Was my suspicion of Nicole Wallace misguided? Maybe.
I now condemn Fox News and Carl Cameron. Fox News is foregoing a principled decision to burn an anonymous source who lied to them. Such is an injustice to viewers.
Fox News took dubious, illogical, unsourced information - which could be instantly sniffed out as bull@#$% from a bleacher seat in Fort Worth - and reported it with the same credulousness they use in reporting foreign affairs. This is National Enquirer territory.
When anonymous sources lie to you, you burn them by naming names. The Africa thing is enough of a lie to burn the source. It's now reported that Palin was going through debate prep and she verbal gaffed and said "the country of Africa". This was no intellectual gaffe. It was a verbal gaffe as she was moving through information. The mischaracterization of the verbal gaffe is enough reason to burn the source. So is the "doesn't know countries in NAFTA" lie.
That Fox News is not burning the source indicates to me that the source is high up, and Fox News wants to retain a source of future information in future Repub Campaigns. Meanwhile, Fox News allows Sarah Palin to twist in the wind.
It would be a hard decision for Fox News to burn what could be a valuable future source. However, Fox News' decision to play with the big boys amounts to a declaration they will make hard and principled decisions when necessary. That Fox News is foregoing the principled decision is an injustice to their viewers.
Carl Cameron and Fox News made a bad decision. That's not a horrible thing. To err is human. But they need to fix it. Now.
Note: the original Notes on Palin hit sparked this Free Republic comment thread.
Note II: Baldilocks calls, as one honorable military person to another, for Sen. McCain to defend Governor Palin.
Note III: Backlash defending Sarah Palin is growing. We may be seeing a Tex Schramm type effect:
Praise us, criticize us, whichever - the publicity benefits us either way.
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