Schmidt now claiming media asking if Sarah will take paternity test

[RamboLiberal]

From an insider and longtime friend of the site ...

Either McCain's vetting process was a complete sham. Or his press operation is the worst in modern presidential politics history. Or some unholy blend of both.

Campbell Brown isn't the story - people are underestimating her, as they always have. No, the story is that Tucker Bounds went on national television without material to answer what is maybe the simplest, most straightforward follow-up question any reporter can ask: "What's your evidence for that assertion?" And I suspect that the reason they canceled Larry King is not to punish CNN (it doesn't work that way) it's that they still couldn't come up with an answer to the question by the time his show aired.

Now look at this comment from McCain honcho Steve Schmidt to Katie Couric last night: "Members of this campaign went to off-the-record lunches with reporters today, and they were asked if she would do paternity tests to prove paternity for her last child. Smear after smear after smear, and it's disgraceful and it's wrong. And the American people are going to reject it overwhelmingly when they see her."

First of all, that's the first time I've heard anyone in the campaign/political press throw out the notion of paternity tests. So Schmidt is to blame for bringing that issue into the mainstream. If anyone is smearing the candidate, it's Schmidt. This is as cynical a tactic as I've ever seen in politics.

Secondly, how can it be a "smear" if it was during an off the record lunch with McCain campaign aides?

Thirdly, hey, colleagues, you're on notice: Steve Schmidt does not respect "off the record." Watch your backs, my friends.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

I don't believe this for a second. I don't see MSM going there unless it was some fringe reporter!

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Very Rove. Schmidt has to name names of "the media".

[WCGreen]

5. It's a NAZI technique...

Blame some massive non personalized "enemy" just so that there can be an enemy.

[TwilightGardener]

2. I would LOVE for the GOP to start screaming about paternity tests--

let THEM make this horrid soap opera bigger and better!! BWAH!!

[Prefer]

3. Must be the "Liberal Media" - there they go again...

Have they no shame?
:sarcasm:

[Egnever]

4. Wow its like they are trying to piss off the media

These guys arent used to having to justify anything and now that they are being lightly questioned they are losing their minds.

It is becoming quite the spectacle.

[truebrit71]

6. The best defense is a good offense...methinks the McCain camp his finally finished their "vetting"..

...and come to the realisation that there are many, MANY more skeletons in the Palin closet and are trying to pre-emptively head off any further investigation into them by the media by pulling the "Evil liberal media" card...

[A-Schwarzenegger]

7. Blaming the press is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

See: Nixon.

[RamboLiberal]

8. In an extraordinary and emotional interview

"In an extraordinary and emotional interview, Steve Schmidt said his campaign feels 'under siege' by wave after wave of news inquiries that have questioned whether Palin is really the mother of a 4-month-old baby, whether her amniotic fluid had been tested and whether she would submit to a DNA test to establish the child's parentage," Kurtz writes. Said Schmidt: "We are being bombarded by e-mails and phone calls from journalists asking when she will be dropping out of the race."

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TheNote/Story?id=3105288&page=2

[Ichingcarpenter]

9. She already had one since the fetus was diagnosed with Downs syndrome

The initial signs of Downs syndrome are facial malformations hypotonia, a flat face, a short nose, upward and slanted eyelid openings and epicanthic folds.


The initial signs of Fetal Alcohol syndrome are slight but classic: facial malformations such as a flat and high upper lip, small eye openings, a small head and a short nose.

[progressivebydesign]

11. no, the question was if it was her child... you're making assumptions. n/t

[Ichingcarpenter]

14. I think I gave a hint

With the fetal alcohol syndrome and who has been the party animal in the family.

[CampDem]

18. I have been wondering if Trig is FAS

nt

[underpants]

10. Might've worked if they lead with the victim card...but not now

Sorry

[RamboLiberal]

12. Kurtz

Some journalists, Schmidt said, have demanded to see Trig's birth certificate, or have asked when Palin went into labor and whether her contractions increased or decreased as she traveled from Texas to an Alaskan hospital in her home town, Wasilla. Others, he said, have asked whether Palin's eldest son, Track, who serves in the Army and is deploying to Iraq, is a drug addict. "Categorically false," Schmidt said, adding: "This is crazy."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/02/AR2008090203144_2.html?sid=ST2008090301716&s_pos=

[CampDem]

13. The media is on to something IMO

Like another DUer pointed out today in another thread, why has the doctor's name been removed from the hospital website where Trig was born?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6882617

[DerekJ]

15. WOW if the insinuation that stems from this article is true, it won't only take Palin out of

politics for the rest of her life, it will take McCain campaign down with it.

[JaneQPublic]

16. Paternity test or Maternity test?

I didn't do real well in biology, but wouldn't it be real hard for her to father a child?

[CampDem]

17. ha ha

Yeah, and if they find that Trig's daddy is the little hockey boy "sex on skates" what lie will they tell next. Sarah didn't fake the pregnancy, she is just a cougar?
:popcorn: