Bristol Palin Smear Spreads Across State
An e-mail smear targeting the seventeen year-old daughter of GOP vice-presidential pick Sarah Palin is burning up South Carolina inboxes – and may have originated from a South Carolina public school e-mail account.
According to a copy of the e-mail (entitled “Sarah Palin’s Drunken Daughter”) obtained exclusively by FITSNews, five pictures alleged to portray Palin’s underage daughter possessing alcoholic beverages (and one allegedly portraying her holding a gun) were attached to the following message:
“(P)ics of Sarah Palin’s knocked up daughter Bristol kicking it. Yeah boozing it up is pretty standard for a seventeen year-old, especially in Alaska where it seems like there ain’t crap to do, but damn…if your mom is a politician don’t be dumb enough to have your (expletive deleted) posted online. Poor thang… But wait – How do you think this whole teenage pregnancy thing would’ve went down, if it was Obama’s kids?
Ironically, we broke a story last year about anonymous e-mails smearing Obama which were later featured prominently in a national television segment.
The e-mail account from which this particular message appears to have originated belongs to an employee of Richland County School District One, a public school system located in Columbia, S.C.
In fact, the disclaimer below the original e-mail specifically identifies the school system and states that “Richland County School District One provides employee e-mail access for administrative and instructional uses only. E-mail correspondence to/from Richland County School District One is considered public information and is subject to release under the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act or pursuant to subpoena.”
Calls to Richland District One seeking comment were not immediately returned.
The “Sarah Palin’s Drunken Daughter” e-mail – which began making the rounds yesterday morning – quickly ended up in thousands of e-mail inboxes across the state, including e-mail addresses at the South Carolina Department of Education, Department of Mental Healthm Midlands Technical College, the City of Columbia and Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina.
One Blue Cross Blue Shield employee, who forwarded the message to at least a dozen of her co-workers, referred to Palin’s daughter as a “drunk heifer,” and a “lil’ loose.”
Within hours, the e-mails were being forwarded to individuals and businesses all over the state.
FITSNews has confirmed that the five pictures attached to the original e-mail (included below) are not, in fact, images of Bristol Palin, and we have sent an e-mail to the alleged author of that e-mail requesting additional information regarding the contents of her widely-read missive.
Obviously, it’s one thing to spread trashy, misleading e-mails about a vice-presidential candidate, but an underage minor? On a state-owned computer? During taxpayer business hours?
Hmmm …
We’re used to South Carolina public schools routinely breaking the law regarding e-mail usage (and our State Ethics Commission ignoring those violations), but this strikes us as a new low.
Developing …
Comments
By RepublicanGoneAmuck on September 4th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C. Leave the child alone, already.
By RepublicanGoneAmuck on September 4th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Riddle me this, though: wonder if it could be a sympathy ploy for the Repub. ticket — started by a Repub?
Bristol is not on the ticket. Good Grief.
By dj on September 4th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
hahaha lol!!! man…what a bunch of loons…ya know…its really getting out of hand. and if FITnews does nothing to expose this corruption from the school system or teacher or whoever it was…you will no longer be revelent. did i spell that right? taxpayers money at its best..way to go sc education system
By blondie on September 4th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
The real problem here is that a school district employee has time to send ridiculous emails to other government employees. All the more reason to open the books on school spending and take a look at how much money is going toward “administrative and instructional uses.”
By Amazed on September 4th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
If it is public information, then the name of the “sender” should be something that could be released. I say, expose this person by name, and then the district will HAVE to deal with it.
By Cindy on September 4th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
It is not even Bristol Palin.
Report REAL stories not fabricated stories.
If these are truly being sent by a government employee they need to be fired, I do not want my tax dollars used for private emails.
By philly on September 4th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
This is so fake and stupid it will make the front page of the New York Times.
By Dialla on September 5th, 2008 at 12:18 am
They don’t know how to hold a gun, obviously city folk that fancy themselves to be country folk.
Don’t blame them, city life sucks.
By jed on September 5th, 2008 at 12:33 am
Wait… isn’t half (or maybe 51%) of this whole blog about exploiting and exploring women ranging from the A-list all the way down to the E- or F-list? Why is it suddenly super-sensitive when the incorrect innuendo is about the second-daughter to be? Sure she’s only 17, but she clearly wants to be and is being treated like an adult. …and Bristol is definitely a story, between the abstinence eduction she received from her mom and her mother’s subsequent “respecting” of Bristol’s choice to keep her baby (a choice she intends to deny other pregnant women of all ages), it’s a legitimate issue and should be discussed. It goes directly to character and/or hypocrisy.
As for the school employee, that was just stupid. That’s what gmail is for. But you worked in the Statehouse Willie… did you never use your state-issued computer shop on Amazon or surf any of your hot-n-sleazy fav blogs on the state-provided bandwidth while you were there?
By fitsnews on September 5th, 2008 at 12:42 am
Jed-
You mean when Sic wasn’t having threesomes on the governor’s desk with excruciatingly hot TV babes? Yeah … maybe he looked at a “hot-n-sleazy fav blog” or two.
Actually only once was inappropriate material ever accessed from Sic’s state computer, and it was a Russian mail order bride website that was pulled up by somebody who knows exactly who they are …
Lefty pitcher, where you at?
Anyway, the girl’s seventeen. Other than when Jamie Lynn got pregnant, we haven’t gone there.
-FITSNews
By Rick on September 5th, 2008 at 7:57 am
Great reporting Flitnews…you’ll release pictures that aren’t Bristol Palin and say it is, but you won’t cover the Chelsea Clinton abortion. That’s fair and balanced…
By rick on September 5th, 2008 at 8:09 am
The issue at hand is the falsity of the information and the damage it’s done. We live in a country that prides itself on fairness and giving the benefit of the doubt. Sounds like an employee needs to be fired, message list accessed, and another e-mail send regarding the abuse and misinformation it contained. We won’t hear a correction on the LameStream Media, and thats wrong. McCain/Palin…..hang in there Bristol, the mouth breathers will have something else to do soon.
By fitsnews on September 5th, 2008 at 8:21 am
It’s obviously not Bristol Palin, which we said in the article, people. That’s the point – that somebody took the time to find pictures of a bunch of girls who resemble her to put into an e-mail slamming her … and did so on the taxpayer dime.
Look, we’re not partisan. We covered the same precise form of political attack when people were doing it to Obama last year.
Our only point here is somebody did this to a minor … using our money.
By Rick on September 5th, 2008 at 8:36 am
So can you cover the Chelsea Clinton abortion too? No taxpayer dollars involved that I know of…
By racerchaser on September 5th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
‘would’ve went down’ – GREAT GRAMMAR! And this came from a SCHOOL…a southern school? Hmmmm, doesn’t surprise me one bit!
Not only do they spew lies, they show their ignorance as well!
By A Teacher on September 5th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Oh no! I’m a teacher using a school computer for personal use! In defense of the remaining eleventy kabillion teachers who did NOT send this email out, one goofball doing something mean and stupid (which it was) isn’t really a reflection of all teachers. Some of us do use the computers for personal surfing though, after school, including viewing this site…
By dave on September 5th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
The brave democrats take on a 17 year old girl. Is this something Joe Biden wrote or is it more plagarized material. I am laughing so loud, the neighbors upstairs are complaining.
By baker on September 5th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Yeah, “A Teacher,” it appears that Will is really reaching here to suggest a wider no-no on the part of liberals or, even worse, those SC public schools, which are in his view a monolith, after all.
Of course, it could be just one “goofball,” as you say, exhibiting unclassy behavior.
And, of course, while this person perhaps should be punished — for horrendous grammar, if nothing else — it’s also not a crime, in my opinion, for public employees to use their e-mail accounts for some personal purposes. I would even guess lots and lots and lots of government employees use their e-mail accounts to express political opinions.
By RueDee on September 6th, 2008 at 3:27 am
Mccain & news photographers would NOT have met the preggers daughter & boyfriend on the Minnesota tarmac without mom Sarah’s willingness to exploit her daughter’s condition. Shame on the mom.
By Aquinas on September 6th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Okay Jed, let’s discuss: you said, “between the abstinence eduction she received from her mom and her mother’s subsequent ‘respecting’ of Bristol’s choice to keep her baby (a choice she intends to deny other pregnant women of all ages), it’s a legitimate issue and should be discussed. It goes directly to character and/or hypocrisy.”
Whose character and/or hypocrisy are you referring to – Bristol’s or Sarah’s? That a 17 year old allows the baby to mature to term speaks volumes about her character. Would most fair minded people of good will prefer that Bristol waited until marriage before becoming sexually active? Of course. As the release from her parents stated, she is going to have to grow up a little sooner now that she has the responsibility of another life. I can’t quite see any hypocrisy there, so let’s focus on the Governor. There’s nothing wrong with holding a high standard and not always living up to it. News flash: it’s called being human. The difference is, do you as an individual admit the mistake and continue to struggle to live up the ideal, or do you lower the bar and not worry about any standards at all? Governor Pailn and her husband have obviously set high standards for their children. Just because a child fails to live up to a parent’s ideals is no reason to castigate the ideal itself, or the person who claims to want to live by it.
Now to the “choice†issue. I think Obama himself summed it up most tellingly when he told Pastor Rick Warren that the question of when a baby receives human rights was beyond his pay grade. For all the vaulted rhetoric about his Harvard education, common sense must not have come with the senator’s degree. Common sense tells us that if someone is hunting and doesn’t know whether what’s moving behind the bush is a bear or a man, he should refrain from shooting until he is sure. Doubt, in other words, leads to an abundance of caution, not an abandonment of it. People like Obama may claim not to decide, but in practice, we cannot escape deciding: either every human being will be protected, or we will start deciding whom to exclude. Governor Palin did indeed make a choice: the right one. To hold up that as an ideal for the rest of us is not hypocrisy. It’s called leadership.
By rightgwinger on September 6th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Not surprised that this came out of an ignorant mostly black school district. Wouldn’t let my dog attend a school in Richland One! This is one of the worst school districts in America. Using school email accounts to break the law isn’t all this district does. Waste of tax payers dollars. I am not surprised that a school district full of angry blacks with chips on there shoulders would put out such lies! She is a minor. How does a teenage pregnancy have anything to do with the presidency?
By Steve Waylis on September 6th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Whoever thought either of the girls in those pictures could pass for Bristol Palin must be legally blind. Neither of them has a rack anywhere near that of Bristol Palin’s.
Leave the girl alone . . . .families are off limits!
By s vincent on September 7th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
im in miss paynes class
and i liked this article
By Chrissy on September 7th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Well said, Aquinas! Much Respect!
By Bethany on September 8th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
bristol needs to grow up.
her mother’s about to be vp and she’s doing this kind of stuff?
so sad :/
By Madi on September 8th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
I go to Dutch Fork High and I’m taking current issues. We read a lot of FITSNews blogs and I think that people should stay out of Sarah Palin’s home life because it’s no one’s business. The people who are for Obama should especially leave it alone because he even said personal lives should be left out.
By Randolph on September 9th, 2008 at 2:10 am
I lived in Columbia. This is what I would expect from Richland
One. There is so much work that needs to be done in that school district I can see why the SAT scores are so low. The employees are playing. That is why I voted against the last tax increase for schools when I lived in Columbia.
By Kirsten H on September 9th, 2008 at 9:07 am
As a student at Dutch Fork High School, a different district than Richland One, I think it was wrong for a state employee to be using their email for anything of this nature. Don’t they have a lot of other work to be getting done? Maybe that’s why their schools are having difficulties right now, due to lack of proper employee support and attention.That should be the first thing addressed and the person spreading these rumors should be fired. However, I think they should just leave Bristol Palin alone. Like everyone else hasn’t made a mistake in their life or made some bad choices. Fortunately for them, they weren’t the son/daughter of a prominent political candidate so they were able to live them down. Just something to think about.
By Patrick on September 9th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
First time here – but I have to say – after going back to archived articles – I think you guys do a really good job of seperating your opinions from what you consider wrong/immoral/hack jobs, namely your commentary on the Romney “cult” issue and this SC Bristol bogus email.
I thinks its sad the majority of MSM and other outlets lie their a**es off between the 2 – but clearly someone, somewhere taught you folks what “integrity” really means.
Kudos – you have a new reader.
By CandySlice on September 9th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
I thought it was already well known that those aren’t pictures of Bristol Palin but instead pictures of Bristol Palin’s finace’s sister. What’s going on here?
By Wakefield Tolbert on September 24th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
I work in Atlanta but live here in good old South Kakkalakka in Columbia right next to the people who get into fist fights over Gamecock football recruiting at the local Waffle House.
This is even lower.
Regardless of Bristol’s shortfalling, it DOES speak to her character that she is bringing a new life into the world rather than the easy fix of having it sucked down a sink. Yes, this is tough. But then if you act grown up now you can play the part.
Here is South Kakkalakka, there is no surprise at the stupdity of Richland 1 just down the road here in Columbia. Compounded no less by the fact that while there are many admirable teachers, overall even in the deep South the public schools have an left wing agenda that goes beyond the three R’s. There is no question this gave much mirth and snickering. I think we all have moments for ourselves and for our offspring where we could ask “yo, what WERE you thinking?”
But to have this now so politicized is beyond the pale.
Christianity as espoused by anyone, Palin, her daugher, whatnot, does not mean we are perfect beings. we just strive to understand our sins and seek absolution. Bristol has done the right thing. The mockery of the Left and morons like Naomi Wolf plus the other obnoxious lies about Palin (which in turn explains the mockery from some teachers caught up in the Left’s reproductive system, which as Joseph Sobran pointed out, is the public schools) are grotesque but no less irrelevent to Bristol’s choice.
By Wakefield Tolbert on September 25th, 2008 at 12:03 am
Grief. And I am just down the road from Blue Cross Blue Shield. That big tower off of I-20 off Alpine Rd. My understanding from contacts there is that those folks at BCBS are VERY strict about emails and personal use.
THERE IS TO BE NONE. ZIP.
Post a pic of your new little bunchkin baby and you’ll be in the office under threat of probation for violating e-communications policies. The stated reason being that it takes up server space, slows down the internal network, and exposes the system to malware and disreputable garbage like the alleged drunk Bristol pics.
Not good enough, I guess.
By lisa on October 23rd, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Does this really fit the definition of ” corruption”>
If so, I got some swamp land………
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