Tuesday, May 19, 2009

A Palin-Clinton alliance? (or, the stupidest non-story of the day)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Credit Politico for this incredible headline:


Really? Serious? When? During the primaries? During the general election campaign? Was Palin trying to turn Hillary against Obama? This is huge news... huge!

Well, not so much. Actually, the headline is incredibly misleading. Here's the story:

In an unusual attempt to forge an alliance between two of the most prominent families in American politics, John Coale, a Washington-area Democratic donor and onetime adviser to Sarah Palin, urged the conservative Alaska governor to use her political action committee to help retire the presidential campaign debt of Hillary Clinton.

Coale, a wealthy trial attorney and the husband of Fox News talk show host Greta Van Susteren, approached Palin with the improbable plan in February while in Alaska with his wife, who was taping an interview with the former Republican vice presidential nominee.

This is stupid in so many ways. Coale's plan is stupid, as is Politico's reporting.

First, how would this have been an "alliance"?

Second, how is Coale the "Palin camp"?

Third, Hillary never would have accepted any such offer.

Fourth, Palin never would have made any such offer -- indeed, "Palin was amenable to getting acquainted with the Clintons but was skeptical of using her PAC to help the former first lady."

Fifth, Politico was clearly trying to lure in readers with a provocative headline. But, of course, the story, such as there is one, has nothing to do with last year's campaign, let alone with any sort of pre-election alliance.

This was basically a crazy idea that came from a crazy quasi-Democrat (how could a real Democrat ever be an advisor to Palin?) -- so crazy that even Palin turned it down. (The whole Coale-Van Susteren (a crazy, full-of-it insider married to a crazy Fox News host) relationship with Palin is so sickeningly sycophantic.)

And yet, here's Politico making a big deal about it. (And here I am blogging about it. Alas... But only because it further exposes the inanity of this relatively major (right-wing) media outlet.)

Typical, of course.

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