Sarah Palin rumours debunked

A Charlie Martin has set up a page listing and confirming or debunking all the rumours about Sarah Palin. I suggest anyone writing about her in the media check with this page, before repeating something that is false.

Here are some of the debunked rumours:

1. No she wasn’t a member of the (wild-eyed libertarian) Alaska independence Party, although her husband once was
2. No, she was never a Pat Buchanan supporter; even when Buchanan claims she was, she was on the board of Steve Forbes’a campaign in Alaska.
3. No, she’s not anti-semitic. In fact, she has an Israeli flag in her office. (Contrary to popular belief, the usual Evangelical thinks Israel has a right to exist, granted by God.)
4. No, she’s doesn’t believe that the Iraq War was directed by God. Yes, she did pray that proceeding with the war was God’s will. (Ever hear the phrase “Not my will, but Thine, be done”?)
5. No, Buchanan doesn’t support her now; in fact he’s supporting Obama. (Buchanan did think her speech was amazing, but then so do 80 percent of the people who saw it.)
6. yes, she was pregnant when she got married
7. Yes, barring immaculate conception, Bristol appears to have had sex with her fiancee. No, Bristol didn’t receive only “abstinence-only” sex ed.
8. yes, she did fire the public safety guy — but he said in the Anchorage paper that, for the record, she never, and no one else in her administration ever, tried to make him fire her ex-brother-in-law
9. and yes, the state trooper (her sister’s ex-husband) she was worried about did: tase her 10 year old nephew; drive his state patrol car while drinking or drunk; did threaten to “bring her down”; and did threaten to murder her father and sister if they dared to get an attorney to help with the divorce.
10. No, she didn’t cut funding for unwed mothers; yes, she did increase it by “only” 354 percent instead of 454 percent, as part of a multi-year capital expenditures program. No, the Washington Post doesn’t appear to have corrected their story. Even after this was pointed out in the comments on the story.
11. No, she didn’t cut special needs student funding; yes, she did raise it by “only” 175 percent.
12. yes, she did ask the librarian if some books could be withdrawn because of being offensive; no, they couldn’t; yes she did threaten to fire the librarian a month later; no, that wasn’t over the books thing but instead over administrative issues; no, the librarian wasn’t fired either; yes, the librarian was a big supporter of one of her political opponents; yes, the librarian was also the girlfriend of the Chief of police mentioned above; no, this is not the first time in the history of civilization that someone has been threatened with being fired over a political dispute
13. yes, she’s an was an Assembly of God Holy Roller. No, she doesn’t attend an AoG church now. Yes, she did leave the AoG because they were getting too weird for her.
14. yes, she apparently believes in some variant of Intelligent Design
15. no, she didn’t try to force the schools to teach it; she said if someone brought it up, it was an appropriate subject for debate.
16. No, she doesn’t believe in “abstinence only” education. Yes, she thinks abstinence is an effective way of preventing pregnancy. Duh. Yes, she believes kids should learn about condom use in schools.
17. yes, she kills animals and eats them, and wears their skins
18. yes, she has on occasion tried to get money from the federal government.
19. yes, she did finally turn down the money for the bridge. Yes, that meant changing her mind about it.
20. yes, she was vetted extensively, not just in three days — I’ve got links to press reports about people coming to Wassila on 29 May, and we had her on our Veepstakes at PJM from the first day we ran it.
21. Yes, Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech was written by a speechwriter. Duh. No, none of Obama’s, McCain’s, nor Biden’s speeches were impromptu off the cuff things either.

This is where the blogosphere can come into its own. It is the ability to specialise, to be the reference point on one small topic very well, and everyone then links to you. Martin has had huge traffic since the big US blogs started linking to his Palin Rumours page.

Talking of debunking rumours, Snopes is worth subscribing to. Also excellent.