it in real time -- the importance of the disappeared video. I saw only the v short, spliced version that puts McG in a bad light. When I finally saw the transcript you have linked to above, I realized I had been one of the lucky ones to (by pure lucky accident) see the video whole, and YES I could now no longer find it on the web.
Then we learned that NPR was not going to invite McG for an interview. Nor Olbermann. And tonight Rachel interviewed Wallace and Schmitt but will not touch the BabyHoax. Nor will Shannyn Moore nor Jeanne Devon.
Why? Do you have a theory on why not, Floyd? I see why not for the MSM, McCain et al, and the enablers (Murdoch, Kochs, Ailes). But why don't Maddow, Moore, and Devon tell us?
It has long been my opinion that the Alaskan bloggers have been considerably of a more opportunistic nature than we might have prudently predicted, and they have been employing such tactics since early 2008. Although they obviously had a closeup view of Palin's political history, they lacked a deeper view of our nation's history in the fields of sociology, demographics, and economics, as well as politics. I wrote PARADIGM SHIFT with the intent of telling the whole story, beginning with our nation's earliest history and culminating in the most recent changes (for the worse) that Sarah Palin has brought to our political consciousness. I think the people who had the earliest opportunity to see her political rise to fame thought that she would be controlled by the more intelligent of our political power brokers without publicly challenging her on her most absurd of all gambits, Babygate.
I then think that Devon and Moore specifically, but metaphorically, sold out to Arianna Huffington, or her henchman or a similar media broker, sent to block the Babygate story before the general public saw what was happening. I refer to this as a metaphorical sellout because I doubt that cash changed hands under a table, but propositions and promises were made to further careers. Those who have been paying attention have certainly noticed that those careers have not only been advanced, the recent sale of The Huffington Post removed the hazy patina of liberalism that many thought the massive power-blog displayed.
As for Maddow and Olbermann, since when have they ever worked to uncover any of the many Palingates, from Dairygate to Babygate? Many thought I was nuts when I first began ranting about the media's blockade of Babygate back in 2009. Many more Americans seem to be waking up to the truth now. I pray that it's not too late.
There must be someone who Tivo's Joy's show and would have the whole show, yes?
ok...lets all agree palins birth story is a hoax.
because it is.
and lets agree that the media has purposely avoided discussing it.
then you need to offer a reasonable theory as to why that is so.
we know no one in the media (maddow etc.) retains their job unless they toe the corporate agenda, but we need more than that here.
some like behar may, i say may believe the hoax idea so out there that they dismiss it as impossible to be true.
but like to you and even me, the hoax is so obvious that Everyone from roger ailes to joe m. to huffington MUST already know it is a hoax.
i do not imagine for a second that i can see things others of reasonable intelligence cant.
so we come back to the simple question of why wont they expose palin for this lie?
here goes... first, palins message (it has begun to change a bit) is a right wing message.
no right wingers ever get "exposed" by the right wing media in this country.
witness the rise of bachmann and the push towards perry.
but, heres where i take a leap....palin had help in this fraud.
were laws broken? people threatened?
how do you quiet doctors? lawyers?
who had the power to do that?
who set up the fake pictures?
who keeps the personal from the hospital from talking?
ok..my point?
yes palin is being protected but only because other more powerful people are being protected.
who? i have no idea who is behind palin.
but maybe others do and thats where i would look for answers
I am sure there is, somewhere out there, but the clip is definitely NA from Youtube or anywhere else on the net. I continue the search, practically every day. I think HLN simply does not want anyone to see it, so the network filed it away in the vault immediately after its first and only showing.
I have always felt that the CNP is the first place to look. Many have suggested that Murdoch is behind it all, but I don't think he jumped on the bandwagon until sometime after the dirty deed had already been done. I also think that CNN is as guilty as Fox, and it goes all the way back to the sneaky manner in which Ted Turner was forced out of control of the network. Turner is a real family values kind of guy who never would have allowed the sleaziness of Palin to take over the news on his networks. The CEOs of AOL and Time Warner conspired to force him out a decade ago. CNN and HLN have been chasing the Fox ever since.
Great post, Floyd!
I think Jeanne or Shannyn "leaked" Jesse's email from Joe -- lots of bad blood between the girls and the boys, which has always been so sad when viewed from the outside. How could two Alaskan women continue to fail to report on the biggest stories to come out of their state in decades? They've dropped the ball on so much, and not just Babygate. I know Devon tried in her own way to do something powerful with her collaboration with Bailey, but who on earth in their right mind would collaborate with a Palin insider like that on anything and expect the person to give them the whole story? (Or all the real emails?) That level of naivete is kind of astonishing.
And Jeanne's still smarting about Joe allegedly leaking her manuscript. Problem is, agents and publishing insiders ARE known to include attached manuscripts to others in the industry as "buzz" builds about a proposed project. An author has to expect this and this is why authors should only ever submit sample chapters, a publicity pack, and a proposal when they are still at the stage of trying to land an agent or land a book deal directly with an editor. They went about things in an incredibly clumsy way and seem hell bent on harming Joe (and Jesse in the case of this leaked email.) That's insane.
Anyway, thanks for all the work you have done, Floyd! Keep it up.
Excellent article Floyd - thanks! I also enjoyed your "Paradigm Shift" and was very hopeful that babygate would finally be exposed through the national attention to be paid to McG. However, it appears that there is a national embargo on his book for many whom we had anticipated being eager to bring the story forward, ie: Maddow, Olbermann, etc. Much to our disgust, they have been silenced on this story.
I believe that our traditional sources of information have been bought and paid for by those who wish to shut down America and that few people are even aware of this action. How sad for this great country!
Olbermann was fired for talking about the DWTS baby that Bristol had - he joked about her practicing abstinence THIS TIME...while showing her obviously pregnant AGAIN.
He was fired within 10 days of talking about her multiple pregnancies and the cover-up the MSM did for all the Palins.
He's not about to gamble again and lose his new show.
I agree that there was a "fumble." I do not expect the MSM to be the one to carry the ball.
The blogosphere is taking the lead in this game-- as it has for the last three years. The new books are helping, including yours Floyd. Given the momentum of the last few weeks, I think the reports of the death of babygate are (in Mark Twain fashion) much exaggerated!
Post a Comment