Ben Smith Uncovers Vicious Smear Campaign Against Trig

Trig Palin is a hot commodity, and when you say he's at places he's definitely not, you have to answer to Ben Smith! Ben Smith did not care for the Journalism in that Vanity Fair Sarah Palin piece, as we noted yesterday, but now he has done some digging and found out Trig wasn't even at an event the piece said he was at. It turns out the Down Syndrome baby at that event was just some random Down Syndrome baby, and not Trig, who commands a hefty $100,000-a-pop speaking rate and won't even step foot in Missouri and risk being compared to his political rival, Roy Blunt.

The problem: Trig wasn't at the event, according to its organizer, Karladine Graves, a 61-year-old Kansas City physician, who, in 2009, founded one of the wave of new local conservative groups, this one called Preserving American Liberty. The "woman, perhaps a nanny," was the boy's mother, St. Louis talk radio host Gina Loudon, according to Graves.

...

Graves also said the reporter never asked her if the boy was Trig and that she never got a call from a Vanity Fair fact checker. (She also said she largely declined to cooperate with the story in the first place, which, as with the general Palin coverage, is an explanation for inaccuracy without being an excuse for it.)

"I was disappointed because the article is not true," she said. "Trig wasn't even at the event."

Disappointed, eh? No, you are disappointed you didn't get a piece of that Trig star power at your event. And that's why you probably implied to the Vanity Fair guy that you landed Sarah Palin AND Trig at your event.

Trig's people, interestingly, have been totally silent on this issue (unlike Sarah's). But Trig has his eyes on the prize. This is the time to float above it all and expand that Trig brand, not touch the divisive issues. He doesn't need to deign to weigh into these petty media squabbles. And he knows Ben Smith will have his back anyway. [ Politico ]