Earlier this year, the military and conservative communities were thrilled at the news that Bristol Palin and Dakota Meyer were engaged.
Bristol Palin gleefully announced on her blog earlier this month that the wedding is less than a month away. This couple should have no reason to be anything less than ecstatic right now as they prepare for their marriage. But wouldn’t you know it, a bunch of tabloid killjoys had to come along just days before the wedding peddling Meyer’s personal business. What’s sad is that some of the people doing so are so-called conservatives.
The rumor that Dakota Meyer had a secret wife hidden away somewhere was started by Radar Online, which showed a marriage certificate as “proof” that he was married and poor Bristol was in for a lot of trouble. The Daily Mail quickly followed suit, and neither of those two stories are altogether surprising — they’re tabloid sites, so it’s expected that they would report unsubstantiated trash.
But who came along eager to gain some clicks by dragging a Medal of Honor recipient’s name through the mud? Chicks on the Right:
I love a good love story like the rest of them, but I’m also a Mama of a 5-year old daughter and a 25-year old stepdaughter, and this story makes the protective-mama part of me get a little unnerved.
Because Bristol Palin’s fiance’ has a freaking WHAT?
A secret wife?
… Bristol and Dakota got engaged this past March and are supposed to get married in a week.
I know…people get married and divorced. Whatever. But here’s the weird thing, though. There’s a marriage certificate, but it’s “sealed,” and “he lists his occupation as marine, while Wain, who is from Michigan, worked as a records processor at the time.”
And it’s “not clear when they parted ways.” So Daily Mail is trying to say that he has a secret wife.
Even on its face, without any verification of the facts whatsoever, this story amounts to nothing, because all Radar Online ever had was proof that Dakota Meyer was once married. Anyone who knows literally anything about the military knows that service members getting married at very young ages, as Meyer did, is about as common as on base as American flags are. It’s also incredibly common that those marriages don’t always last for very long. All it takes is a little common sense to look at this non-story and think, so what?. Because a marriage certificate is not proof that Dakota Meyer is still currently married. It’s proof that he was married before, and nothing else — yet Chicks on the Right had no problem whatsoever publishing a hit piece on a Medal of Honor recipient days before his wedding to Bristol Palin without bothering to verify the facts first.
Blog hits are important and all, but that’s stooping pretty low. Aren’t there some people who deserve to be off-limits to such tabloid trash, at the very least from so-called “conservative” websites? Like, I don’t know, Medal of Honor recipients who are American heroes and that have openly battled PTSD and suicide attempts? Isn’t there a line that shouldn’t be crossed? Apparently there isn’t for Chicks on the Right, who, again, decided to run a story based on a completely unsubstantiated claim for the purpose of clickbait and nothing else. That’s pretty despicable.
Oh, and as for that “secret wife”? Yeah, that’s not the case at all. Dakota Meyer did in fact marry Cassandra Wain when he was 19 and she was 21, in 2008. By 2010, not even two years later, they were legally divorced. So this entire story amounts to nothing — yet, again, Chicks on the Right was A-OK with publishing a post alleging that Dakota Meyer is a person of such weak character and low integrity as to propose marriage to Bristol Palin while still being married to another woman. That’s a pretty serious accusation to make, and it was completely unfounded.
Remember when Dakota and Bristol got engaged? This is what he had to say about Bristol, and it will bring tears to your eyes.
I always heard people say "when you meet the right one, you'll know." I never understood that until now. That, coupled…
Posted by Dakota Meyer on Saturday, March 14, 2015
Dakota Meyer is someone who has been to hell and back. When he says he went through a time where he thought he would never be happy again, he’s not making it up. Other Marines, friends of his, were killed. He retrieved their bodies so that they would be safe from whatever horrific plans the Taliban may have had for them — so that their families could have a chance to say goodbye with a proper funeral, giving them the honor and respect that these men deserved. In his book, Meyer admitted that he attempted suicide days after the anniversary of the Battle of Ganjgal, and had to seek help for PTSD. And he’s hardly alone in this. Sadly, 22 veterans kill themselves every day. The fact that he was able to survive, to admit that he needs help and find happiness for himself again, is a testament to his strength and his character.
So when he says that for a long time he thought he would never be happy again, he means it. When he says that Bristol makes him happy, we should in turn be happy for him. We don’t run unsubstantiated smear pieces on a man who has been through hell in service to this country so that we can see our hit counter get a littler higher than usual. At the very least, would it have been so hard for the Chicks on the Right to wait a whole whopping 24 hours to find out what the truth was? See, once upon a time, facts were considered to be kind of important, especially to conservatives. But facts take a backseat for the Chicks on the Right, apparently, right alongside things like “integrity” and “respect for the military”. They’ll apparently sell all of that out for a potentially juicy story, because who cares about dragging Dakota Meyer’s name through the mud when there is clickbait to be had? And they’ll ruin what should be the happiest time of Dakota Meyer and Bristol Palin’s lives in the process. And all for what? They should be ashamed of themselves. I won’t hold my breath to see if they retract their little hit piece, either, and issue the apology to Bristol Palin and Dakota Meyer that is owed.
Chicks on the Right likes to boast about how they’re giving conservatism a makeover, but if this is how they plan on doing it, then no thank you. I’d rather stick with conservatives who have things like principles and integrity; who won’t smear a Medal of Honor recipient’s name in order to get a few hits without any proof that the crap they’re writing is even true; conservatives who understand that facts are important and who have a deep and undying respect and appreciation for our service members. None of these things apply to Chicks on the Right, apparently, because otherwise they wouldn’t have run such a disgusting hit piece on two people who have done nothing to deserve it. If this is the makeover that they’re offering, then we don’t want it. No thank you.
John Kuntz says: there is a tragic irony that the media has weighed in on the intended husband of a daughter of an Alaska Govornor and yet has so little to offer about the current President.
Exactly, John, exactly!
Conservatism does NOT need that kind of “change”, or “make over”, thankyouverymuch!
Jodi says: They’ve banned me from commenting on their FB page (a benign comment, mind you), shut down comments on their blog on this story (after having the last word, of course), and they have the audacity to post this:
BTW: IJReview, whom I generally like, also ran this trashy gossip. Shame on them.
Kate says: Dakota and Bristol have been through a lot worse by much better. That said, CotR’s nasty little hit post was one that any low class rabid leftist would be proud of. They have since been forced by hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of unhappy commenters on FB and their blog to update their hit piece to include the truth – with facts. The update is one sentence which has a link about DM’s divorce. It does not include an apology.
Forced to tell the truth about Dakota. Think about that.
Jodi says: And they didn’t take responsibility for their spreading of misinformation in their pathetic “update.” No, they blamed Daily Mail for posting the erroneous information that they then repeated.
Freedom of speech and personal responsibility are bedrocks of conservatism. These women are NOT conservatives. They have shown themselves to be pros at ad hominem attacks, speech silencing, and blaming others for their irresponsible post(s). I think that tells you who they really are.
GWB says: yet Chicks on the Right had no problem whatsoever publishing a hit piece on a Medal of Honor recipient
What, so he gets a pass because he’s a MoH winner? We just automatically assume heroes are perfect now? I don’t particularly care either way (whether he’s divorced or not – as you said, the whole topic is nothing but tabloid fodder), but I really don’t like gilding our heroes and setting them up as saints.
As to the topic of irresponsible posting, yeah. But that’s what you get when post tabloid pap. If you repeat gossip, you will eventually get burned. I try to avoid reading it in general.
daisy says: The wedding is off. I like Sarah Palin but Bristol is a problem child who will go from from embarasing episode to another and Dakota may find that he made lucky escape.
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