The left really thought they had something to sink Sarah Palin for good! Wow! Look! We have youtube videos and members of a “fringe” state’s rights group that wants to secede that state Sarah was a member! Look! There she is actually talking with them at a meeting! Despite their candidate remained a member of a racist "God damn America" church for twenty years and only quit after enormous political pressure; and despite their candidate for president remains good friends with an unrepentant, America hating domestic terrorist that bombed the Pentagon and is still proud of it, they were eager to put the label of America hater around Sarah’s neck! There was only one little snag. Their accusations were unfounded, without evidence, and ultimately untrue! She has been a Republican since 1982!

While the press scrambles to report on the process by which Governor Palin was offered the second spot on the Republican ticket, New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller has opted instead to make up her own version of events. As the AP reports, “Sarah Palin voluntarily told John McCain’s campaign about her pregnant teenage daughter and her husband’s 2-decade-old DUI arrest during questioning as part of the Republican’s vice presidential search, the lawyer who conducted the background review said.” Yet according to Bumiller, yesterday’s disclosures “called into question” how thoroughly Governor Palin had been vetted. Why the discrepancy? It seems one reporter actually reported the story, while Bumiller made up her own. …
And Bumiller writes that Governor Palin “was a member for two years in the 1990s of the Alaska Independence Party.” Not true, and unsourced. Governor Palin has been a registered Republican since 1982.

The source given by commenters here was ABC’s Jake Tapper. Well, he’s got a follow-up they should read.

A day after ABC News requested a response from Palin as to whether she was ever a member of the AIP, McCain campain spox Brian Rogers told ABC News that Clark’s “allegations are false.”
“Governor Palin has been a registered Republican since 1982,” Rogers says, providing some voter registration documentation showing her to be a Republican. “As you know, if she changed her registration, there would have been some record of it. There isn’t.”
Rogers says the McCain campaign provided ABC News with all the voter registration information that exists. Rogers says that Palin didn’t attend the AIP convention in 1994, “but she visited them when they had their convention in Wasilla in 2000 as a courtesy since she was mayor.”
He would not comment as to why AIP officials are so convinced Palin was a member of their party. When asked if Palin ever identified herself as a member of the AIP, Rogers said, “No, she’s a lifelong Republican.”

Here is the bottom line: Sarah Palin never belonged to the AIP, and those that want to bark up that tree will be doing no more than howling at the moon. Your time would probably be better served looking for non-existing Sarah Palin nude pictures and chasing your tail.

Hot Air has the documentation of her voter registration for any doubters.  Will the media report or ignore the debunking of this smear?

—John Stephenson is editor of Stop The ACLU.