If we were called upon to name an author who was going to find herself in the middle of presidential campaign weirdness, we have to admit it would be a long time before Dawn Eden occurred to us as a possibility, mostly because, in the years since publishing The Thrill of the Chaste, an argument for abstinence rooted in a reevaluation of her own sexual history, she’s left New York journalism to run the “Love and Responsibility Program” of the Washington, D.C.-based Cardinal Newman Society. But when Gawker, among several other online news outlets, ran what was purported to be a copy of Sarah Palin‘s SAT report, the document in question turned out to be a forgery based on Eden’s actual test scores.
As she called attention to the forgery, Eden downplayed the uncertainty of Gawker chief Nick Denton in running the original item; yes, he did say the grades were “mediocre… but not so dreadful as to immediately stretch credulity,” but he also noted other elements that rang false, unlike some of the other sites who took the bait and only expressed contrition much later (if at all). Yesterday, Gawker set the record straighter, but Eden was understandably bothered by the implication that the low grades and SAT results that appeared on the fake Palin report reflected her actual high school academic performance. “That is just plain bad reporting, and, if not corrected, crosses the border into libel,” she argued, although she immediately noted that she was told the error would be corrected. That update took place late last night, so the love-hate relationship between Eden and Gawker should return to dormancy until, we’ll guess, next Valentine’s Day…
In the meantime, Eden says she’s studying hard for midterm exams in her first semester in pursuit of a master’s degree in theology from the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the D.C.-based Dominican House of Studies. “I decided to go back to school because after doing about 75 talks on three continents to promote The Thrill of the Chaste,” she emailed us last night, “I felt that, if I’m to do more and better work promoting Church teachings, I should learn the foundation of those teachings.” She also cites her 40th birthday, and a recent bout with thyroid cancer, as spurs for the life-changing decision. “There will come a day,” she reflected, “when I will long to be off the road and securely ensconced in a university position, perhaps in campus ministry, with benefits and vacation…”