Yesterday, Sean Sullivan at Chris Cillizza’s The Fix column at The Washington Post ran the following paragraph in a story titled 5 moments that show why Margaret Thatcher mattered in American politics:
5) Spurning Sarah Palin: In 2011, the Guardian newspaper reported that Thatcher would not be meeting with Sarah Palin during Palin’s trip to London. “Lady Thatcher will not be seeing Sarah Palin. That would be belittling for Margaret. Sarah Palin is nuts,” the paper quoted one Thatcher ally as saying. The rejection sparked an outcry among conservatives in the United States, lending a great deal of attention to the non-meeting.
Cillizza tweeted that the column was a “smart piece.” Rather, it was just a cheap shot at Palin. (Ann Coulter took a similar swipe at Palin but did not recite the specific language quoted in The Guardian.)
More important, that claim by the Guardian has been shown at best to be dubious and more likely to be false. Others who have made the claim have retracted it. The Independent in Britain noted at the time that Mrs.Thatcher was not receiving guests because of ill health and did not even attend a ceremony in her honor. Even Politico, when running that claim yesterday, noted that it was disputed, yet they ran it without noting the dispute. A simple Google search would have alerted them that the story was in doubt.
I tweeted both Cillizza and Sullivan, asking for a retraction or at least to note the claim was in dispute. I could not find their email addresses, but since they are both active on Twitter and since the story also was picked up at Twitchy and widely tweeted, I assume they are aware.
@FixSean you printed a bogus Thatcher/Palin story http://t.co/uRajgM5GQD retract it like @BilgeEbiri did http://t.co/8wnOrpGrkI
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) April 8, 2013
.@thefix U ran a bogus story today, going to correct it? twitter.com/LegInsurrectio…
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) April 8, 2013
.@thefix @fixsean 2d req 2 retract bogus Thatcher/Palin story twitter.com/LegInsurrectio… even @politico noted doubts is.gd/O2ijr5
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) April 9, 2013
As of this writing, they have not made the correction.
It’s not about Sarah Palin. It’s about how the mainstream media — unfortunately sometimes assisted by our own “side” — creates and perpetuates false narratives.
And they wonder why trust in the mainstream media is at a historic low.
Update: Dubious Thatcher-Palin story fixed by @TheFix
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I have friends, family and professional acquaintances all across the political spectrum, and have had them for quite a while. I’m familiar with the arguments of the Libertarian types, the Conservative, the Partyliners, the Liberal, the Hard Left and the Occupy Crowd.
The problem the Main Stream Media have, is that they don’t exist in a vacuum, and they don’t know it. The level of respect I have for those types is the same I have for OTHER political types who refuse to try to understand other viewpoints, who lie regularly, get caught regularly, and show no remorse ever.
I know people like them, and interact with them daily. But the media act most like the small fraction I would not invite to my home…
I was surprised to see that Ann Coulter mouthed that old canard.
Sometimes, Ann, keeping your mouth shut is a really FINE idea.
No doubt, Coulter is an intelligent woman, but jealousy can reduce a person to talking like a darn fool.
There’s one small problem with Ann’s claim that Lady Thatcher reached out to Governor Palin. Lady T was suffering dementia by the time McCain invited Palin on the campaign, and for several years before.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/profiles/2652365/Profile-Carol-Thatcher-daughter-of-the-revolution.html