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:
The idea was repeated by Matt Damon and then none other than Maureen Dowd, in the pages of the NYT on Sept. 9.
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’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:
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:
But no one includes this, from the same post (emphasis mine):
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.