Palin Palace Intrigue - UPDATED

The Atlantic Wire's Elspeth Reeve writes, in "Sarah Palin's Web Guru Has Some Opinions About Other Republicans:":

Rebecca Mansour is Sarah Palin's web guru, aggressive online defender, and maybe a little bit of a troll. She's somewhat elusive, and the subject of much fascination among people in the part of the Venn diagram where interests in Palin minutae, Twitter, and gossip overlap. The Atlantic Wire falls into that space, naturally, and that's why The Daily Caller's Jonathan Strong's collection of Mansour's private messages is so fascinating. She indicates her boss was planning to run for president last summer, and that she thinks Mitt Romney is a joke, a conservative blogger is a jerk, and that Bristol Palin is a little bit embarrassing. ...

The second link, above, takes you to another story by Reeve about Mansour; the third to the Daily Caller's story, which omits some of Mansour's tweets about Palin family dynamics.

Is this a story of betrayal? Does Mansour have any direct knowledge of the family dynamics?

This story reminds me of what the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza recently wrote about the fire in Palin's belly: 'We take Palin at her word that she has the requisite “fire in the belly” necessary to run. But does she have her mind wrapped around the mechanics of how (and if) she could turn intrigue over her and her family into actual votes?'

In any case, it's interesting that Reeve has used a Venn diagram to get a better understanding of someone's fans. Update: Reeve is considering people interested in Palin as a set of people. Like any set, that set may contain subsets. Reeve has identified three of those subsets: those interested in Palin minutiae, those interested in Twitter, and those interested in gossip. Reeve's "overlap" is the intersection -- in set theory terms -- of those three subsets.

Update: Mansour last tweeted on the 20th, after a tweet on the 16th. It appears as though her tweet rate has fallen dramatically.

Update: Politico's Andy Barr has written "Heat from tweets for Palin aide," which indicates that it may be some time before anyone knows whether Mansour is still a Palin aide.

Update: Politico's Ben Smith has written, "Don't talk to strangers, Palin edition," in which he tells how he was offered Mansour's tweets last fall by one "Toki de la Vega." Don't you think that he (or she) must be some sort of Spanish explorer -- conquistador? -- with a name like that?

Anyway, Smith also writes, "[W]e and most other outlets would also have printed them [the tweets] had we obtained them, as story does shed light on the inside of Palin's small circle." Did Reeve miss a subset?

Raw JournoList E-Mails on 'Babygate' - Was there a 'liberal conspiracy' to protect Sarah Palin? - Updated!

Here, we see Sarah Palin thinking, fleetingly, just for a moment, "Darn! We can't have it both ways!"

The Daily Caller has published "Raw Journolist emails on 'Palin's Downs Child.'" These are posts by members of JournoList (to the list) concerning stories that Sarah Palin had faked a pregnancy. WikiPedia's entry for Ezra Klein, the founder of JournoList, has this background information about the list:

In February 2007 Klein created a Google Groups forum called "JournoList" for discussing politics and the news media. The forum's membership was controlled by Klein and limited to "several hundred left-leaning bloggers, political reporters, magazine writers, policy wonks and academics." Posts within JournoList were intended only be made and read by its members. Klein defended the forum saying that it "[ensures] that folks feel safe giving off-the-cuff analysis and instant reactions". JournoList member, and Time magazine columnist, Joe Klein added that the off-the-record nature of the forum was necessary because “candor is essential and can only be guaranteed by keeping these conversations private”.

The existence of JournoList was first publicly revealed in a July 27, 2007 blog post by blogger Mickey Kaus. However, the forum did not attract serious attention until March 17, 2009 when an article was published on Politico that detailed the nature of the forum and the extent of its membership. The Politico article set off debate within the Blogosphere over the ethics of participating in JournoList and raised questions about its overall purpose. The first public excerpt of a discussion within JournoList was posted by Mickey Kaus on his blog on March 26, 2009.

Members of JournoList included, among others: Ezra Klein, Jeffrey Toobin, Eric Alterman, Paul Krugman, Joe Klein (no relation to Ezra Klein), Matthew Yglesias, and Jonathan Chait.

On June 25, 2010, Ezra Klein announced in his Washington Post blog that he would be terminating the Journolist group. This decision was instigated by fellow blogger Dave Weigel's resignation from the Post following the public exposure of several of his Journolist emails about conservative media figures.

Klein had justified excluding conservative Republicans from participation as "not about fostering ideology but preventing a collapse into flame war. The emphasis is on empiricism, not ideology".

The 'babygate' posts to JournoList are sorted by date and time, beginning:

Ryan Donmoyer

Aug 30, 2008, 12:07am

I actually hesitate to bring this up…

But is anyone following this:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/29/17933/7330/417/579267 [that story has been deleted]

And ending:

Katha Pollitt

Sept 1, 2008, 12:02pm

I think people are making very narrow harsh judgments about behavior and decisions while pregnant that are not all that unusual. A lot of things look worse on paper than they do in real life. Sarah Palin had been pregnant and delivered four times before Trig. What looks to some j-listers like wild irresponsibility bordering on criminal insanity may have just been her belief that she knew how her body worked and how much time she had before going into full delivery mode. And, if it was her baby, she was right! she didn’t give birth on the plane etc.

In between those two posts, there are many more by well-known members of the media. The consensus that seems to have emerged was that it was a story that should not be covered. The posts are interesting and may provide some insight into why the mainstream media "ignored" the story, as some have claimed; however, the NY Times did mention how the story was received inside the Republican convention hall in 2008 in its story "Palin Daughter's Pregnancy Interrupts Convention Script," which tells why the McCain campaign released news of Bristol's pregnancy, and the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) did describe the "Wild Ride" as well as the scene inside the convention.

Interesting that the "liberal," "biased," "lamestream" media gave Sarah Palin a pass, isn't it? A recent Salon article, "Today's liberal journalist e-mail scandal: They criticized Sarah Palin," is also interesting.

The claims by the right that JournoList is evidence of a liberal media conspiracy don't hold water after reading how members of JournoList didn't run with a story that might have severely damaged the Republicans and Sarah Palin.


Update: Conservative Andrew Sullivan has weighed-in and, apparently, sees something of a conspiracy in the JournoList posts on 'Babygate.' He ends with:

This is your liberal media, ladies and gentlemen: totally partisan, interested in the truth only if it advances their agenda, and devoid of any balls whatsoever. ...

But, Andrew, why didn't they run with the story? Wouldn't a "liberal media" have been delighted to "advance their agenda" and derail McCain's campaign with a story about how Sarah Palin had faked a pregnancy?

People should be aware that conservatives of all stripes are desperately trying to use the existence of JournoList as evidence that an evil, liberal media conspiracy exists. Andrew Sullivan is one of them. Unfortunately, he chose to make a case with the 'babygate' posts to the list, which show that JournoList's members were not part of a liberal conspiracy.

Update: Sarah Palin wrote this about these JournoList posts published by The Daily Caller:

How ironic that on a day when we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, The Daily Caller released 15 pages of JournoListers’ email exchanges about a dark and demented conspiracy regarding my son, Trig.

It’s tough to fittingly describe these numerous members of the mainstream media who actively engaged in the debate about this conspiracy back when I was first introduced as John McCain’s running mate, ...

Did she read the posts? Does she know that none of those JournoList members published a story about the "dark and demented conspiracy?" That they saved her bacon?

CBS has a story about Palin's Facebook post. CBS' story quotes this part of Palin's Facebook post, among others:

This JournoList exchange exposes the warped nature of today's media, thus explaining why many of us are forced, in fairness to the public, to utilize other mediums to communicate until the mainstream media wakes up and begins respecting the public's intelligence and desire for truth in reporting.

By substituting ignorance for intelligence and common-sense for truth in her last sentence, you may understand part of Sarah Palin's problem with the media. "The public" must be Sarah Palin's fans. Sarah Palin's found an excuse to continue to hide-out on Facebook and pontificate on Fox!

Upate: Andrew Sullivan has posted "Journo-List And My Hyperbole."