Fool me once.....

Over the past several years, there have been so many caricatures manufactured to attack Republicans and conservatives that such a practice has almost become a cottage industry. It's typically something along the lines of  "the GOP is a monochromatic party made up of wealthy religious war mongers who bitterly cling to their guns."

When Sarah Palin came on the scene as the Republican VP candidate in 2008, she immediately drew heavy scrutiny for, among other things, her unabashed faith in Jesus Christ as well her affinity for hunting. Remember when George W. Bush declared Christ his hero during the 2000 GOP nomination process for President? That was the first inclination that the leftists would turn into a bunch of frothing-at-the-mouth loons whenever Bush's name was mentioned.

Since some in the mainstream media and the political left (PTR) have these caricatures so embedded in their collective minds, their irrational hatred often gets the best of them when hearing or reading something that could make Palin look even more foolish than they already perceive.

Almost exactly two years ago, MSNBC personality Rachel Maddow cited a web site advocating for Palin to call for an American-led invasion into Egypt, which was starting to become very unstable at that point. While Maddow clarified this was not an indictment of Palin personally since it wasn't her idea, it was a very obvious attempt by Maddow to show the outlandish beliefs (bordering on insanity) of Palin supporters. It wasn't until after that particular broadcast that Rach realized she had been duped. The web site that was the basis for her story? A satirical site called "ChristWire.org." Instead of humbly issuing a Mea culpa, Maddow had the temerity to blame other conservatives (specifically Glenn Beck) for her being bamboozled, claiming it was their wildly conceived notions that makes satire almost indistinguishable from the truth.

Fast forward to Tuesday when a Washington Post blogger by the name of Suzi Parker put together a post regarding Palin's latest attempt to "stay relevant." Apparently Ms. Parker had visions of a Pulitzer dancing in her head with a breaking story about Palin attempting to reach "millions of devoutly religious people" through Al Jazeera.

Late last week Al Jazeera America announced the former vice-presidential candidate would be joining their news network. Al Jazeera America recently bought Al Gore’s failing Current Media that broadcasts the Current TV channel. Ironically, Fox News recently called Al Jazeera “an anti-American terror mouthpiece.”

“As you all know, I’m not a big fan of newspapers, journalists, news anchors and the liberal media in general,” Palin told the Web site The Daily Currant. “But I met with the folks at Al-Jazeera and they told me they reach millions of devoutly religious people who don’t watch CBS or CNN. That tells me they don’t have a liberal bias.”

You know where I'm going here, right? Yep, the source for this story, web site The Daily Currant, is also a satirical site. As such, Ms. Parker's revised post came with a correction.

An earlier version of this post and the post’s URL incorrectly reported that Sarah Palin had signed on as a contributor to the Al Jazeera America news network. The blogger cited a report on the Daily Currant Web site as the basis for that information without realizing that the piece was satirical.

I find it difficult to believe that even the most ardent anti-Palin folks even bothered to read beyond that paragraph. If they had, they would have found nothing more than the recycled talking points about how Palin seems more a cult of personality type and thus no longer a serious candidate for President. The piece was titled "Sarah Palin tries to stay relevant", which seems to be a rather ironic statement given Ms. Parker's attempts to pen an insightful post in light of her myopic zeal.

Courage, Suzi!

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