Oh, About That Latest Palin Smear: 'It Was Just Guilt by Innuendo, Nothing Else'

Of course, these days all you need is innuendo and poof, you're guilty. Especially if your name is Palin. So last week the National Enquirer ran with a "story" they received via an anonymous e-mailer.

SARAH PALIN's husband TODD is caught up in a sleazy sex scandal, The ENQUIRER has learned!

Political bloggers are digging into incredible claims that the "First Dude" - father of the couple's five children - cheated on his wife with a female massage therapist who was busted for prostitution!

The scandal not only has the potential to sabotage Palin's possible 2012 White House bid, but also threatens to destroy her marriage, sources say.

While the story heats up on the internet, The ENQUIRER has uncovered official documents confirming the woman's arrest.

We have also uncovered documents that show the woman - identified by bloggers as Shailey Tripp - contributed free massages to an anonymous person working for Sarah's campaign for governor of Alaska.

While representatives for Todd Palin vehemently deny he cheated on his wife, allegations of his extramarital affair surfaced on Jan. 4 when an anonymous tipster sent out messages to news outlets making the allegation using the e-mail address thepalinmorals@hotmail.com.

So someone with a hotmail account is now all the evidence they need to run with it. And naturally, the leftist media was off to the races.

Since the first hours of this breaking story ignited a firestorm of controversy key mainstream media The New York Daily News, Vanity Fair magazine, Yahoo News, The Huffington Post and Forbes Magazine, among others, have cited The ENQUIRER's bombshell investigation into the Palin cheating scandal.

In fact, Forbes suggested that "in the Palin-built political arena of 2011, Todd Palin’s affair might be just the ticket Sarah needs to be the first single mother in the Oval Office."

Oopsy.

Looks like the First Dude is off the hook.

The Anchorage Police Department blasted the National Enquirer’s recent report that Todd Palin is embroiled in a sex scandal involving an extramarital affair with a massage therapist who belonged to a prostitution ring.

"It was just guilt by innuendo, nothing else," Lt. Dave Parker told the Daily News on Wednesday. "There’s not one scintilla of evidence that Todd Palin had anything to do with this."

At least the NYDN has followed up on this and reported the truth. That doesn't get them off the hook for running with it in the first place, but they specialize in daily Palin trashing, so it was just too much to resist.

Curious how the NYDN and most other media avoided the Enquirer story about John Edwards and his love child for at least a year, and that at least had some evidence to back it up. Like photos of Edwards with his child.

It's worth noting I can't locate any retractions or apologies from Vanity Fair magazine, Yahoo News, The Huffington Post and Forbes Magazine. What a surprise. Their work is done, I guess. Now their wild-eyed readers can just regurgitate the original story without knowing the truth.

This, ladies and gentleman, is your mainstream media.

From the original Forbes link:

Without the physical evidence, these allegations are nothing more than rumors–and a serious annoyance for Sarah Palin and her family–until they turn out to be true. Sexual scandals are never positive press for candidates and politicians. If this is true, will Palin crawl back to Alaska with her tail between her legs? Will we have seen the last of the clan in Washington?

One can hope.

But I’d venture a guess that the opposite would happen. While I promise to follow the unfolding drama of Todd Palin’s extra-marital affairs and report back, I’ll also make this prediction: should the rumors prove true, and Todd’s affair with Shailey Tripp become public, rather than lose political ground, I’d say Sarah will gain it. Her Grizzly supporters have stood behind her through much worse offenses than marrying a local yokel.

Oddly enough, Casserly has yet to "report" back.

Media's Palin Expert Weighs In

A year ago he was just some empty-headed hockey player, but now that he's got some (questionable) dirt to dish, he's the go-to guy for all things Sarah Palin. And the media wonders why they're rated lower than politicians.

Sarah Palin skipped out as Alaska's governor due to marital problems she and hubby Todd have had "from day one," Levi Johnston said Monday.

The father of the Palins' grandson Tripp and their daughter Bristol's ex-fiancé declined to give details of what was wrong, but emphatically told RadarOnline.com no infidelity was involved.

"No!" the hockey hunk replied when asked if he thought there was cheating, adding, "I'm not going to get into that."

But asked if he believed the marital problems were serious enough to prompt Palin to step down, Johnston answered just as firmly, "Yeah, I do."How this kid would know what's going on in their home is anybody's guess since he's an absentee father, but when you have a smear campaign to carry out against Palin, why bother with any integrity?

Radar actually promotes this as an exclusive interview.

The New Lepers

Ralph Peters delivers another sledgehammer blow to the reeling New York Times for their disgraceful portrayal of our armed forces as a bunch of psychopathic killing machines.

The Times has been in a slow death spiral for quite some time, but they may never recover credibility after this outrageous piece.

They must realize it since they've not even tried to defend this journalistic malfeasance and there's an odd silence from the left on this.

When you can't even get the hard left Koolaid slurpers to defend you, you know you're standing on the cliff's edge all alone.

Again, the Times' smear certainly wasn't an accident. The paper's staff is highly paid and highly experienced. Its editors know that a serious news story has to put numbers into context. But their sole attempt at context was to note that offenses by former soldiers have ticked up since we went to war.

The Times is trying to make you fear our veterans (Good Lord, if your daughter marries one, she's bound to be beaten to death!). And to convince you that our military would be a dreadful place for your sons and daughters, a death-machine that would turn them into incurable psychopaths.

To a darkly humorous degree, all this reflects the Freudian terrors leftists feel when confronted with men who don't have concave chests. But it goes far beyond that.

Pretending to pity tormented veterans (vets don't want our pity - they want our respect), the Times' feature was an artful example of hate-speech disguised as a public service.

The image we all were supposed to take away from that story was of hopelessly damaged, victimized, infected human beings who've become outcasts from civilized society. The Times cast our vets as freaks from a slasher flick.

The hard left's hatred of our military has deteriorated from a political stance into a pathology: The only good soldier is a dead soldier who can be wielded as a statistic (out of context again). Or a deserter who complains bitterly that he didn't join the Army to fight . . .

Read the whole thing.