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Has Mike Barnicle called Sarah Palin stupid?  Seems that way.  In a Huffington Post column that Mika Brzezinski read on today's Morning Joe, Barnicle, referring to Palin, wrote of the:

preposterous pronouncements of a woman whose candidacy is an insult to intelligence.

Let's deconstruct.  The normal formulation is an "insult to our intelligence," used to describe an assertion that is obviously unbelievable. For example, you might say Barack Obama insulted our intelligence when he claimed against all evidence during this week's debate that his only tie to ACORN is his past representation of the group in a lawsuit.  But when Barnicle writes that Sarah Palin's candidacy is an insult not to "our" intelligence, but to intelligence itself, it's hard to read that other than as suggesting Palin is something other than smart. Throw in his reference to "preposterous pronouncements" and there's little doubt that the person Barnicle intended to insult is Palin herself. Mika seemed to acknowledge that Barnicle meant to slur Sarah, observing, after reading that last line, "that's rough stuff."

Perhaps it's a bit much too expect from a blog that once dismissively her as a "Crazed, Christ-Loving Re-Virgin," but Gawker sure did take long enough to correct its reporting that attributed fake SAT scores in an anti-Sarah Palin photoshop to be those of blogger and Catholic author Dawn Eden. Last Friday the electronic gossip rag posted the photoshop and asked readers to judge for themselves if it was a fake or not.

[See Warner Todd Huston's related blog post on that here.]

In an early morning October 14 post at her Dawn Patrol blog, Eden noted that while Gawker corrected the record in the body of its October 13 blog, a misleading headline remained that insisted that "Sarah Palin's SAT Scores Actually Belong to Born-Again Virgin Dawn Eden." In truth, Eden's scores had been altered (view her actual SAT scores, available online here).

Writing at 12:30 a.m. today, Eden noted that the Gawker contributors that had the authority to change the headline had not yet done so:

Did you hear that Governor Palin is stupid? Well, if you watch TV, listen to the radio, or read any news outlet you can't help but find the lefties there claiming in unison that she is the dumbest woman to appear on the scene since Goldie Hawn made her chops as the blonde ditz on 1960's TV. And, heck it's gotta be true. Why, even her SAT scores prove it! Except that the "proof" of that is an Internet hoax that fooled Wonkette, the DailyKos and a blue million nutrooter sites. But, who cares? As long as it makes Palin look bad, we're golden, baby! Truth-schmooth, right?

On October 10, blogger Dawn Eden found that a posted image of hers had been stolen, then altered, and then posted everywhere as "proof" that Sarah Palin is stupid. Apparently, the biggest stir was created by the tabloid site Gawker.com on its "Assignment Desk" section.

For the last few days various groups like MoveOn.org, and the folks at Huffington Post, DailyKos and DemocraticUnderground have been beating the drum of a new theme to attempt to undermine the McCain campaign among the media. The newest claim from the extreme left is that McCain's focus on the Obama/Ayers connection is responsible for fostering "threats" and "violence" to be ginned up among Republicans at McCain rallies. The left is pushing the idea that McCain is inciting riots and "hate" among GOP voters and they are pushing this theme in an email campaign to the main Old Media outlets.

On October 9, for instance, I got no less than 25 emails "alerting" me to a particular Huffington Post jeremiad that is amusing in its replication of the same behavior it pretends to condemn. In this childish bloviation the HuffPo writer uses as much name calling, guilt by association, and bald faced lies as he claims to be refuting from McCain. But, the germ of the argument is that McCain is inciting violence.

This is getting extraordinarily old, and I vow that this will be the last time I respond to the hacks at the Huffington Post, at least on this issue, but I must again back-hand the disingenuous and highly tenuous Seth Colter Walls.

The estimable Matthew Vadum at the Capital Research Center has again provided answers to the new questions Walls posed by Walls. These are just as devastating to the HuffPo's lame defense of Illinois Senator Barack Obama as Vadum's last round of responses was to their first round of queries, in fact even more so.

As to Walls addressing us. While usually pretending to be a journalist or a Sen. Obama campaign PR flak, he on Sunday took time out to play-act as a non-profit attorney. He proved himself to be just as untalented and unqualified in this capacity.

Liberal Chicago Tribune columnist and blogger Eric Zorn argued today that while Bill Ayers violent past must be condemned, it is improper to label him as a domestic terrorist (emphases mine):

My view is that one can unequivocally condemn the campaign of destruction and bomb-setting waged by the Weather Underground and still ask whether "terrorism" is or was the right word to describe that form of violent guerrilla protest.

To me, a terrorist is one who attempts to create malleable fear in a population through random acts of mayhem; someone who uses his own amoral unpredictability to magnify the power he is attempting to exert in an effort to create change.

With Virginia as a battleground state in the 2008 election and given Democrat Barack Obama's damaging gaffe earlier this year about rural voters clinging "to guns or religion", a new gaffe by another Democrat should be worthy of media attention. It remains to be seen if the mainstream media will even notice. (h/t Reformed Chicks Blabbing)

Running to fill the seat being vacated by retiring Republican John Warner, former Gov. Mark Warner (no relation) has a healthy lead in recent polls and the admiration of a pliant media. Yet an audio recording of Warner at a Democratic Party gathering caught the candidate disparaging gun owners, home schoolers, and religious conservatives as "threatening to what it means to be an American."

Republican opponent and former Gov. Jim Gilmore has a campaign ad (embedded below the fold) that features the audio:

Just when you think mainstream media people can't stoop much lower in their final stages of Palin Derangement Syndrome, they plunge to new depths.  Suzy Shuster works as a sideline reporter for ABC Sports.  She also blogs at the Huffington Post.  Her most recent contribution is,"Say It Ain't So: Trig Palin's Post-Debate Photo Op."  She describes what irritated her most at last night's vice presidential debate:

It actually came after the debate, when for seemingly the millionth time, Sarah Palin trotted out her piece de resistance, her favorite prop of this campaign season: her five and a half month old son Trig.

Why is this child up so late every time there is a camera op? Why isn't this baby sleeping in a crib or bassinet somewhere with a sleep sheep or some other sound apparatus lulling him into night-night? Is it just me or does it seem like she carts this poor child around like a living breathing example of how wonderful a mom she is? After all, she's more than adopted the "I'm just a mom, just like you moms out there, America" attitude.

Picking up on an AP story, the Chicago Sun-Times posted the now-infamous video of a group of kids singing about Sen. Barack Obama (paragraph breaks removed):

A video featuring children singing a song in tribute to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is a hit on YouTube, garnering 596,000-plus views in just one version. Obama's critics have ripped the song, comparing it to a video of North Korean children singing to their dictator. Supporters defend it as just cute children singing. Judge for yourself.

Nowhere in the brief Web site posting did the Sun-Times or the AP note that professional Hollywood expertise went into the production of the video. As blogger Bob Owens noted at Confederate Yankee:

In a September 29 blog post aimed at "Placing Blame" for failure of the bailout package in the House of Representatives today, Time's Joe Klein began by tossing, "I don't blame John McCain for not rounding up enough Republican votes to get this bailout bill through the House of Representatives."

Klein added a few other reasons he doesn't blame the Arizona senator:

...he's never held a leadership position and therefore doesn't know how to whip votes and finally--well, uh--there is one tried and true method for getting members of Congress to vote aye and McCain opposes it: a sweetener, like say, funding for a bridge in their districts. That is one reason why we have earmarks. McCain is opposed to giving away baubles for the greater good.

Yet he left out one key fact. It was Democratic, not Republican votes that doomed the bailout agreement.

Reporting on a decision by LifeWay Christian Stores to not promote a magazine whose cover story lauded female pastors, Chicago Tribune religion reporter Manya Brachear stacked the deck against the Christian bookseller, failing to speak to a staffer there for an explanation of a policy decision on a magazine the stores carry on their shelves. Yet if she had done her homework, Brachear may have found ample reason that the book store may have had to suspect the editorial judgment and theological conviction of the magazine in question.

In her September 25 post, "Gospel magazine too risque for rack," Brachear found room to quote the publisher of Gospel Today magazine and a female pastor featured in its September/October 2008 issue. Brachear snarked that the decision by Lifeway to put the magazine behind the counter was much like what convenience stores do to racy magazines:

Rev. Kimberly Ray never thought she'd be on the cover of a magazine considered too risque for the racks. But this month, Ray , the head of Angie Ray Ministries and Church on the Rock in Matteson, joined four other female pastors on the cover of Gospel Today magazine.

Because the article broke Southern Baptist rules about women in the pulpit, Lifeway Christian Bookstores, a chain run by the Southern Baptist Convention, pulled its glossy pages from the shelves and tucked it behind the counter where 7-Elevens normally stash Playboy and Penthouse.

With less than 40 days until the election and the U.S. going to hell in a handbasket, America needs Howard Fineman now more than ever. That according to, well, Howard Fineman.

Here's how he opened his first entry in his new Newsweek blog, "Race to the Finish.":

Is it just me or does everything seem to be broken?

Our credit markets are scared of their own shadows. Our political system looks oxymoronic. Our balance sheet is drowning in red ink. We are dismissed, laughed at or reviled in much of the world. The Russian Navy is sailing into our hemisphere. No one trusts anyone else, especially in the media, to tell the truth.

It's the perfect moment for me to start a presidential campaign blog!

Yes, folks, no burden is too heavy to bear for the busy Newsweek staffer and MSNBC contributor:

The leftwing blogosphere has a new villain in addition to John McCain and Sarah Palin: Bill Clinton. They have been suspecting that Clinton has not been giving all out support to Barack Obama including his announcement to Larry King that he wouldn't begin campaigning for Obama until after October 9 out of respect for the Jewish High Holy Days. However, the straw that really broke the leftwing camel's back was Clinton's statement today to Chris Cuomo on ABC's Good Morning America defending John McCain's request for a debate delay until after the financial bailout crises is resolved. Here are a couple of things that Bill Clinton said that drove the left absolutely bonkers:

We know he didn't do it because he's afraid because Sen. McCain wanted more debates.

"I don't believe that the Times is pulling for Barack Obama." Jack Shafer, Slate, 9-23-08

There's actually much to agree with in Jack Shafer's column today regarding McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt's criticism of the New York Times.  Consider this observation by Shafer, for example:

The press corps does adore Barack Obama. They like his story. They like writing about him. They like the way he gives speeches. They like the way he makes them feel. And they don't mind cutting him slack whenever he acts like a regular politician—which he is.

But Shafer, Slate's resident media critic, also expresses the to-me mind-boggling belief cited at the top of this item, that the Times isn't pulling for Obama. So stunned was I by Shafer's claim that I wrote him, seeking clarification.  He was nice enough to reply, and I'm setting forth our exchange here:

At least since September 8 the extreme left has been pushing a lie that Governor, then Mayor, Sarah Palin "charged rape victims for rape kits" performed upon them in the Alaskan town of Wasilla. The charge stems from a May 22, 2000 article in the local Wasilla paper The Frontiersman and has been spun from a comment made by the Wasilla Police Chief. This comment was somehow made into a Sarah Palin policy. Evidence of the incident, though, shows no involvement by Palin at all. Still, many Old Media outlets continue to keep illegitimately linking this rape kit billing claim to Sarah Palin, even though the truth is easily discovered.

As mentioned first up was The Frontiersman story from 2000. In that story Police Chief Fannon was quoted as standing against legislation that would force local municipalities to pick up the costs of rape kits being performed. In the interview Fannon said that, upon conviction, he favored the criminals being charged for the costs.

On PBS's Web site today, ombudsman Michael Getler writes of complaints over an incident during last Sunday's pledge drive.  He describes the cheap shot taken by actor Mike Farrell against vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin:

According to Joseph Campbell, vice president of fundraising programs, here's what happened:

As we've reported at NewsBusters, the MSM have scoffed at the McCain campaign charging Sen. Barack Obama with supporting sex ed for kindergarteners. Time's Joe Klein has gone so far as to call McCain a liar for the ad, although the legislation in question would have meant 5-year-olds would be taught about STDs at the same time they were learning their ABC's.

The way the media have complained about the McCain ad, you'd get the impression the media think no one has ever seriously entertained the notion of teaching kindergarteners about sex.

Yet yesterday, ABCNews.com's World View blog reported on a controversy in the United Kingdom over an illustrated sex ed book geared to 6-year-olds. An excerpt from London-based reporter Philip Victor (emphasis mine):

In stunningly self-centered, cruel fashion, Nicholas Provenzo, writer for the Center for the Advancement of Capitalism suggests that Sarah Palin’s decision to give birth to a child with Down Syndrome, is a financial burden that others are forced to suffer with.  

Provenzo, who has written opinion pieces for the Washington Times, Capitalism Magazine, and the Atlanta Journal Constitution, as well as being a guest on Bill Maher’s former show, Politically Incorrect, makes his case for “the morality of aborting a fetus diagnosed with Down syndrome.”

The full first paragraph of the piece which is circulating amidst the blogosphere reads (emphasis mine):

Ed Morrissey of Hot Air noted a revision to an existing Associated Press report carried in the Miami Herald yesterday. It concerned Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius's accusations that Republicans are engaging in racial "code word" campaigning.

The original version that Morrissey cached is here; the revision is here (for now; backup is at my web host here if it changes).

Among other adds, changes, and deletes, the revision deleted a racial reference in the original headline. It also removed a direct quote from Sebelius that "(Republicans) are not going to go lightly into the darkness."

Morrissey wasn't sure at the time he noted the revision whether the Herald or AP and writer Nigel Duara (with editorial help?) instigated the changes.

I can tell you that, as expected, it was AP, as the two Google News search pics taken during the noon hour Eastern Time show:

Sweetness & Light (S&L) has the goods (HT Michelle Malkin) on yet another instance of resume enhancement in a Barack Obama book.

It is also yet another example of something an inquisitive media has failed to discover in the 21 months since an Obama presidential run became likely.

It's too bad. It's clear, from an underlying 2005 post at Analyze This, and other information S&L gathered, that had anyone in the media undertaken an effort to speak to Obama's co-workers at Business International, the firm where he worked after earning his bachelor's degree from Columbia, they would have found that the reality of that job differed sharply from how Obama described it in his best-selling Dreams from My Father.

Here are just three of many examples from S&L, comparing how Obama characterized his job and the reality described at Analyze This:

It has already been established (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) that the Obama campaign's ad ridiculing John McCain's computer skills, including the claim that McCain "can't e-mail," has several reality-based problems:

• McCain has been an e-mail devotee since 2000, if not earlier, receiving help from a loving spouse to respond to messages, and was described by Forbes Magazine that year as "the U.S. Senate’s savviest technologist."
• The reason McCain gets help with e-mail is that his severe war injuries prevent him from doing many things many of us take for granted, including typing on a keyboard.
• Further, the current and previous Oval Office occupants have rarely used e-mail -- the former because he never learned how while in office, the latter because of legal considerations. Future occupants will likely be, and probably should be, similarly constrained.

So it's as clear as can be that Obama's ad is wrong and, intentionally or not, very mean to a man whose physical challenges are a result of beyond-the-call service to our country.

Beyond all that, Kevin Aylward at Wizbang has noted that McCain's 2000 presidential run was effusively praised as a groundbreaking high-tech campaign by a Democratic Internet pioneer in a 2005 book.

On Tuesday's "Special Report," Fox News's Brit Hume credited NewsBusters for exposing a fake eBay listing auctioning off Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's baby Trig.

As my colleague Warner Todd Huston wrote earlier that morning:

Apparently, a poster at the radical nutroot site, DemocraticUnderground, created a fake listing for someone pretending to sell baby Trig on ebay. The faux listing read "Baby used prop newborn boy 3-6 months special needs," and included a description that called Governor Palin a "pushy social climber, unwilling to let pregnancy and children stand in the way of ambition."

Later that evening, Hume reported (h/t American Thinker's Marc Sheppard):

 On CNN's American Morning today, White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux reported on Barack Obama's campaigning in Virginia.  Afterwards, anchor Kiran Chetry had a question:

CHETRY: All right. And Suzanne, what's on tap for the campaign today? And please tell me it's not lipstick again.

MALVEAUX: Let's hope not. He's going to be in Norfolk, Virginia. That is in southeast Virginia, and it's home to the world's largest Naval base. It's one of the most competitive areas that the Democrats and Republicans are fighting over. It's a critical piece of property, piece of land there with folks in Virginia, and they want those voters.

You gotta love Joe Klein if only for the entertainment value.

When last I blogged about Joe Klein, I scoffed at him not recognizing a single journalist that argued that Bristol Palin's teenage pregnancy was "anything other than a private matter."

Now Mr. Anonymous is huffing and puffing about how he can't forgive John McCain for his latest negative ad addressing a vote Obama cast for "age appropriate" sex education in Illinois public schools.

From Klein's September 10 Swampland blog post, "Apology Not Accepted":

Back in 2000, after John McCain lost his mostly honorable campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, he went about apologizing to journalists--including me--for his most obvious mis-step: his support for keeping the confederate flag on the state house.

On Sunday, NewsBusters informed readers about how lies published by liberal bloggers are actually driving some of the mainstream media attacks against Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

On Tuesday, Newsweek not only published a Factcheck.org debunking of many of the falsehoods being spread by the Palin-haters, but also featured a link to the piece on the front-page of its website.

What follows is Factcheck.org's summary (emphasis added):

**Image Below The Fold**

This one was all over the net yesterday. Apparently, a poster at the radical nutroot site, DemocraticUnderground, created a fake listing for someone pretending to sell baby Trig on ebay. The faux listing read "Baby used prop newborn boy 3-6 months special needs," and included a description that called Governor Palin a "pushy social climber, unwilling to let pregnancy and children stand in the way of ambition." It also listed baby's Trig's father as "unknown."

Originally appearing on the DemocraticUnderground at around 1PM on September 4, by DU poster Bob Weaver, the thread was soon locked by DU moderators and the image scrubbed from the site. But not before a screen shot was taken...

I sent the e-mail that follows to Sam Stein of the Huffington Post on Saturday evening, and followed up by resending it on Sunday morning.

I originally promised to call him out in public this morning if he did not respond, but other business matters intervened. I noted this morning that my call-out would occur this afternoon.

Stein has still not responded, so here we are.

________________________________________

Here is the original e-mail sent Saturday:

Mr. Stein,

The following assertions about the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman (the VF) that you made in your August 31 report are untrue, and should be corrected:

Just how much are liberal bloggers driving the mainstream media attacks on Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin?

According to a report in Saturday's Politico, postings by the Netroots Friday concerning a friend and former business partner of the Palins trying to have his divorce records sealed created a media feeding frenzy in Alaska.

This was to be the smoking gun tying this individual to a National Enquirer piece last week that alleged Palin had an extramarital affair some years ago, which according to Politico's Kenneth P. Vogel, sent mainstream press members scurrying like rats to a small courthouse thousands of miles from their nests (emphasis added, photo courtesy AP):

Update | 9-6 6:50 AM EDT: Booker Rising Blogger Stands By His Statement

I informed Shay Riley of Booker Rising of the statement by Ms. Russo of MSNBC, immediately below. Here is his response [emphasis added]:

I relayed what I overheard on the shuttle bus from the convention center in St. Paul back to Minneapolis, which was packed with RNC staffers because their host hotel was the Hyatt. I stand by what I overheard the convention organizer named Phil told the convention delegate sitting next to him. I guess the bar coding on the convention credentials will reveal the source of Code Pink's credentials. 

Update | 9-5 2:56 PM EDT: Responding to my inquiry, Alana Russo of MSNBC has stated it's "completely, totally untrue" that the credentials had originated from MSNBC. In a subsequent message Ms. Russo indicated she did not know whether the credentials used by the protesters had been scanned to determine their origin.

H/t Kimberly M.

Did the Code Pink members who interrupted John McCain's speech last night use MSNBC press badges to get into the hall?  Not according to Code Pink itself, which claims the two women "obtained passes to the convention from disaffected Republicans."

There is another, much more intriguing, explanation out there.  According to Shay at Booker Rising, which describes itself a newsite for black moderates and black conservatives [emphasis added]:

I took the shuttle bus back to Minneapolis, and I overheard a convention organizer named Phil telling a convention delegate that the protesters on Wednesday night got through because of media credentials that were traced back to MSNBC (he told her that each credential has an individual bar code for each convention invitee). They suspect MSNBC this time as well.

Conservative blogs led the way in raising questions about Barack Obama's home church, but for months on end the MSM ignored the story until incendiary video of Rev. Jeremiah Wright made the rounds earlier this year and the story was too juicy to ignore.

Not so when it comes to Sarah Palin and her former church, the Wasilla Assemblies of God, as media outlets try to find juicy "controversial" video to prove Palin was poorly vetted.

MSNBC's First Read blog picked up on a Huffington Post item in a September 2 post.: