ALEXANDRIA, VA – As conservatives all expected, the leftist media went into high gear in their low-road attacks of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin immediately following the Friday announcement by Sen. John McCain that she was his choice to be Vice President.
The honeymoon didn’t last the hour. Exhibiting their utter shamelessness, some in the press actually attacked Gov. Palin because her four-month old son has Down’s syndrome. CNN's John Roberts dove right down to the bottom: “There's also this issue that on April 18th, she gave birth to a baby with Down's syndrome....Children with Down's syndrome require an awful lot of attention. The role of Vice President, it seems to me, would take up an awful lot of her time, and it raises the issue of how much time will she have to dedicate to her newborn child?"
ABC's Good Morning America co-anchor Bill Weir on Saturday, adding to the brutality of the coverage, suggested that by running for the Vice Presidency the Governor would be jeopardizing her son. “Adding to the brutality of a national campaign, the Palin family also has an infant with special needs. What leads you, the Senator, and the Governor to believe that one won't affect the other in the next couple of months?"
The announcement of the pregnancy of Gov. Palin’s 17 year-old daughter Bristol elicited more of the same low-rent reporting.
MRC President L. Brent Bozell:
“What a disgraceful display of media malice in response to the Gov. Palin announcement. The Governor is a remarkable, genteel and upstanding woman, yet the press went right into the gutter in response to Sen. McCain’s selection of her to be Vice President.
“These alleged journalists are again demonstrating what utter charlatans they are. Every day they lecture conservatives about ‘mean-spirited’ politics, yet they spent the entire Labor Day weekend using Gov. Palin’s newborn son’s condition to try to score cheap and shoddy Democratic campaign points. And continued right on doing so when the Palin family announced that their oldest daughter Bristol was pregnant.
“These are not reporters, these are hypocritical left-wing advocates using their First Amendment rights as clubs to bludgeon and abuse this fine woman with the lowliest attacks they can drum up.
“The line between the liberal media and the Democratic Party has now been crossed so many times it is no longer blurred, it is obliterated.”
RETRACTION
“Alan Colmes never asserted that Sarah Palin caused her son’s condition”
ALEXANDRIA, VA – MRC President L. Brent Bozell:
“In my statement earlier today calling the media on the carpet for their treatment of Gov. Sarah Palin, I included a criticism of Fox News Channel’s Alan Colmes which was not true.
“On Saturday, Alan posted on his website an entry entitled ‘Did Palin Take Proper Pre-Natal Care,’ which questioned Gov. Palin’s actions and decisions at the time she went into labor with her last child. What it did NOT do was link these actions to her son’s Down’s syndrome, which was in my statement.
"I apologize unreservedly to Alan, an honest broker for whom I have the utmost respect and whose friendship I truly value.”
To schedule an interview with MRC President Brent Bozell or another MRC spokesperson, please contact Tim Scheiderer (x. 126) or Colleen O’Boyle (x. 122) at (703) 683-5004.
