Despite the fact that Palin’s representatives were allowed to block any specific emails being released if they wished, the right wing is seriously offended by the FOI release of Palin’s emails as governor. Seeing as how she was rather steeped in scandal at the time, it seems like a natural thing to happen. But don’t tell right-wingers that; despite Palin having virtually no hope for becoming president, or that it appears that nothing even approaching salacious will ever be gleamed from the release, they are furious that her privacy is being invaded like this. One reaction:

Greta Van Susteren, a Fox News journalist and one of the few members of the media trusted by Palin, labelled the treatment of Palin “a media colonoscopy” and suggested some news organisations were on “a mission to destroy”.

The Heritage Foundation’s Jason Richwine, on the National Review, suggested this:

Today reams of e-mails sent by Sarah Palin during her time as governor of Alaska will be released to the public. Before the full media circus begins, here’s a proposed rule to guide the discussion: anyone who wants to criticize the content of the Palin e-mails must first make all of his or her own e-mails available for others to read. Sound fair?

Strangely, I don’t recall any such objections being made when a conservative think tank in Michigan demanded the private emails of a large number of college professors in Michigan, despite there being no reason to do so save for union-bashing and intimidation of academics in general. Nor do I see any of them releasing their own private Twitter and Facebook records before jumping onto the right-wing scrum eviscerating Anthony Weiner.

As for being on “missions to destroy,” Andrew Breitbart, virtually a one-man mission-to-destroy machine, gets nothing but praise and air time from these right-wingers. So I don’t think they oppose the idea of being on a mission to destroy, but rather just object when it happens even a little bit in the other direction. That’s unforgivable.