Reliable Sources

Confidential to the New York Post: Here's how you source a charge of a politician engaging in smear tactics:

Although Palin promised to take the high road in politics, [Frank] Bailey was forced into “an ethical limbo dance” that included making up letters to newspaper editors and signing them with the names of supporters. On another occasion, Bailey and other staffers spent hours voting repeatedly to manipulate a television opinion poll on Palin’s decision to reject part of the federal government’s economic stimulus funding. Bailey also helped smear a neighbor who complained about excessive tourist traffic around the governor’s mansion. After hearing of the gripe, Palin sent her daughter Piper out to sell lemonade and then derided her neighbor for protesting children at play. Soon, the neighbor was portrayed on conservative blogs as “sick,” “unhinged” and “drug-addicted.” “By the time we finished with our politics of destruction, he surely regretted ever mentioning the governor’s name,” Bailey writes. “He learned firsthand why so few people were willing to speak out against Sarah Palin.”