New Lows for an Old Bottom-Dweller
It seems that you can't teach an old dog new tricks.
Why WRTV, a respected Indianapolis television station, would want to dignify a blog (and a "commentator") that utilizes phrases like "MILF" and "GILF" is beyond me; maybe they expected it when they hired her. It wasn't like she didn't have a record of going low (placing the social security numbers and bank account routing numbers of political opponents up on the internet, as just one example).
They probably didn't expect the whole vulgar slang acronym thing to come along with it.
The internet is ripe with rumors of all kinds, about all sorts of people. Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Barack Obama, and now Sarah Palin have all been the target of a variety of vicious internet rumors that have yet to be substantiated by facts.
First came the smears about Trig Palin not being Sarah Palin's son, but instead the son of Palin's daughter Bristol. The origin of these rumors appears to be a photo in which Bristol Palin looked somehow pregant (because of a quirk of her posture) and her mother (with her family standing in front of her) didn't.
I still can't see it, though.
This photo, in turn, sort of dispelled all of that (though some on lefty blogs opined that Governor Palin must have been wearing a fat suit, and still others speculated that the whole thing was a plot by Karl Rove to make them look stupid): 
But the irrational smear-frenzy hasn't stopped.
From the people that brought you the "Grandson Trig Palin" non-story and the "it's all a plot by Karl Rove" theory comes speculation that Bristol Palin's boyfriend and the real unborn Palin grandson is ten years older than her.
Aiding in the spreading of this latest nuttery? Jen Wagner and WRTV in Indianapolis, with a healthy dash of vulgar slang acronyms added in on an ostensibly family-friendly site for good measure. The title of the post appears on the front page of the network's website, and I'd normally assume that WRTV likes to have as family-friendly a website as possible.
What uncomfortable questions such acronyms must raise, and uncomfortable shifting in chairs it must cause from a lot of people that aren't used to seeing that sort of stuff at all, let alone on a news website (regardless of how ingrained it might be in more net-centric and youth-centric culture). Typically, a basic level of decorum and civil discourse is expected on the official websites of local ABC affiliates.
I mean, hey, in this photo Jen Wagner looks about as pregnant as Bristol Palin did in the one above (that's Jim Schellinger with her in the photo; he still hasn't endorsed Jill Long Thompson):
Maybe she's got some questions to answer!
And when she's answered those, I bet there are more to be asked!
By tomorrow, the feeding-frenzy media will know who Bristol Palin's boyfriend is. They'll know his age, his height and weight, his hair and eye color, and they'll know that he farted in church real loud that one time ten years ago.
And by then, the bottom-dwellers on the internet will have yet more questions, and they will complain that the McCain campaign hasn't vetted Sarah Palin properly because it didn't ask them. Is this Levi really the father? Maybe incest was involved? Maybe she's a surrogate mother? Maybe it's another Levi? There have to be a lot of Levis in Wasilla; maybe they mean Old Man Levi, the dirty crusty hermit that lives in a cabin out on a hilltop north of the city, looking down on Whoville with a sour grinchy frown, hating the Whos.
Anyway, heck, in the time it took me to write this, all of the questions about Bristol Palin's boyfriend, one 18-year-old hockey-playing Levi Johnston in her same high school class, were answered. He's been with Bristol "more than a year," and apparently they're "already engaged." He's also got a criminal record, having been caught salmon fishing out of season. The horror!
My money is still on more internet rumors, and more stupid questions derived from those rumors, though. Tomorrow will bring new invented absurdities about Sarah Palin, and more invented absurdities about Barack Obama and every other candidate. Only the ones about Sarah Palin will be the subject of media feeding frenzies, though.
