I don’t read Daily Kos too often, but I think pretty much the entire internet was enticed into checking out their site this weekend. I’m of course talking about the absolute storm that was set off by their posting of a libelous, incorrect article that alleged Sarah Palin had faked her own pregnancy to cover for her daughter’s secret, underage pregnancy. It’s a classic piece of hysterical, conspiracy-driven garbage that sensationalist blogs like Perez-Hilton and TMZ are famous for. Actually, that’s not true, TMZ usually has photos and reporters – DailyKos only has armchair (computer chair?) quarterbacks who browse Google News and pass it off as research.

The story broke like this – an anonymous writer named ArcXIX posted an article on Kos:

”Well, Sarah, I’m calling you a liar. And not even a good one. Trig Paxson Van Palin is not your son. He is your grandson. The sooner you come forward with this revelation to the public, the better.”

The real centerpiece of ArcXIX’s article is a photo of the Palin family. Comparing waistlines to his incorrect timetable, ArcXIX studies 17-year-old Bristol Palin’s physique like its the Zapruder film:

Bristol is pregnant in these pictures. She is not carrying belly fat, which grows outwardly wide, and does not become dome-shaped. That’s because fat is generally evenly distributed around the abdomen and a fetus is not. Bristol’s chest is sticking out, a normal body reaction when sucking in stomach muscles.

The article is an un-cited, poorly referenced affair, filled with opinion, conjecture, and poor hypothesis. There are no facts there, no reason to believe this lone poster’s latest conspiracy theory. Nonetheless, within hours of being published it was voted to the “Best of” section of Daily Kos. A short time after that I spotted the link. This wasn’t hard to do, internet news sites Fark, Digg and Reddit (Reddit had it twice on the front page) had linked to it. I also spotted it posted to Facebook, and someone emailed it to me as well. It took less than 4 hours.

The article in question used to be located here: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/8/30/121350/137/486/580223 but has since been removed. I guess it was too much even for the Kos. Google cache is here for anyone interested.

In the end, the most shocking revelation of all came when the rumors prompted Governor Palin to reveal that the daughter in question (the suddenly much-ogled Bristol Palin) is pregnant right now – for the first time.

Behold, the power of the Internet – some anon can shake a political party, destroy a teenager’s name, and create an international storm. Amazing.

But is that really what happened? Isn’t it less about the writer and more about the network he was part of? The Kos’ policy of anonymous posting certainly gave ArcXIX the gumption to pitch his outlandish scheme. Had he (I know we’re not sure, but come on, ArcXIX has to be a guy) been forced to attach his name to this tripe he might have had second thoughts.

But that can’t be it, its too simple to put this sensation on the writer. This isn’t the “99 Theses,” or “Catcher in the Rye” - this was garbage that probably took 10 minutes to type. Saying the initial post is what drove the story is like saying Mrs. O’Leary’s cow caused the Chicago fire. Sure the cow kicked over the lantern, but the tinderbox city certainly helped the situation.

And “tinderbox” is a good way to describe the leftward side of the web nowadays. It’s the readers of Kos themselves, the hysterical liberal internet, that caused this to happen. When your site is essentially a wasteland of angry, angry liberals, screaming and haranguing on message boards, you should expect that things might get out of hand. And its not just specific to the Kos, this photo is currently one of Reddit’s top headlines. Click a comment thread on Digg, Reddit, or Fark and watch the vitriol fly. Here’s a good example of what I’m talking about. Maybe I’m just biased, but doesn’t it seem like the internet is comprised entirely of liberals, hardcore leftists, anarchists, Europeans, and the guys who write for WorldNetDaily?

The right story, the right allegations, had simply arrived at the right time. A juicy scandal, exposed hypocrisy, and the incredible potential to derail a political campaign were too much for the Kos’ staff. Any freshman journalism student could have seen that there was no story and no proof – but to the liberal internet the story was too spectacular to ignore, and embarrassing the Republican VP candidate was what really mattered.

Lots of bloggers like to wax philosophical about how newspapers and nightly news have become “Old Media” and are heading the way of the town crier. They behold the drastically shrinking subscription rates and declare entire news outlets to be doomed vessels in the Web 2.0 age. But when the great news sources of the last century die off, are journalistic integrity, fairness, editing, and vetting going to disappear as well? In a world where Daily Kos and some a-hole named ArcXIX provide the news – I think it’s a given.

Great roundup of the whole story here, by the Boston Globe…