Sarah Palin received hundreds of death threats while she was Governor. And most American media organs are silent.

Sarah Palin e-mails

On Thursday, the Alaska governor’s office released 25,000 e-mails (give or take a thousand) to dozens of news organs. The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, and The Baltimore Sun are among them.

The Times and the Post hired (or recruited as volunteers) thousands of their readers to help them sift through the e-mails. So they should know what is in them, as fast as, or faster than, any other news organ.

The Times and the Post each published reports on what the e-mails showed. They found Palin ambitious, defensive, and throwing herself into her job as Governor. The Herald’s report suggests that Palin was angling for the Vice Presidential nomination as early as February of 2008. The Herald, especially, makes much of Palin’s words, in her memoir Going Rogue, that she never thought that anyone would seriously nominate her for that position.

But the Sun reports something very embarrassing to Sarah Palin’s opponents. Ever since Sarah Palin got the nomination for Vice President, hundreds of people threatened her with death.

Details of the death threats

Sarah Palin visits members of the Alaska National Guard on duty in Kuwait. Photo: A Second Hand Conjecture. CC BY 2.0 Generic License.

The Sun gives details on two of the threats. On September 12, 2008, a resident of Antwerp, Belgium, wrote that Sarah Palin ought to be shot to death, and that

only on that moment justice will be accomplished.

In addition, one Dominique Villacrouz, location unknown, said that Sarah Palin was a racist and, had she been a man, would have joined the Ku Klux Klan.

She doesn’t belong to the NRA to support the right of each citizen to have weapons in an aim of self-defence, but just to support the right of every Southern white citizen to shoot all non-white people legally! Sarah Palin MUST BE KILLED!

On September 17, 2008, a resident of Juneau, AK, sent an e-mail to Sarah Palin, an e-mail full of obscenities. That message said that Sarah Palin should be

shot from one of the planes that shoot th [sic] the very wolves that you ordered.

This report appeared at 3:25 p.m. Eastern time yesterday. Another report giving the same details appeared in The Daily Telegraph (London, UK) at 9:00 a.m. British time, or 4:00 a.m. Eastern time. More recently, this report appeared on the Web site of an Australian TV station. It gave details on two of the three death threats that the Sun mentioned. The Times of India also mentioned the threats, in passing.

Did anyone else mention the death threats?

A few other media organs mention them. Most don’t. Incredibly, The New York Times and The Washington Post do not mention them at all.

No one suggests that the three death threats that the Sun and the Telegraph described were the only ones that Sarah Palin received. So why did the two most prominent media organs fail to mention them?

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Many politicians receive death threats from those who simply do not agree with them. One might infer that State police departments (or, where applicable, the FBI) never investigate them. After all, no one seriously believes that more than a few of those who make such threats really mean to carry them out, or even can carry them out. But that does not make death threats any less serious. For that reason, State Police departments and/or the FBI do investigate death threats. They make sure that no one is likely to carry them out before they drop the cases and move on.

The old-line media are very quick to mention any death threats that a liberal politician receives. We see now that two of the oldest of the old-line organs refused to mention the death threats against Sarah Palin. Recall that The New York Times and The Washington Post hired or recruited people to help read the e-mails. So they must have seen them. If The Baltimore Sun had not mentioned them, or The Daily Telegraph had an alert Los Angeles bureau, maybe no one would have.

What are they trying to cover up?

The motive is more than cover-up. By publicly recruiting amateur research assistants, the Times and the Post tried to protect their image of Sarah Palin as unintelligent and unfit for higher office, or even the office she once held. Death threats only create sympathy for the target. They know this. So they thought that if they didn’t mention it, no one would think to check.

And so their embarrassment is complete. They filed the requests to get the e-mails, and then asked for help from a pool of true believers having more in common with the diarists of The Daily Kos than with ordinary Americans. Then they found nothing that would embarrass Sarah Palin. But they found other things that embarrass her opponents. And they thought they could keep quiet. But they forgot about:

1. The foreign media, and
2. The alternative media here at home.

Not to mention at least one less-prominent organ that decided to be honest.

When the old-line media dissemble like this, they shouldn’t wonder why they are losing readers.

Featured image: Sarah Palin speaks at Dover, NH. Photo: Roger H. Goun, CC BY 2.0 Generic License.