The Latest News On "Governor Hottie"

(A big hat tip goes out to one of my senior correspondents for the pic.)

Just to recap briefly (the news on Sarah Palin is coming at us “hot and heavy,” as it were – hat tips to Michael Morrill at Keystone Progress for the links)…

She once ran the 527 group of Sen. Ted (“The Internet – It’s A Series Of Tubes!”) Stevens (here).

The FBI didn’t participate in the screening process - was there one? - before she was offered the nomination (here).

For the record, here is a complete list of those considered for the VP slot from the “2008 GOP Convention Surrogate Background Book” (basically, the individuals considered not worthy versus the Alaska governor):

Nancy Pfotenhauer
Douglas Holtz-Eakin
Tim Pawlenty
Lindsey Graham
Sen. Joe Lieberman
Rick Davis
Charlie Black
Carly Fiorina
Frank Donatelli
Mitt Romney
Rudy Giuliani
Tom Ridge
Mike Huckabee
Norm Coleman
Meg Whitman
Michael Steele
Mel Martinez
Charlie Crist
Sam Brownback
Fred Thompson

Also, I wanted to take note of the following item from this article by Adam Nagourney in the New York Times today about Palin and the aftermath of her selection…

In many ways, how the country will react to the pregnancy of Ms. Palin’s 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is more a sociological question than a political one. Yes, many officials in both parties — including Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, Mr. McCain’s Democratic opponent — were quick on Monday to say that the private lives of candidates should be strictly off limits.

But this clearly stands as a challenge to the traditional image of a potential first family, and could well provide fodder for provocative conversations around kitchen tables or sly references in the late-night television comic-sphere. It will test again what voters deem private, at a time when the Web has pulled down so many curtains, and what in these times is considered a normal family life.

Uh…excuse me?

Yes, the proliferation of web content over the last few years and the means of generating, distributing, and accessing that content, for better or worse, is an everyday fact of life. Along with distributing information efficiently, it has changed the nature of that information, allowing incorrect or what you could call salacious material to replicate itself everywhere along with all of the good material that has heightened and informed our dialogue.

However, how anyone could blame “the web” for the lowering of our discourse in the 1990s in the era of the pornographic “Starr Report” is something that I cannot imagine. As nearly as I can determine, blogs didn’t first start springing up until about the end of the previous decade, and they became a cottage industry of sorts under President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History. Basically, the nature of our discourse had been in decline for quite some time before the web accelerated the process.

And even though the subject of this post has since been discredited, what I pointed out here remains an example of thoroughly disingenuous “reporting” by Nagourney that helps to lower our discourse every bit as much as the preoccupation on the part of the media or anyone else with a personal scandal involving a newsworthy person.

Yes, the personal life of Bristol Palin should be off limits, as well as that of any minor who happens to have a governor of a state in this country for a parent. However, what this says about the “values” of people who wish to intrude on people’s personal lives as opposed to practicing actual governance really is what matters here, and that should be noted (as Philadelphia Daily News columnist Ronnie Polaneczky does here).