An interesting event occurred late last night. Politico blogger Ben Smith contacted us to ask if a photo of Sarah Palin showed her with a copy of one of our publications.

Apparently the Palin family had released the photo to AP and the New York Times picked it up for an article last week. Politico was inaccurate in identifying the reprinted article as the cover of the magazine.

Clearly seen in the photo is a reprint of an article from The New American magazine back in 1995, entitled “Con-Con Call” in a three-ring binder in front of her.

Does this show some type of connection between JBS and Palin? It does not connect her to The John Birch Society any more than a copy of the New York Times sitting on her desk would connect her to the New York Times Company. The photo is a symbol of the organized strength of a successful grassroots campaign to protect the U.S. Constitution from calls for a modern-day Constitutional Convention (con-con) that could potentially revise or completely rewrite the Constitution. The JBS printed thousands of that reprint for members to distribute to local, state and federal officials. Not only was this reprint widely distributed, but members also met face-to-face with as many of these folks as possible in order to help educate them as to what could happen if a con-con were called. Many officials had no idea of the potential for a runaway convention. This has happened only once in history when the Articles of Confederation were rewritten into the U.S. Constitution. That of course turned out to be a good thing, but another runaway convention at this time could turn out very differently and very badly.

The John Birch Society successfully stopped additional states from calling a con-con and convinced a number of the states who had called for one to rescind their calls. We’re proud to say that the Constitution still stands.

We have just completed a similar distribution project of The New American. We published two entire issues covering the North American Union in Oct. 2006 and Oct. 2007. The 2007 issue was sent to more than a million elected government officials, business owners, and concerned Americans. As a result of the coverage of both issues, members of the JBS have persuaded more than 20 states to consider anti-NAU legislation, demonstrating once again the power of grassroots organization.

This photo is a great reminder of the effectiveness of The John Birch Society, especially nice to see as we celebrate our 50th anniversary Oct. 2-4.

UPDATE 9/22/08:  The Jawa Report indicates this smear may have links back to the PR firm that one David Axelrod owns.  The same David Axelrod that is Barack Obama's chief media strategist.

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