Democrats Alleged to Compromise Sarah Palin Personal Data

Red State reports that Alaska's Democratic Party leaked Sarah Palin's private personal information, including Social Security data, residential addresses, and consumer purchasing records to the Politico:

The Politico has received an opposition research file from the Alaska Democrats. You can read it in PDF here.

In the file, the Democrats have released Sarah Palin's social security number minus the last four digits. Also tied to the information are her various home addresses.

Back in 2005, Democrats used Michael Steele's social security number to get his credit record.

It is atrocious that the Democrats would not only seek out Sarah Palin's social security number, but release it in opposition research to the press.

Checking the Politico link to the opposition file turns up an error message.

However, today's top feature story at the Politico homepage, "Documents Detail Palin's Political Life," includes an active link to former Alaska Governor Tony Knowles' opposition file on Palin.

The file includes a line with Sarah Palin's Social Security number, with a redaction of the information. Perhaps Politico removed the un-redacted version after Red State sounded the alarm.

Either way, this is not some low-level smear circulating around the fever swamps of the left-wing blogosphere. The Knowles opposition report on Palin is coming from some scurrilous Alaska Democratic-aligned insiders seeking not only to damage Palin politically, but to compromise her personal security as well.

Note that Ben Smith, who covers the Democratic campaign at Politico, questions Red State's claim that Alaska Democrats leaked the file. Yet, Smith does not reveal Politico's original source, and no matter: The Knowles file is a partisan opposition paper whose release serves only to hammer both Palin's political carreer and her personal life.

The release of the Knowles report is of a piece with Daily Kos's baby cover-up rumors, with Andrew Sullivan's muckraking anti-Palin attacks, and Talking Points Memo's unsubstantiated smears of the Palin family's alleged ties to secessionist hate groups (now fully rebutted).

Sarah Palin has no William Ayers, Rashid Khalidi, Tony Rezko, nor Jeremiah Wright in her background.

Public opinion data already finds a 52 percent majority approval rating of the GOP vice-presidential nominee. After Palin's speech tomorrow, those numbers are going surge even higher. Meanwhile, the continued Democratic efforts to impugn the repution of the Palin family will send the party's presidential hopes into political exile come November.