The Associated Press “fact check [1]” of Sarah Palin's new book wasn't enough. Now the left is just coming out and claiming Palin is a flat out liar. That was the argument made by Bella DePaulo in a Psychology Today blog entitled “Sarah Palin's Lies.” [2]
DePaulo, who has a Harvard Ph.D. in psychology and experience in analyzing lying, claims Palin excels at it. “From my post as an outside observer, it seems to me that Sarah Palin doesn't care much about the truth. In that way, she is a very special liar,” she wrote in the Nov. 19 “Living Single” blog.
The article went on to say how “Palin seems to love the effect her disingenuous pronouncements have on her audience” and discounted Palin's comments about Obama “palling around with terrorists.” (Apparently Psychology Today never heard about Obama's ties to William Ayers [3] who “helped found the radical Weathermen, launching a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and United States Capitol,” according to The New York Times.)
Left-wing pronouncements are nothing new for Psychology Today. The publication, which “has dedicated itself to exploring the connections between mind, body, and spirit” for 40 years, also makes connections with liberal positions on the climate and politics. One Psychology Today blogger, for example, said overpopulation is a huge issue and “we need to lose 4.4 billion people and we need to lose them fast.” [4] A study by the magazine made some sweeping statements about conservatives including: “that insecure kids most needed the reassurance of tradition and authority, and they found it in conservative politics.”
DePaulo had the magazine's mindset down pat and even went after Palin's supporters who “roar with approval and fervor when she tosses that red, bloody moose meat to them.” She concluded by saying, “I do love the irony of Palin flaunting her authenticity with lies.”
The DePaulo comments actually followed an inquiry by another left-wing publication, The Daily Beast. There writer Michelle Goldberg asked a standard, inflammatory liberal question: “Does Sarah Palin suffer from narcissistic personality disorder?” [5] That article didn't address President Obama's me-first attitude, but instead tried to paint Palin as the liar-in-chief. “Palin, however, lies when there's little to be gained by lying, and she lies when everyone knows the truth,” wrote Goldberg. She also claimed that Palin's “new book, Going Rogue, coupled with her recent media appearances, evinces a dishonesty that seems as much clinical as opportunistic.”
DePaulo, who also writes a column for the lefty HuffingtonPost, is a singles advocate and author of “Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After.”
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