Bristol Palin Answers Margaret Cho - Update III - Cho Admits It Was Just A Rumor

Up until yesterday, I'd always had a lot of respect for Bristol Palin. After all, 17 years old, pregnant for the whole world to see, raising a kid, engagement falls apart, ex goes out and starts trashing the family for money... it's amazing she's still sane. Were there times when I wondered about her choices? Oh, yeah. And when I first heard about DWTS, I thought it was a horrible idea, but she proved me wrong on that one. More has happened in her life the past few years than most sixty year olds have had to deal with. So, respect? Check.

But it was only yesterday that I really started liking her. Anybody that gets a kick out of someone calling Keith Olbermann a "dick" is cool. The end.

And now there's this. I was hoping she'd maybe give a short statement to someone after that Cho thing picked up way more steam than it ever should have, but this is ten times better. Go check it out on her FB page if you can. I know some people get errors though or can't get into Facebook, so here's the note:

I met so many interesting people on Dancing With The Stars. It was an incredible experience that I will cherish the rest of my life. I have explained my own motivations for accepting the invitation to dance, which included the simple fact that I was ready to get out of my comfort zone and try something new and challenging. I thought dancing would also be a great way to exercise--and it was. I thought it would boost my confidence--and it did. Notably absent from this calculus were political considerations. You want to talk politics, talk to my mom. You want to talk rumba, waltz and the beautiful Spanish paso doble, I'm your girl (but if you want to talk to the expert, call Mark).

So with this in mind I was somewhat taken aback to read about me in a blog by my friend and fellow contestant, Margaret Cho. In a post she called "Pistol Whipped" she wrote that "the only reason Bristol was on the show was because Sarah Palin forced her to do it. Sarah supposedly blames Bristol harshly and openly . . . for not winning the election,and so she told Bristol she "owed" it to her to do DWTS . . . ." Let me shamelessly steal from Saturday Night Live: "Really, Margaret? Really?"

I will give my friend credit for creativity, and extra points for getting so many "facts" wrong in so few sentences. Let me be blunt: my mom did not "force" me to go on DWTS. She did not ask me either. The show approached me. I thought about it. I made the decision. After first worrying for me in terms of being exposed to those who hate us for what we believe in, both my mom and my dad became my number one supporters. Anyone who watched the show could tell I performed better, and I felt better about myself, when they were in the audience. I wanted to make them both proud, but politics had nothing to do with it. Loving my parents had everything to do with it.

It saddens me that people would think that my mom would "blame" me for anything that occurred in the 2008 election--much less "harshly" and "openly." I think that canard (there, I said it again), has been floating around since then also. I will set the record straight, though my mom already did in her bestselling book "Going Rogue"; there were a number of reasons President Obama won in 2008, but the primary reason was that the economy was starting to falter and the majority of voters thought Obama could do a better job than my mom and John McCain. It turns out, two years later, the majority of voters were wrong, but we can talk about that another time. The point is, I seriously doubt anyone who considers herself a student of American politics truly believes I impacted even one vote in that election.

There you have it. Why do I want to set the record straight? Because it is this type of hurtful and false narrative that people promote to make my mom look bad. For 20 years my mom had my back--and for the rest of my life I will have hers.

To my friend Margaret Cho, if you ever have a question, call me girlfriend. Don't ever rely on "sources" who claim to know me or my family. You will be taken every time. And we need to talk. You say you "don't agree with the family's politics at all" but I say, if you understood that commonsense conservative values supports the right of individuals like you, like all of us, to live our lives with less government interference and more independence, you would embrace us faster than KD Lang at an Indigo Girls concert.


P.S. If you want to baby-sit Tripp, I could use a night off.



Bristol Palin

Like.

I'm over here twiddling my thumbs because C4P is still down.


(cue a blonde whining that she never gets to babysit in 3, 2, ....)


Update - By the way, the title was:

"CHA-CHA-CHA to CHO-CHO-CHO--HERE'S A HINT: THREE DOG NIGHT"

In other words, "Mama told me not to come."


Update II:

Cho responded, by the way. Of course, as a comedian she'll probably use this stuff to keep her name in the news. Everybody's figured out by now that all you have to do is drop your name next to "Palin" and you'll get a headline. That's one reason why I hoped Bristol wouldn't slam Cho personally if she did respond. No need to start a Bristol/Cho war. As if the Palins don't have enough to deal with already.

I wouldn't call Bristol's response "freaking out," not by a long shot. I can't believe anybody would be stupid enough to believe Cho's story, but a good chunk of Americans don't believe we landed on the moon, so I suppose anything's possible. As much as I try to stay away from the mantra "people are stupid," the more I see the way people just blindly accept the media narratives and don't logically think through these things, the more I'm tempted to just say it. People are stupid.


Update III:

Okay, hopefully this is the last I'll say about this, but I found a more expanded version of Cho's reaction.

Now she's basically saying "It's just gossip. I was just reporting gossip, I don't know if it's true or not and I'm not going to retract it because I was just reporting gossip. I just want to stop Palin from becoming President. And Bristol's cool!"

Well, at least she's honest. Her tweet kinda contradicts that statement, but whatever. "It's the truth! Well, no, actually it was just gossip. I was just being the town crier. I want to stop Sarah Palin!"

So she admits it was a rumor. I guess I'll let it go then. Unless something else pops up.

Bristol Palin and John Ziegler Slam Keith Olbermann on BAM - Updated

Bristol responds to being named the "Worst Person in the World" for her work with the Candies Foundation:

John Ziegler calls in as well, comments on Olby, and chats with Bristol. Bristol also responds to the rumor that her Dad might go on DWTS:

Update - Just figured I'd click on my stats, and I'm wondering where the thousands of people came from....

Ah, C4P link. And Hot Air? That would explain it. I'd have tidied up the place if I'd known y'all were coming. :)



Update II:

By the way, BAM stands for Bob and Mark, for anyone unfamiliar with these guys. Go here for a lot more of their stuff with the Palins - http://www.palintv.com/category/shows/bobmark/. They're rock station DJ's and aren't exactly rated "G" so if you listen live to their station online, consider yourself warned. The earlier stuff is what's most interesting to me. This is one of my favorites, from October of 2006 when Sarah was still running for Governor:

Update III:

Since people are still checking out this post, I figured I'd put in a plug for Ziegler. He recently re-released the movie "Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected and Palin was Targeted."

Go here for more information. I believe you can order it VOD now too.

Here's an interview he did with Bob and Mark upon the movie's re-release:

Oh, and if you see any bull circulating around about BAM, it probably has to do with this episode. Hilarious lefties getting their panties in a wad over nothing. The whole affair was taken out of context as well, little clips being pulled out of the larger story to create a scandal. Bob and Mark are rock station DJ's, all right? They play to a harder core demographic.

They're also two of the biggest hearted guys I've ever listened to. Not too long ago they did a radio drive to help a terminally ill woman get a fence built in her backyard so she could keep her dog. (I think it was a fence. Might have needed a ramp or something too). Someone called in and told them about the girl having to give her dog up, they got on the radio and got the volunteers and the materials and everything. Then they interviewed the girl and Bob practically broke down in tears right there. Mark had to take over for him because he couldn't even talk.

Some Scenes from "Salmon Run"

If you missed tonight's episode of Sarah Palin's Alaska, check your guide and be sure to catch a replay. It's probably the best episode so far. I think at the end of the day, episode one is going to turn out to be the worst of the series. (That's another way of saying that they keep getting better and I wish the 5 million tuned in for tonight's episode instead of the first one.)

In this clip, Todd plays with little Trig:

And here, Sarah and Piper meet their little cousin Matthew, a relative on Todd's side of the family:

Kids on TV

Transcript:

GLENN: But the one thing that my wife and I were talking about is the exposure of your family. And I know the press has exposed the family, but you don't seem to have a problem with that. What do you think the effect of all of this is on your kids?

SARAH PALIN: Well, I'm just dealing with reality knowing that they're not going to let up until the collective will of the people is to remind the press that kids should be off limits. And in our case that just isn't happening yet. So I deal with the reality as it is and remind my kids that maybe in our culture there's not a lot of justice in terms of kids being left alone to just be kids and make mistakes but learn as they go and overcome challenges, you know. My kids have the same story as every other kid in this world.

GLENN: But my kids are left alone. I mean, but I just don't, I don't ever, ever put them in front of a camera. You know, anybody takes a picture of my kids, I go all TSA on them.

SARAH PALIN: Yeah, here's the deal. Here's the deal, what we got ourselves into, I guess, was there on the national stage, literally there at the GOP convention when I, being so proud of my family, bringing them on stage like every other politician has done since the beginning of time, being charged then with exploiting my kids and here I'm looking around going, wait, every other candidate, every male candidate brings their family on stage, proverbially and literally. So having done that. And then from there just sort of a different standard that's been applied in terms of the accusations that there's been exploitation or using the kids for whatever. Then, Glenn, having to correct the record and try to change the narrative into what the truth is about my family. So constantly being on defense and having to sort of counterattack the things that they say. That's the position that we're in.

--------------

What Glenn is trying to question is the apparent contradiction of saying "leave my kids alone" and then putting your kids on a tv show.

First of all, I happen to be of the opinion that just because kids are visible doesn't mean they're fair game. I think it's absurd that people call Trig names and rag on Willow and Piper and use the "well they're out there" line as an excuse. It's no excuse, sorry.

Glenn, as a protective father himself, is trying to figure out the rationale of having your kids "out there" but at the same time wanting to protect them from all the bull. If you really want to shelter them, shouldn't you keep them, well, sheltered?

I think the point Palin was trying to make with her answer is this. When she first came onto the scene, she did what every other politician does - introduced her family. (I covered this before here.) Because no one had a clue who she was or who they were, a huge media vetting process kicked into gear, and apparently, they didn't consider the kids to be off limits.

People found her family fascinating. Some began attacking the kids or using the kids to attack their mom. A lot of rumors got started and a lot of conclusions were drawn about the kids and the family that weren't true. The haters attempted to paint the family as some kind of a freak show, and because the majority of the American public didn't know any better, many bought into that perception. How do you combat that? Do you just let the world continue thinking it, or do you let them in and show them what really goes on?

That's what this is. It's an attempt to correct the mischaracterization.

Grown adults who use the kids being on TV as an excuse to attack the kids boggle my mind. Now, Bristol is an exception. She herself has chosen to put herself in the spotlight. She's also a 20 year-old single mother who's more than capable of handling herself. Doesn't mean the stuff coming at her isn't disgusting; I'm just saying that there's no expectation that she won't be fodder for late-night jokes, etc...

Hmm - Update

Mediaite has a piece up on the Willow Facebook thingy, more specifically, on Mama Palin's reaction to it. My general position on this whole thing is that Willow is 16 years old and off limits. People say, "Oh, but she was in the TV show." So? I love how people seem to think that because the kid is visible then you're perfectly justified in saying whatever you want about them. Tripp and Trig are in the show too. Will TMZ be doing an expose' on Piper now? Bristol's an entirely different matter. She has put herself out there.

As for what actually occurred on the Facebook page, let's just say I've heard ten times worse in high school hallways (one of the reasons why I don't think you could pay me enough to get me to send my kids to a public school). Maybe I've seen one too many flame wars on the internet the last two years and am desensitized. That could also be a factor.

From Mediaite:

Palin is absolutely correct that the children of politicians ought to be off-limits to the media, or at least, that there ought to be a high bar set for newsworthiness. Similarly, Palin’s skill as a parent should not be considered fair game. Neither subject has any relevance to Palin’s career as a politician, or as a media figure, and decency dictates that they remain private.

What is relevant, though, is how Palin chose to respond to the incident.

Here’s a transcript of the relevant portion:

People probably think that my greatest frustration is the lies that are told in the tabloids and on hateful blogs full of anonymous sources about my family … and there are constant everyday lies that we have to read that are out there in the public. But my family and I…thick skin…we can take it, you know…we can take what the haters say despite the fact that there’s injustice in the situation.


I mean, look at the other day. Willow, finally, my 16 year old, she had had it up to here with somebody saying very, very hateful things about the family and saying mean things about her little brother Trig, and Willow finally responded and she used a bad word when she responded in defense of her family. And her response became national news, even hard news copy it turned into, so that’s ridiculous and I had to explain to her, “Willow, there is no justice here but you have to just zip your lip and let’s move forward.”

Perhaps most glaring is the fact that, in an interview in which she promises to restore journalism, Palin gets her facts wrong. The exchange to which she refers contains nary a mention of Trig Palin, and was touched off by a single negative comment about Palin’s reality show, Sarah Palin’s Alaska. Palin would have been perfectly justified had she chosen not to get into the details of the story, but since she did, she ought to have described them accurately.

Here's the Facebook exchange. It does indeed appear that the whole thing stemmed from a guy saying "Sarah Palin's Alaska is failing sooo hard right now." One of the more mild things anyone has ever said about the Palin family. Trig is nowhere to be found. (Now, if my mom were doing something like this and one of my facebook "friends" didn't like it, I may have reacted too, maybe with a few less swear words.)

Now, a couple of things here. First off, the Palin kids can't fight back against most of the cr** they get handed on a daily basis. This may have been a case of the straw that broke the camel's back. I've been tempted to do this myself a time or two. Frustrated to the extreme and I end up dumping all over someone or something that didn't have much to do at all with the real reason why I was upset. Maybe Willow saw something somewhere else that got her all riled up and she dumped all over this guy instead (but Bristol responded first, so I'm not sure how that works. But she gets cr** from all corners too). That's one option.

Another observation is that this is a screencap of one Facebook page, and it looks to me like the conversation is incomplete. Maybe it is complete, but there are some things that don't quite fit.

For example, notice how Willow talks to Matt when Matt hasn't even said anything yet. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense unless this conversation was also happening on other people's Facebook pages or this was a continuation of a previous conversation. There's a possibility that we're not getting the full picture here.

Yeah, this is all total speculation. :)

If it's none of the above, then maybe little cub pulled the wool over Mama Grizzly's eyes. That's what I would try to do, are you kidding me? You wiggle out of it however you can when you're that age.

If the FB screencap is indeed complete and none of my other options are legitimate (which I don't think I'll ever have any way of knowing) then I call BS on Mama's Grizzly's answer and wonder if she actually read the exchange.

I don't say any of this to disparage the Palin kids, on the contrary. As you'll see tonight in the third episode of Sarah Palin's Alaska, the kids are typical kids and Willow's pretty awesome. I'm just trying to sort out fact from fiction and get a grasp on what's actually happening here.