Enquirer vs. Palin

National Enquirer:

Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin attempted to quietly have her daughter Bristol get married before news of her pregnancy leaked out, the NATIONAL ENQUIRER is reporting exclusively in its new issue.
Palin planned for the wedding to take place right after the Republican National Convention and then she was going to announce the pregnancy. But Bristol, 17, refused to go along with the plan and that sparked a mother-daughter showdown over the failed coverup.
The ultra-conservative governor's announcement about her daughter's pregnancy came hours after The ENQUIRER informed her representatives and family members of Levi Johnston, the father of Bristol's child, that we were aware of the pregnancy and were going to break the news.
In a preemptive strike Palin released the news, creating political shockwaves.

(Via Hot Air Headlines.) The governor's effort to get her ex-brother-in-law fired has also led to other "shocking allegations," the Enquirer says. Given that everything the Enquirer published about John Edwards turned out to be true, it's kind of hard to question the accuracy of their reporting now.

But who would be the Enquirer's source on the governor's plans for Bristol's wedding? I'm guessing it's Levi Johnston's family.

UPDATE: Commenter "Young 4-Eyes" asks why Republicans are grousing about "the media" is treating Palin. Rather than get into a blow-by-blow account of this particular situation, let me talk about Republicans and media in more general terms.

Look, if you want to get rich, don't become a reporter. Republicans are smart enough to know this and, as a result, there are no Republican reporters. Pundits, talking heads, and columnists, yes; reporters, no.

(When I became a reporter, I was a Democrat and ignorant -- but I repeat myself.)

The media aren't nearly as hostile toward Republicans as Republicans are hostile toward the media. GOP campaign operatives treat journalists like scum, and then wonder why their candidates get bad coverage.

The blame-the-media mantra is therefore a useful way for Republican campaign operatives to explain away their own incompetence. And God knows they need an excuse to fall back on. GOP campaign operatives will expend millions of dollars of contributions this year -- mostly to pay their own outrageous salaries -- and the party will lose the House, the Senate, a majority of governor's races, and probably lose the White House, too.

It's all the media's fault. Nudge, nudge.

UPDATE II: Michelle Malkin notes a crystal clear example of bias -- at US magazine, of all places -- but I ask: Why is media bias against Republicans always the fault of the media, and never the fault of Republicans?

By repeating the media-bias meme, aren't we just making excuses for the failures of the overpaid idiots who are running the GOP into the ground? When I sit around talking to fellow conservatives, Topic A is almost always the political incompetence of the Republican Party. Why don't we see media bias as a product of that incompetence?

I'm looking at a list of McCain campaign staffers, and I see 15 names listed under "communications": Jill Hazelbaker, Brooke Buchanan, Brian Rogers, Michael Goldfarb, Jeff Sadosky, Crystal Benton, Andrea Saul, Charlie Adams, Brittany Brammell, Tucker Bounds, Ben Porritt, Nicole Wallace, Matt MacDonald, Taylor Griffin, and Matthew Scully.

Which one of these people was responsible for dealing with the US magazine staff? If the task of the communications department is to get good publicity for the campaign, who gets fired when the publicity is bad? Nobody.

There's no accountability, see? Tucker Bounds goes on CNN and makes an idiot of himself and, instead of firing Tucker Bounds, the McCain campaign's response is to cancel the candidate's appearance on "Larry King Live."

At some point, media bias becomes an excuse for campaign staffers not doing their jobs. The McCain campaign raised $47 million in August, and the RNC raised another $22 million. With $69 million a month between them, they can't afford any competent media-relations staffers? You'd think with all that money lying around, maybe they could have bought at least a couple rounds of drinks for the editors at US magazine. Reporters get ornery when they're expected to pay for their own booze, you know.