Slate columnist Christopher Hitchens really went after Sarah Palin yesterday. Here's one of his complaints:
At numerous rallies where the atmosphere has been, shall we say, a
little uncivil, Gov. Palin has accused Sen. Obama of accusing our
forces in Afghanistan of simply bombing villages. Only a moment's work
is required to discover that the words complained of were
never uttered in that form and that they occurred in a speech that
stressed the need for more ground troops as opposed to more airstrikes
(a recommendation, by the way, that begins to look more sapient each
week, at least in respect of the airstrikes). Again, I have a question:
Did Palin know that she was telling a lie? Or did her handlers simply
assume that she would read anything that was put in front of her,
however mendacious? And which would be worse? And when will she issue
the needful retraction?
Hitchens does not supply a link to, or provide a quote of the objectionable comment made by Palin. Nor does he provide a link or a quote of what Obama said. Hitchens did have time to put in a total of ten links to other—more important—items, including an insinuation that Palin is a 'Manchurian candidate'.
In any case, it's hard to say he nailed Palin with his argument. The documentation of Palin's lie may be in Hitchens' head, but he has not enhanced the public record of her supposed transgression.
I would like to rely on his integrity as a journalist, and believe his assertion that Palin lied, but I've seen too much of his brethren's work from this campaign. As for Hitchens' work, here's a second dubious claim from the very subtitle of the aforementioned piece:
Stop covering Palin until she gives a press conference.
If Palin wants to be spared the wrath of Hitchens, I think the location of her press conferences is more important than whether they occur. Because if the press conference isn't in Hitchens' living room, he ain't going to know about it.
Palin holds press conferences with her beat writers on a somewhat frequent basis. They just happen to be occurring on the campaign trail—where Palin, the VP nominee, is, and where Hitchens, the Slate scribe, clearly is not. As CBS reports:
It was less than two weeks ago when Sarah Palin astonished her
traveling press corps by lifting the curtain (literally) and journeying
to the back of her campaign plane to answer reporters’ questions
for the first time after 40 days on the campaign trail. But the
candidate who has been criticized for having a bunker mentality when it
came to the national media can now lay legitimate claim to being more
accessible than either Joe Biden or Barack Obama.
In the past two days alone, Palin has answered questions from her
national press corps on three separate occasions. On Saturday, she held
another plane availability,
and on Sunday, she offered an impromptu press conference on the tarmac
upon landing in Colorado Springs. A few minutes later, she answered
even more questions from reporters during an off-the-record stop at a
local ice cream shop.
By contrast, Biden hasn’t held a press conference in more than a
month, and Obama hasn’t taken questions from his full traveling press
corps since the end of September.
Didn't Palin also do something a few weeks ago, where she answered questions for 90 minutes from a member of the press and from her opponent, Sen. Biden? I know we call them debates, not press conferences, but can we add that event to the tally too?
