What About The Rumors of President Obama’s Affair?

In May of 2010, the National Enquirer ran a story claiming President Obama had an affair with his former aide, Vera Baker. They wrote:

A confidential investigation has learned that Obama first became close to gorgeous 35 year-old Vera Baker in 2004 when she worked tirelessly to get him elected to the US Senate, raising millions in campaign contributions.

While Baker has insisted in the past that “nothing happened” between them, reports reveal that top anti-Obama operatives are offering more than $1 million to witnesses to reveal what they know about the alleged hush-hush affair.

Among those being offered money is a limo driver who says in 2004 that he took Vera to a secret hotel rendezvous in a Washington hotel where Obama was staying.

An ENQUIRER reporter has confirmed the limo driver’s account of the secret 2004 rendezvous and has also learned that on-site hotel surveillance video camera footage could provide indisputable evidence to the investigation.

The scandalous tale of the tryst between Barack Obama and Vera Baker has been reported on by numerous gossip columnists and bloggers. However, the mainstream media managed to forgo the temptation to print anything in relation to the matter. To judge whether they based that decision on their loyalty to the president or the merits of the source, one must analyze their behavior in similar instances, with people whom they have a more hostile relationship. So let's do that, shall we?

Take for instance the ridiculous story the National Enquirer is currently running about Todd Palin supposedly having some "affair" with an Anchorage massage therapist. Given what we know about the Palin family, and their transparency in how they conduct themselves, this story is ludicrous on it's face. Also, I don't mean to be rude or anything, but if Todd Palin wanted to cheat on Governor Palin, he most certainly could do better than this. In the words of the governor, "have you seen Todd?" Beyond that, the details of National Enquirer's spread are marked with big red flags that those of us who are familiar with the antics of the left-wing goons in Alaska, recognize.

For starters, the "source" the National Enquirer cites is "an anonymous blogger from Alaska." Because everyone knows how credible anonymous bloggers from Alaska are, right? Secondly, the massage therapist (aka, prostitute) listed in the article is named Shailey Tripp... I'm sorry, but that just smacks of Google abuse. It appears as though someone went looking to create trouble, without any accountability, they went digging for dirt by mixing taboo subject matters with various Palin names in the search field. They settled on this troubled lady from Anchorage (a city where police reports and arrest records are available online), added some flare to sell it to the trash tabloid, and BAM! Instant scandal.

Theoretically, the process is supposed to end before the "BAM" part, but in this case it didn't. So let's get back to our "mainstream" friends shall we? Why exactly did the New York ("blood on her hands") Daily News find it necessary to report such gutter gossip? Even worse, why did a Yahoo News political writer pick up the story? I did some extensive research to write this blog, and I can tell you that neither Yahoo News nor the NY Daily News ever published an article about Vera Baker. Not one!

My earlier stated question about what motivated the lamestream media to withhold writing about Obama's alleged affair with a staffer, is irrelevant. It's actually just an example of the media using discretion in their reporting. A better question is what motivated them lose that discretion and report on the current trash directed at the Palin family? If they had the ability to see that the source for the Baker story was too dubious to cite, what makes the prostitute story any different? There is a double standard at work here, but it has more to do with the individual political figures at the center of each story, than it does with any shady witnesses.

More Anonymous Sources Trashing Governor Palin

You may have read by now that the NY Daily News has published another hit-piece about Governor Palin using nothing but anonymous sources. The last time it was Politico 'reporting' negative comments by so-called GOP "insiders." This time however, the comments are allegedly coming from "friends" of George W. Bush and a "Republican official familiar with Bush's thinking." The piece says:

The 43rd President has told friends the ex-Alaska governor isn't qualified to be President and criticizes Arizona Sen. John McCain for putting Palin on the 2008 GOP ticket and handing her a national platform.

"Naming Palin makes Bush think less of McCain as a man," a Republican official familiar with Bush's thinking told the Daily News.

"He thinks McCain ran a lousy campaign with an unqualified running mate and destroyed any chance of winning by picking Palin."

I have no idea if George W. Bush said any of these things but I seriously doubt it. It doesn't mesh with what he has said in the past regarding Governor Palin. According to Jason Recher, who served as special assistant to Bush, the former president thinks highly of Governor Palin. CNN reported back in September:

During a stopover in Fairbanks on the way to the Beijing Olympics last August, Recher said Bush met with Palin and even made a knowing reference to her rising reputation in the Republican Party.

"The president was fully aware of who Sarah Palin was," Recher told CNN. "Even so much that when he greeted the governor and Todd in Fairbanks during a re-fueling stop on the way to the Beijing Olympics, he threw open his arms and said "Madam Vice President!'"

"He was very aware of her rising-star status and who she was and everything about her, even down to the fact that she recently had given birth to Trig," Recher said.

After Palin became the vice presidential nominee, Recher said the White House loaned out both he and Laura Bush's photographer Shealah Craighead to the McCain campaign to help staff Palin and her family.

Recher said Bush and Palin had a warm relationship and talked multiple times throughout the campaign, including after a large campaign rally near Orlando in September and after the Vice Presidential debate in October.

"There is no air, no space between them," Recher said. "Sarah Palin is a big fan of George Bush, and she has said publicly she was proud he was Commander-in-Chief when her son Track was in Iraq."

It should also be noted that Jeb Bush recently said he would support Governor Palin if she were nominated as the 2012 Republican candidate.

The author of the NY Daily News hit-piece is a "well connected" man by the name of Thomas M. Defrank. According to his bio, he "was Newsweek's senior White House correspondent for a quarter century and also served as deputy chief of the magazine's Washington bureau for twelve years." Mr. Defrank should know by now the difference between ethical journalism and writing a hit-piece designed to smear reputations. It's clear he has no problem publishing the latter.

Someone either fed Mr. Defrank these lines and he willingly printed them, or he invented the sources in his own mind. Due to a lack of evidence, the reader has no way of telling which it is. By hiding his sources (mind you, this is not national security we're talking about) he has used his position to turn the NY Daily News into nothing more than a tabloid rag. A Veteran Washington reporter reduced to a gossip columnist.

Assuming these were actual sources Mr. Defrank used to write his piece, this was not the only "insider" attack against the governor since last weeks election. There have also been a few hit-pieces and words spoken by some within the establishment who are trying to pin blame of Governor Palin for the few loses the GOP did suffer. Who knows what else they wish to accomplish by writing and saying these things.

Rush Limbaugh warned us it was coming. He weighed again on the subject last Thursday. Newsmax Reports:

“What's going on here, folks, is very simple,” Limbaugh said. “They want to establish a lie very firmly in the minds of the public that the tea party hurt the Republican Party in these elections. They want to use this to stop Sarah Palin. Republican insiders are trying to figure out now how to stop Sarah Palin.”

[...]

Limbaugh said the ill-advised plan to blame Palin and the tea party for splintering the GOP after a record pickup of seats by Republicans in the midterms turns reality on its head.

“If anybody is an obvious winner here . . . it would be Palin. Look at the grief and the mockery that she got for putting what the media claimed were targets on 20 Democrat incumbents on her website. Look at the grief that she's got ever since she was named McCain's running mate. Eighteen of those Democrats she targeted lost. That's a pretty amazing and impressive record. Sarah Palin targeted a bunch of Democrats for defeat, and 18 of them lost. That's more than any Republican elites are doing.”

Well stated by Mr. Limbaugh...

It seems foolish that the GOP establishment would target Governor Palin in this manner after her efforts and the overall success of the elections. It creates an environment of distrust with the grassroots base who the Republican party needs the support of. Whoever is responsible for these attacks should stop what they are doing and realize that they are only hurting the GOP. While the establishment has a lot of money, the base has a lot of people. Last cycle those people were able to collectively put up a good sum of money themselves. The establishment needs the base. So, my message to the "sleazy insiders" who are behind these attacks - for the good of the Republican party, please knock it off.