More From the JournoList Archives

The Daily Caller has obtained the archives of JournoList, a list serve consisting of several hundred liberal journalists and others. It has been publishing excerpts from the archives for the last week or so; the messages published so far confirm the worst stereotypes of liberal journalists as an auxiliary of the Democratic Party, and especially of the Barack Obama campaign.
Today’s installment shows how liberal journalists coordinated their response to John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate. You really have to read it all to appreciate the corruption that has infected the Fourth Estate, but here are some samples:

The conversation began with a debate over how best to attack Sarah Palin. “Honestly, this pick reeks of desperation,” wrote Michael Cohen of the New America Foundation in the minutes after the news became public. “How can anyone logically argue that Sarah Pallin [sic], a one-term governor of Alaska, is qualified to be President of the United States? Train wreck, thy name is Sarah Pallin.”
Not a wise argument, responded Jonathan Stein, a reporter for Mother Jones. If McCain were asked about Palin’s inexperience, he could simply point to then candidate Barack Obama’s similarly thin resume. “Q: Sen. McCain, given Gov. Palin’s paltry experience, how is she qualified to be commander in chief?,” Stein asked hypothetically. “A: Well, she has much experience as the Democratic nominee.”

Daniel Levy of the Century Foundation noted that Obama’s “non-official campaign” would need to work hard to discredit Palin. “This seems to me like an occasion when the non-official campaign has a big role to play in defining Palin, shaping the terms of the conversation and saying things that the official [Obama] campaign shouldn’t say – very hard-hitting stuff, including some of the things that people have been noting here – scare people about having this woefully inexperienced, no foreign policy/national security/right-wing christian wing-nut a heartbeat away …… bang away at McCain’s age making this unusually significant.”

“The non-official [Obama] campaign” is a good description of the role the press played in 2008.

Blogger Matt Yglesias sent out a new post thread with the subject, “The line on Palin.”
“John McCain picked someone to help him politically, Barack Obama picked someone to help him govern,” Yglesias wrote.
Ed Kilgore, managing editor of the Democratic Strategist blog, argued that journalists and others trying to help the Obama campaign should focus on Palin’s beliefs. “The criticism of her really, really needs to be ideological, not just about experience. If we concede she’s a ‘maverick,’ we will have done John McCain an enormous service.” …
Chris Hayes of the Nation wrote in with words of encouragement, and to ask for more talking points. “Keep the ideas coming! Have to go on TV to talk about this in a few min and need all the help I can get,” Hayes wrote.
Suzanne Nossel, chief of operations for Human Rights Watch, added a novel take: “I think it is and can be spun as a profoundly sexist pick. Women should feel umbrage at the idea that their votes can be attracted just by putting a woman, any woman, on the ticket no matter her qualifications or views.”
Mother Jones’s Stein loved the idea. “That’s excellent! If enough people – people on this list? – write that the pick is sexist, you’ll have the networks debating it for days. And that negates the SINGLE thing Palin brings to the ticket,” he wrote.

Hugh Hewitt thinks the Journolist scandal is the story of the hour:

[T]he big story is the JournoList story, not the NAACP story, though not surprisingly it is not receiving anything like the attention it deserves, at least not yet.

On Saturday, the Daily Caller’s deputy editor, Jamie Weinstein, will be a guest on our radio show. We’ll try to find out how many more revelations the Caller has in store. You can listen in on the web by going to AM 1280 the Patriot on Saturday from 11 to 1 on Saturday.

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