Palin Blasts Local Blogger for Photoshopping
Welcome once again to the wacky world of Alaska politics. When we last left our governor, she was involved in a knock down drag out fight with David Letterman over a crass comment about her daughter getting "knocked up" during a baseball game. We all know how that turned out, and regardless of which side you were on, or whether you were somewhere in the middle, it was quite a spectacle. A battle of the Titans. Former VP candidate and Queen of Alaska Sarah Palin vs. The Undisputed King of Late Night Comedy who can make or break politicians with his sometimes acid tongue, and always razor sharp wit. It was quite a show that culminated in 15 protesters and 35 members of the media showing up outside the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York City asking that the aforementioned King of Comedy get fired from his job.
Fast forward a few weeks.
Local Alaskan political watchdog and blogger Linda Kellen Biegel is in the middle of a project. She's working in virtual obscurity in Alaska, to get email records released that she feels will reveal questionable communications between the Palin administration and a local gossip columnist, and a local pro-Palin conservative radio talk show host. Palin herself has appeared on the show many times, in addition to her family members, her lawyer, her spokeswoman and various other members of the administration.
The talk show host in question, Eddie Burke, recently showed up at an Anchorage Assembly meeting to give public testimony about an upcoming Municipal gay rights ordinance wearing this.
A few months ago, security forcibly removed him from another Assembly meeting.
Biegel believes the release of these emails will show a concerted effort between the Palin administration and these two members of the media to coordinate attacks on local watchdogs. She won't know for sure until she can pay the $5500 the state is charging her for costs associated with her records request. Last week she began a fund drive to raise the money online, and each night posted a "thermometer" showing the progress and featuring a different image.
Here's where the fireworks begin. On Tuesday, a picture of Palin holding up her son Trig during that famous speech at the RNC convention became the thermometer graphic. Only in this picture, Trig wasn't Trig. In the image Biegel used, the governor is cuddling a photoshopped baby with the face of Eddie Burke. Disturbing, yes, but meant to illustrate the governor's strange and cozy relationship with this controversial Alaskan figure, according to the blogger.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, an out-of-state pro-Palin blog expressed outrage. At first they did not realize what the face was, as those outside of Alaska were not familiar with the visage of Eddie Burke. But after finding out, one of the bloggers at the site was featured on the Eddie Burke Show in Alaska and expressed the fact that her readers were outraged. This image was making fun of a precious special needs baby, she said. An hour of Burke's radio program Wednesday was dedicated to discussing the issue and callers weighed in from both sides. Biegel was called on to apologize to special needs kids everywhere, and the Democratic Party was called upon to renounce Biegel, who had been Alaska's state blogger at the Democratic National Convention, but whose official relationship with the party ended there.
Today, Meghan Stapleton, the governor's spokeswoman issued a strongly-worded statement:
Recently we learned of a malicious desecration of a photo of the Governor and baby Trig that has become an iconic representation of a mother's love for a special needs child.
The mere idea of someone doctoring the photo of a special needs baby is appalling. To learn that two Alaskans did it is absolutely sickening. Linda Kellen Biegel, the official Democrat Party blogger for Alaska, should be ashamed of herself and the Democratic National Committee should be ashamed for promoting this website and encouraging this atrocious behavior.Babies and children are off limits. It is past time to restore decency in politics and real tolerance for all Americans. The Obama Administration sets the moral compass for its party. We ask that special needs children be loved, respected and accepted and that this type of degeneracy be condemned.
Neither Stapleton nor the governor had commented on a similar photo that had been photoshopped using that same image to show Palin cuddling a baby with a David Letterman head last Friday, points out Biegel who says the photo is obviously making fun of Eddie Burke and the governor, not Trig.
Tactics have changed. This is not a battle of the Titans, but more like Titan vs. Hedgehog. One thing sure to come from this latest turn of events is the evidence that Palin has changed her tactics, and that right or wrong, Linda Kellen Biegel and her blog will be better known by the time it's over. And so will Eddie Burke.
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You people at the HuffPo are never going to gain any respect until you start publishing articles with some semblance of rationality. Trying to make it seem Okay for Linda Biegel to publish a picture of Downs syndrome baby Trig to try to make her political point is just deplorable. In addition she is an embarrassment to liberals everywhere for filing these ridiculous frivolous ethics complaints such as the one for wearing a jacket with Arctic Cat on it. All of them have been turned down without need for judicial review and it is making Ms Biegel and the Democratic party look like chumps. They ae certainly behaving like chumps.
If you want to be a real newspaper, write something that is decent.
Your ignorance shows that you know nothing of the compliant or of Alaskan politics and law.
By the way Huffington Post is a blog not a newspaper, if you wish to comment without displaying your glaring ignorance, educate yourself on the facts of the matter.
Speaking of Alaskan politics and the law
SCOTUS finds for Alaska in Coeur Alaska, Inc. v. Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, et al. (26 June)
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/08pdf/07-984.pdf
this means the mine can proceed.
progress in the TransCanada pipeline project (11 June)
http://www.gov.state.ak.us/news.php?id=1901
Since the hydrocarbon and mineral resources of Alaska belong to the citizens of Alaska - it's a wonder she hasn't been impeached already.
I could see your point if the face of Trig were superimposed on the body of, say, someone wearing a dunce cap sitting in the corner. But that is not what the image was... and only those people who worship Sarah and have all the RNC images rotating in their screensavers would know where the original came from.
You can see Sarah was in the image. And Eddie 'red shirt' Burke was in the image. It was on a single blog for a single day. Leave it to C4P to go on a crusade about this non-issue. Oh, but thanks, because Celtic Diva's fundraiser met its goal right after C4P and Meg made the story national news!
it's called satire..nothing to do with the BABY, everything to do with baby eddie and his snug relationship with her highness
MORAL COMPASS……..Oh yes the GOP corner the market on THAT!! What a foolish thing to say in light of what has transpired the last few days.
Sanford now back from MIA and his mistress in Brazil is paying his state back for his trip down there last year . Today we find out he organized his own trade mission AGAINST US federal policy.
The commerce department had not arranged this as he said, more lies, he arranged the trip through a Brazilian official. The Brazilian government refuses to pay their national debt to the US and other countries, claiming that the US should not have lent them so much money in the first place.
Trade is banned with Brazil.
Then there is Ensign PROMISING to make an EXTRA effort to marriage.
Now there is the republican Nevada Governor Gov. Jim Gibbons………….
Infidelities with TWO women at the same time!
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2009/04/nevada-governor-in-divorce-court-accused-of-infidelity-with-two-women.html
AND………….a smackdown of a cocktail waitress!!
Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons wants a federal judge to shield his phone records from a former cocktail waitress who accuses him of accosting her outside a Las Vegas restaurant in 2006.
Of course there are always Larry Craig, Mark Foley, David Vitter, Ted Haggard, Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, GW Bush..one could go on forever……to set your “moral compass” by
Palin has become a living breathing SNL skit, replete with her goon Meg Stapletounge.
Thanks Martha12, that was good reading! Another REPUBLICAN Governor with no morals. Even better is to see all the juicy information Wikipedia has on him. Like Sarah, he also has a legal defense fund.
C'mon, the dems have a list too. But we're godless libruls, so it doesn't matter. Unless, y'know, they impeach us for lying to dried up yet salivating little men with clipboards & waterwings and a neat new title.
Linda Kellen Biegel - certainly did not know her name before, but will be keeping an eye out for her work now. Nice work. Satire is always appreciated. Cuts right thru to the heart of things.
Thanks Sarah.
You'll find her under the name she blogs -- because that's how she's known, even to her friends who mention her in their blogs. Palin made a point, as always of pubishing her actual name and town, and now Celtic Diva is being harrassed by Palin supporters. Which was the point, since she has just purchased, for nearly $6000, the emails between Palin and her homophobic, misogynic radio host buddies. If the emails are not redacted, they will tell a tale of political intrusion into private lives.
PhilT!!! Hilarious comments! First laugh I've had this morning here in Texas.
Yo - Us New Yawk eyetalians aim to please.
Just don't go using what you've learned to earn your psychology degree or your experience in the mental health field to analyze the grammar in some of my posts. I'm afraid you might discover I've acquired some brain damage over the years from my experiences.
Keep up the good work you do to make the world a better place. We all benefit from it.
I'm a fan.
So is palin gonna start beef with everyone? Thats a good plan
I'm pleased the blogger apologized. The joke was in completely poor taste.
where in the article does it say that she actually apologized?
It said she was "called on to apologize".
I believe her response is in a different article on HP.
Maybe you should read that.
As usual Ann.........The blogger did not apologize as there is nothing to apologize for.
By the way , she has raised %100 of her funds to expose this governor.. Palin's begathon in contrast does not even have 1/5 or theirs.
Nothing to apologize for.
it's called satire...read and learn
It's no different than a political cartoon- it's most definitely not a joke. The problem is that people who don't understand it make snap judgements. If you don't find it funny, that's fine, but don't get outraged when you don't understand it.
What about her speech inviting people to "Screw political correctness" ? oh, right, that doesn't apply to Her Highness
Oh please. She trots out her kids whenever necessary then is outraged when a photo, that is public not private, is photoshopped to make a point for someone else. I hope the pundits are right and she doesn't run again in 2010 - as far as I'm concerned Sarah Palin's 15 minutes are up and she and Elizabeth Hasselbeck can go start their own talk show with Rush Limbaugh. Please go away, Sarah.
Palin will do anything to keep herself in the news, using her kids, no problem. She doesn't deserve any respect as far as I am concerned, stay in Alaska and shut the heck up. Do you work as Gov. and stop the 2012 campaigning.
isn't desecrate reserved for things universally regarded as sacred.i dont think trig rises to the level of sacred.the use of the term is as off base as the photo. the photo is off base because unless you read the story it looks like an attack on the kid.
The manipulated photo was on a local AK blogger's site WITH the story. The people at C4P, who do not live in Alaska, seized on the image alone without knowing the story and decided to defend their precious Sarah against it. They jumped the gun and now the egg is on their faces.
She's Saint Sarah to her fans.
It's worth noting that Palin is traveling this week - visiting troops from Alaska who are on deployment. She's currently in Kosovo. It's also worth noting that no one in the media found her trip to be worthy of coverage. None. Nada. She's self-reporting on Twitter. (Thank God for that Journalism degree.) "What's a poor girl have to do to get a little press around here?? Hey, I know, Meg! Let's beat up a blogger!!" ROFL
It's worth noting that whatever Palin does is self serving.
It's also woth noting that whatever Palin does that is self serving backfires and everybody see through it. So the self serving "I Have Foreign Experience - See Me I Can Be POTUS Tour 2009 is not important. It will be news when she screws up.
Tweet us when she takes a bath in the town's cement pond (water fountain).
The local ADN hasn't really much acknowledged her trip. Very nice, finally off of the front page,
I suspect if Palin weren't such a joke to begin with....this kind of thing would pass along unnoticed...
but anyone who could sit and give those risable answers to intelligent questions in that Couric interview, for example, can't let one more reason to laugh at her slide.....
but this righteous indignation schtick......that gets pretty close to sounding whiney and petty.....
oh and to the guy who did the photoshopping....just tell Palin to grow a hide or stop shopping her kids around to the media when it suits her.
Don't apologise...
it was an iconic representation of an opportunist, in over her head, and totally unaware.
Well said!
Wow, Meg Stapleton gets 2 things wrong in 1 statement. Linda is not the official blogger, and there is no such thing as the Democrat Party.
If Alaska is failing, no wonder the USA is on the verge of Bankruptcy.
The United States has been hijacked....... why is DC NOT standing up for what's right for our Country?
What does this have to do with the article?
What does you post even mean?
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