Chicago Tribune’s 'The Swamp' Blogger Likens Palin’s Endorsement of Beck’s Fox News Show to 'Palin’ Around with Terrorists'

August 27th, 2009 1:46 AM

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has been out of office over a month and there are still those working at major media outlets that just can't get over their obsessions with dissecting everything the former GOP vice-presidential nominee does.

Case and point - Mark Silva, a blogger for the Chicago Tribune's "The Swamp," in an Aug. 26 post took it upon himself to try to rationalize why Palin would possibly suggest to her friends and followers on social media networks to tune in to Glenn Beck's Aug. 26 program, as NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard alluded to earlier.

"Palin, who campaigned as the Republican Party's candidate for vice president last year with the warning that Democrat Barack Obama was ‘palin' around with terrorists,'' is steering fans of her Facebook site to the TV commentary of FOX News Channel's Glenn Beck, who has been warning viewers this week that Obama is getting his advice from a Communist and other radicals in the White House who have no oversight from Congress," Silva wrote.

According to Silva, it was a win-win situation for Beck, who has been facing attacks from far left-wing storefronts advocating his advertisers pull out of supporting his television show.

"Beck will like this: Palin has more than 800,000 friends, by her Facebook count - up more than 100,000 since she left public office and turned to her private social networking base as a forum for her political views," Silva wrote. "Beck has more than 2 million viewers, and he boasted on air this week that Monday's ratings were through the roof.

And now Palin, at work building up her base, is helping Beck build his."

And according to Silva - Palin's endorsement of Beck was jut like "palin' around with terrorists," since in Silva's view, the Fox News host is the equivalent of some sort of terrorist.

"Talk about ‘palin' around with terrorists,' Silva concluded.