Alabama liberals - yes there are a few - got their panties in a wad this week when someone started a rumor that Troy King, Alabama’s Attorney General, “is resigning.”  The rationale given by these individuals was that King had been caught engaging in a homosexual encounter.

I’m not going to speculate as to whether King is or isn’t going to resign (word is that he is not).  I don’t personally care about his sexual orientation (my sources deny that he is gay).  I’m not even a fan of his (I endorsed and voted for his Democrat opponent in the 2006 election).  However, I think that the manner in which this story has circulated has been egregiously reckless.

As Danny - easily the most “connected” Alabama blogger - put it, the story is “thinly sourced.”  I think that is being generous.  Right now all that we have are the farthest left of the political spectrum, people who were itching for a reason to go after King, citing unnamed, supposedly reliable sources that have thus far proven decidedly unreliable.  This includes such noted luminaries as Glynn Wilson (he’s got credentials!) - the man who brought us Dana Jill Simpson.  Wilson is known to have a fleeting relationship with the truth and a political axe to grind.  Actual news outlets have not written a single word about the alleged scandal, despite numerous assurances from the leftists that such a story was immediately forthcoming.  Funny how organizations that have to adhere to ethical standards don’t publish rumors, isn’t it?

The allegations about King may prove to be completely true - but they also may prove to be wholly unsubstantiated.  Given the extreme gravity that such allegations have in our society bloggers should exercise more caution.  I would suggest that, if unsubstantiated, the claims cross the line of “actual malice” in terms of defaming the AG.

One thing that strikes me as a bit amusing is the way that the Democrats pushing this rumor seem to take considerable glee in calling Republicans gay.  The Democrat Party is supposed to be a tolerant, gay friendly party, after all.  Instead they frequently use shouts of “he’s gay!” as weapons against political adversaries as though being gay was despicable, which seems a bit at odds with their proclaimed values.  Just last month the kids at Left in Alabama continued spreading rumors that Florida Governor Charlie Crist is gay.  Of course Crist is now engaged - to a woman.  Democrats are quick to tell you that there is nothing wrong with being gay and that it should be accepted as perfectly normal.  If that is the case then why use it as a weapon and call it “embarassing” (sic)?  Maybe Larry Darby wasn’t an aberration in that party.

Update:  The honorable and decent Glynn Wilson of the illustrious and world renowned Locust Fork Blog has magnanimously backed down from the rhetoric ever so slightly.  He even deleted some sexually charged comments from his blog, which is an improvement as he typically only deletes comments he disagrees with.

[A] couple of Republican bloggers are now trying to convince me that the story on King is only partially true, and that he will be denying it in some fashion soon. It will be interesting to see what venue that takes.

As far as I’m concerned, I don’t care if he’s gay or not.

This entire episode should go down as a lesson for those who use personal attacks on people’s sexuality for political purposes. It’s disgusting, but that’s how Karl Rove won many of the political races he ran, including George W. Bush’s defeat of Ann Richards for governor of Texas.

That’s called hedging, folks.  Wilson realizes he may be wrong, although he’ll never admit it.  He appears to be lecturing himself in an indirect manner since he was one of the individuals using a personal attack on someone’s sexuality for political purposes (he loathes Republicans).  We’ll see if he learned his lesson, but I won’t hold my breath.

And for anyone who would blame the blogosphere for this, the rumor mill was around a long time before the Web or even the printing press. Yellow journalism ruled in the 1800s, word of mouth and fake pictures worked well enough for George Wallace, Rove took it to another level altogether, and now we have e-mail and blogs.

Since the churches are not even very Christian in the way they are passing around rumors about Obama being a Muslim on their tax exempt e-mail lists with faith-based federal tax money, a practice Obama wants to expand even though he’s been on the wrong end of it, we should not have any sanctimonious hand-wringing about the lefty blogs or the nutroots.

Every bit of this story was driven by lawyers in Montgomery, one of the dirtiest towns for politics in America. And King does not deserve much in the way of sympathy. His past comments about gays and his fervor to kill people in prison and his unethical acceptance of gifts should be enough to disqualify him for public office anyway.

This is rich even for Wilson.  His comment is typical of the hate blinded left who can’t even think without an image of Karl Rove dancing in front of them.  His defense?  (Paraphrasing) “Don’t blame me!  I’m part of the rich history of rumor mongers.  And Karl Rove did it, damn it!”  Wilson once intoned to me and others that he only deals with facts.  It seems that once again that little claim has been shot to hell (again) as he is using his space for National Enquirer caliber material.

Wilson isn’t man enough to just admit he crossed the line and stop.  No sir.  He has to go down flailing wildly.  First he swings at Karl Rove who, as best I can tell, has absolutely nothing to do with this story.  Then he attacks churches.  Then he goes after lawyers (that’s ok, Glynn, I’m not a big fan of them either).  In other words it is everyone’s fault but his own.  Typical liberal drivel.  Take no responsibility for your own actions.  Plus, Wilson personally thinks King isn’t fit to serve (even though a majority of Alabamians differed on that point), so that further justifies saying anything he wants without any proof.  It would be funny if he wasn’t damaging a real person’s reputation.

You also have to like his “fervor to kill people in prison” quip.  It certainly isn’t the most accurate statement.  Troy King does stridently support the death penalty, as do I, but not just for “people in prison.”  No.  Only for the most heinous of criminals who earn their punishment by ruthlessly killing others.  (King also supports the death penalty for child rapists, but the Supreme Court saw fit that that wouldn’t happen.)  Wilson would have you think that King wants to indiscriminately kill off prisoners.  You see, Wilson is using a technique that only a few “journalists” as learned as himself can attempt.  He thinks that gratuitously mischaracterizing a person’s beliefs when they conflict with your own is acceptable when your goal is to bias readers against the person in question.  What a consummate professional!

Oh well, another news day has passed and all of the liberal’s prognostications about impending articles from certain publications are still untrue.  But don’t think all of them are as restrained as the good Mr. Wilson.  Now some are gloating that they were able to get King removed from John McCain’s website.  Stay classy, guys.

I also found this comment on the celebrity gossip site PerezHilton.com:

Yep, another hypocritical Republican… send him to IRAQ to fight his precious war & bring back our BRAVE SOLDIERS!
Impeach Bush
Impeach Bush
Impeach Bush today.
Thank you.

Very typical.  And very sad.  I hate to see such an advanced case of BDS.  Can you imagine a converstaion with that guy?  You might mention Brett Favre’s possible comeback for a team other than the Packers and this fool would blame Rove or Bush.

Reactionary Update:

Neal Boortz just reported (July 16) on the Troy King rumor: IMO he wanted to believe the rumor because he doesn’t like King, noting that King enforces the “sex toy” law (which was proposed and passed by Democrats BTW). But, after a little last minute research, Boortz decided to back off, concluding that until a credible news organization reports a story or until King holds a press conference, he will stay away from the story.

IMO had Boortz bit on the rumor, he would have been dropped by WVNN by day’s end. For my part, I already had the WVNN phone number dialed in ready to hit ’send’.

 

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This entry was posted by Brian on Friday, July 11th, 2008 at 10:21 pm and is filed under Alabama, Angry Left, Blogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.