Kos: ""Our people are doing the vetting."

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: A Blogger, a Baby, a Cry of Concern
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 2, 2008; A22

ST. PAUL, Minn., Sept. 1 -- When Markos Moulitsas saw that one of the contributors to his liberal blog was accusing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin of lying about her 4-month-old baby, he was a bit skeptical. "I feel a little weird about the questions being asked," he says. "But I also feel a little weird about saying, 'Shut up, people.' It takes a lot for me to step in and squash what's on Daily Kos."

In less than 48 hours, the allegations by a Kos diarist known as ArcXIX ricocheted into the mainstream media, when John McCain's designated running mate announced Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant and plans to have the baby and marry the father. The McCain campaign felt compelled to release the information, say two staffers who declined to be identified discussing internal strategy, after receiving inquiries from national reporters about the Kos posting and questions from Alaska reporters about local scuttlebutt that Bristol Palin was pregnant....

***

Some conservative bloggers were dismissive of the way the rumors spread. On Townhall.com, Amanda Carpenter wrote that the Daily Kos contributor was "disgustingly inspecting Bristol's midriff with all the fervor of L.A. paparazzi examining J-Lo's or Jennifer Aniston's washboard stomachs for evidence of a 'bump.'" Glenn Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor who writes the conservative blog Instapundit, refused to link to the Kos posting. "I certainly wouldn't have gone with this," Reynolds says. "It just seemed so ridiculous. I don't see how this story adds up to a vindication of the Kos diarist."

But blogger Andrew Sullivan, a right-leaning former New Republic editor who supports Barack Obama, pushed the story about the baby, who was born with Down syndrome. Citing unresolved questions and the campaign's refusal to release the medical records involved, he writes: "The circumstantial evidence for weirdness around this pregnancy is so great that legitimate questions arise -- questions anyone with common sense would ask. . . . After all, this baby was a centerpiece of the public case for Palin made by the Republicans."...

***

While the Web can serve as an incubator for unsubstantiated charges, it also tends to be self-correcting. Another Daily Kos contributor late Sunday unearthed a photo from earlier this year in which the governor looks quite pregnant.

Moulitsas says he doesn't know who the anonymous ArcXIX is -- his contributors decide whether to identify themselves -- but that his site also disclosed that Palin was once a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, which has pushed for a vote on seceding from the United States. That was confirmed Monday by ABC News. "Our people are doing the vetting. Even if some of it is hitting dead ends, other ones are striking direct hits," Moulitsas says. His role, he adds, "is to sit back and let the citizen journalists do their job, and I amplify the stuff that shakes out."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/01/AR2008090102983_pf.html

[phillysuse]

1. If reporters were reporters, they would be digging

this stuff out themselves. But what passes for reporters are really propaganda readers and the new reporters are the bloggers. More power for those Internet tubes.

[glitch]

2. I first read this as "wetting" and I thought of underpants. nt