Tags
Campaign 2008, Cheesesteak, McCain, Michael Rovito, Obama, Pakistan, Presidential campaign, Sarah Palin, Tony Luke's
I read a commentary piece yesterday in the Philadelphia Inquirer from the guy who asked Sarah Palin about following Taliban fighters back across the Afghani/Pakistani border while getting some food at the cheesesteak shop (note – not a pizzaria), Tony Luke’s. The internet rumor-mil and the campaign and candidates themselves jumped on the name of the questioner as an anti-Palin reporter from Palin’s home town in Alaska.
It seems that the guy, actually a Temple University graduate student named Michael Rovito, shares his name with a reporter for the Wasilla, Alaska newspaper, The Frontiersman. I get that someone on the internet saw the question being attributed to Michael Rovito and assumed it was the reporter associated with commenting on Wasilla and Palin; that just makes sense. What are the odds that another guy with the same name happened to ask that question, right? But Palin had to know this wasn’t the same guy. Wasilla is a tiny town. She was the mayor and he is one of very few reporters. They must know each other on sight. I’m fairly certain she recognized the man asking her questions as someone other than the Frontiersman’s Michael Rovito, and yet she and the campaign claimed this was ‘Gotcha Journalism’ by a reporter who tracked her across the country to politically trip-her-up.
