Cristi Adkins Embraces Sinclair--in Public

In a last ditch, pre-Denver panic, Cristi Adkins appeared on Ed Hale and MommaE's "Nobama' radio broadcast last night along with Larry Sinclair. You might recall that Ms. Adkins started up the site "Clintons4McCain" (possibly related to "ClintonsforMcCain," a domain registered by the RNC). Although she attended Mr. Sinclair's 18 June press conference at the NPC, and she's implied support for him in the past, she's never been so up front about it. Previously, she's asked why the press has ignored Sinclair if he's got the evidence to support his allegations. Although he's presented no evidence, Ms. Adkins can wait no longer, and has promised to aid Sinclair in "getting his story out," including, apparently, a slot on Hannity and Colmes. (update: hear recordings of the Sinclair/Adkins session via this site).

While Adkins claims that she can attract the mainstream press to Sinclair, this is why this will not happen:

The media has looked into this story and found it baseless. Sinclair claims that reporters from various periodicals have been in touch with him, including John Crewdson, a prize-winning journalist and senior correspodent with the Chicago Tribune. In May, 2008, a blogger contacted Crewdson about his work on Sinclair's allegations, and Crewdson acknowledged in an email that:

While I am reluctant to talk about reporting that I’ve done, you can be sure that if we had ‘verified’ Mr. Sinclair’s story we certainly would have published it.

One can only imagine that, like Crewdson, no reporter has been able to "verif[y] Mr. Sinclair's story," as no mainstream periodical has run with it despite the time and effort spent investigating the tale (see here for further emails involving Sinclair and Crewdson).

The story did appear in February editions of The Globe and The National Enquirer. Nothing came of either feature. After the Edwards story broke the other week, Sinclair contacted the Enquirer again, but they declined to move on his story. While Sinclair attributes this to Obama supporters putting the heat on the Enquirer, this seems unlikely: as we've seen, the Enquirer, a tabloid with some journalistic chops, wouldn't hesitate to go with such a potentially explosive story as Sinclair's. The more likely conclusion is that the Enquirer was unable to confirm anything about Sinclair's story other than his presence in Gurnee, Illinois, in 1999.

And why won't Hannity touch this story? He's avoided it in the past (despite being hounded by Sinclair's supporters for the past seven months), and nothing suggests that he should pay attention now. Sean Hannity, although firmly anti-Obama, isn't one to play with unfounded rumors.

But nevermind. I would guess that Adkins presumes too much influence with the media (although she might be able to sway her husband, Burke Allen of Allen Media Strategies, to engage in some Sinclair-oriented radio programming). I'm more interested in the Adkins's and Sinclair's joint appearance itself. While in the past I've declined to engage in the full-on RNC-Adkins-Sinclair conspiracy, I have to admit that these diverse strands are starting to knot up. I don't think that Sinclair initiated his accusations at the behest of political operatives, but they are certainly doing what they can to further the Sinclair agenda (whatever that may be).

One thing I'm curious about: why do so many of Larry Sinclair's supporters (or supporters' sockpuppets) originate from the Florida/Virginia region?

Update: There appears to be a link between Adkins and the creator of the now-defunct websites America's Hope Foundation, Obama Hate Speech, and the Coalition Against Anti-Christian Rhetoric. I'll post on such links in upcoming days.

Update 2: On Monday, 18 August, Adkins appeared on an Internet broadcast to announce that she would not aid Larry Sinclair in future as she has tried, and failed, to attract the media's attention to his story. Can I say "I told you so"?