Second Major Newspaper Columnist Repeats Palin ‘Dinosaur’ Smear

How many times, since Sarah Palin was tapped as John McCain’s running mate, has the press suggested that she’s a “young-Earth” creationist who believes humans and dinosaurs roamed the Earth together, and what’s the basis for the accusation? The smear first circulated as a ridiculous viral e-mail about Palin, which attributes this sentence to Palin:

God made dinosaurs 4,000 years ago as ultimately flawed creatures, lizards of Satan really, so when they died and became petroleum products we, made in his perfect image, could use them in our pickup trucks, snow machines and fishing boats.

The idea was repeated by Matt Damon and then none other than Maureen Dowd, in the pages of the NYT on Sept. 9.

Does she really think Adam, Eve, Satan and the dinosaurs mingled on the earth 5,000 years ago?

It’s unclear whether Dowd’s source was the viral e-mail, as some suggested, or the account of a liberal blogger in Alaska, which is the source for several other media accounts of Palin’s alleged belief in “young-Earth” creationism. In late September, the L.A. Times’ daring Chuck Yeager of elitism, Steve Lopez broke the snob barrier with a thunderous clap in his reporting from Alaska, which included a “young-Earth” creationism charge. Lopez talked with Phil Munger, a music teacher and liberal blogger in Alaska:

Munger, who writes the Progressive Alaska blog, told me Palin is not just a creationist, but a “young Earth” creationist who believes that man and dinosaurs once shared the planet, and that the world will end in her lifetime. Palin-tology, you might call it.

Munger’s account comes from a private talk he says he had with Palin in 1997 at a graduation ceremony. His version of the encounter has been repeated by Lopez, Salon, and the Independent, where he is sometimes identified only as a “music teacher” and not a liberal activist. The L.A. Times also used the anecdote as the lede for a story on Palin’s faith a week after Lopez employed it:

ANCHORAGE — Soon after Sarah Palin was elected mayor of the foothill town of Wasilla, Alaska, she startled a local music teacher by insisting in casual conversation that men and dinosaurs coexisted on an Earth created 6,000 years ago — about 65 million years after scientists say most dinosaurs became extinct — the teacher said. After conducting a college band and watching Palin deliver a commencement address to a small group of home-schooled students in June 1997, Wasilla resident Philip Munger said, he asked the young mayor about her religious beliefs. Palin told him that “dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time,” Munger said. When he asked her about prehistoric fossils and tracks dating back millions of years, Palin said “she had seen pictures of human footprints inside the tracks,” recalled Munger, who teaches music at the University of Alaska in Anchorage and has regularly criticized Palin in recent years on his liberal political blog, called Progressive Alaska. The idea of a “young Earth” — that God created the Earth about 6,000 years ago, and dinosaurs and humans coexisted early on — is a popular strain of creationism.

The problem is that in Munger’s account on his own blog, he actually refutes the charge. Each of the major-media accounts of Munger’s story include this part:

As the ceremony concluded, I bumped into her in a hall away from other people. I congratulated her on her victory, and took her aside to ask about her faith. Among other things, she declared that she was a young earth creationist, accepting both that the world was about 6,000-plus years old, and that humans and dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time. I asked how she felt about the second coming and the end times. She responded that she fully believed that the signs of Jesus returning soon “during MY lifetime,” were obvious. “I can see that, maybe you can’t – but it guides me every day.”

But no one includes this, from the same post (emphasis mine):

Our next discussion about religion was after she had switched to the less strict Wasilla Bible Church. She was speaking at, I was performing bugle, at a Veterans ceremony between Wasilla and Palmer. At this time, people were beginning to encourage her to run for Governor. Once again, we found ourselves being able to talk privately. I reminded her of the earlier conversation, asking her if her views had changed. She was no longer “necessarily” a young earth creationist, she told me. But she strongly reiterated her belief that “The Lord is coming soon.” I was trying to get her to tell me what she felt the signs were, when she had to move on.

So, the only source outside of a ridiculous viral e-mail suggesting Palin is a “young-Earth” creationist is a liberal blogger who refutes that charge in his own account. Munger’s either pawning off an incomplete story on journalists who don’t have the wherewithal or desire to search “dinosaurs” on Munger’s blog, or journalists are repeating the story and strategically leaving out important facts. His post ends with a helpful note: “Feel free to reprint this article,” which suggests the blog is the source for many media accounts. Also noteworthy, it appears Munger did not publish this anecdote until September of this year, only after Palin was named a VP candidate, despite having started the blog on Alaskan politics in 2007, on which he frequently criticized Palin. If he thought the story was truly reflective of the dangerous views of a longtime political adversary, why had he not written it long before Palin became a decidedly more lucrative target for a liberal blogger hawking stories to a credulous media? “I knew I should have turned back when that moose crossed my path,” he remarks after traumatized by a brief conversation with a Palin-backer. The point many conservatives have made, however is that liberal commentators and media reveal their snobbery, contempt, and ignorance often unintentionally through their utter credulity about accusations of Palin’s backwardness. And, they continue to oblige us by proving it. While these same commentators rant about bogus racial code words and imagery in McCain campaign ads, their own prejudices are on parade, and they don’t even know enough to be ashamed of them. He openly sneers at Wasilla’s downtown, which greets visitors with – gasp!- a Wal-Mart, Target, Lowe’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Carl’s Jr., McDonald’s and Taco Bell. To normal Americans, that sounds like a convenient shopping day, but to Lopez, it’s paradise lost. A paradise that he never had any desire to see, of course, until he could come on company time to spit upon it. “They paved paradise, and all they’ve got to show for it is chalupas and discount tube socks,” said the man from Los Angeles, a city that boasts no fewer than 863 unique, sophisticated…Taco Bells, according to Google Maps.

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