Joe McGinniss 1942 - 2014

Joe McGinniss, around 1968, from the cover of "The Selling of the President"

By Patrick

Today we woke up to incredibly sad news. Joe McGinniss has passed away. This came unexpected, despite the knowledge that he was suffering from prostate cancer. It reminds us that we are not invincible.

We got to know Joe McGinniss as a remarkable and straightforward man who was not easily fooled by the public appearance of certain people. One of his main desires was to look beneath the surface, in order to find truth. His goal was to present a "real" view on people and events, as I would call it. 

I cannot claim to be an expert regarding every fact surrounding the life of Joe McGinniss. There are many other people who followed his career for decades, and who knew him much better. However, I was lucky to have some communications with him since he got interested in Sarah Palin, and looking back at the email exchanges, I realized that I had almost forgotten that I exchanged quite a number of emails with him particularly in 2009 and 2010. 

Afterwards, there was rare, if any, contact, which however didn't feel odd at all. There still remained a certain "bond", and he mentioned Politicalgates for example in a very appreciative way on his blog in August 2011, for which we were very grateful. Also, a number of facts which originally were presented first at "Palingates" later found their way into his book "The Rogue", for example Todd's and Sarah's revealing "airport encounter."

Initially, the contact between us intensified in 2009 when I sent him results of our research regarding Sarah Palin's fake bus tour, which in fact turned out to be a "private plane tour." The story originally broke on "Palingates", as some of you will remember, and Joe McGinniss then wrote an article about it at "The Daily Beast." Back then, "Huffington Post" took note and in addition duly reported how Sarah Palin and Harper Collins defended themselves with weak arguments. It was a nice result, and we were thankful to Joe McGinniss that he was willing take on the woman who in 2009 still appeared to be a serious politician and possible future presidential candidate, and that he was willing to cooperate with the "blogs" which sometimes were able to discover very interesting and new facts.

In almost every email communication I had with Joe McGinniss, he made a remark like 

"Patrick, this is off the record, a private communication from me to you." (May 2, 2010),

and I certainly won't publish anything now which he would have regarded as private or inappropriate. But there are some things I can say. 

In an email message from December 2009, Joe McGinniss wondered why Sarah Palin has the habit of sometimes drawing attention to her secrets and scandals through her own actions or words, and added:

"Like serial killers, non-violent psychopaths have the repressed desire to be caught."

To which I responded:

"Yes, Sarah is very, very stupid, and predictable. We know she is mentally ill. It might actually be that just like a criminal, she subconciously wants the truth to come out - so that everything is "finally over"...I absolutely agree with you!!"

Joe McGinniss realized very early that Sarah Palin is a deeply disturbed person. Unfortunately, many other journalists are apparently even today still at loss to understand that Sarah Palin is not your ordinary "right-wing politician", but a mentally ill person. It is incredibly disappointing to read the various obituaries regarding Joe's death today, as almost none of them does justice to his book "The Rogue." 

I read the weirdest things in these obituaries, I don't even want to link to them. I have read that this book was "strange", that it had "little impact", and most of the journalists only seem to remember that he rented the house next to the house of the Palin family. Have they even read the book? I have, and in a weird coincidence only about two weeks ago I began to read it again, on my Kindle App (note: you don't need to buy a "Kindle" if you own a smartphone).

The book is brilliant. Nobody else managed to capture the essence of Sarah Palin, her world, her life and her secrets like Joe McGinniss in "The Rogue." Today, it is still confusing to see that the one person who presented a realistic view of Sarah Palin to the public was being vilified for it.

Only very few journalists managed to keep a clear head as far as Sarah Palin is concerned, and one of them is of course Andrew Sullivan, who wrote today about Joe McGinniss:

But what I truly treasured about Joe – and I came to love him even though we only met a couple of times – was his dogged imperviousness to his peers or to establishment opinion. If he smelled a story, he would dig in, obsessively recovering its human truth. If others thought the story was irrelevant or non-existent, it wouldn’t affect him. His motivation, as it was with his first book, was to peel back the layers of image and propaganda and spin to reveal the reality. He did this with Jeffrey McDonald. And he did it with Sarah Palin.

Of course, we bonded over the former half-term governor. He reached out to me when I was wildly exposed among journalists for refusing to believe her stories at face value. And what we bonded over was not a mutual revulsion at her politics. What we bonded over was the abject failure of the American press to say what had to be said about this preposterous, delusional maniac plucked from deserved obscurity by John McCain to be a heartbeat away from a potential presidency.

Her candidacy was a total farce; a disgrace; an outrage to American democracy; an appalling act of cynicism. Joe saw the creation of this media figure as a continuation of the Ailes recipe for optic politics, and he was appalled as so many mainstream outlets nonetheless insisted on taking this joke seriously.

So he went to do what others wouldn’t: to find the real truth about Palin, and he came closer than almost anyone.

I don’t see his last book as some kind of aberration, though it was obviously not in the same league as The Selling Of The President or Fatal Vision. I saw them all as a continuing crusade for a journalism that takes a stand, that welcomes obloquy if that’s what it takes to get to the truth, and that cares about our democracy. He would never have aimed for the “view from nowhere” or the facile mantra that one leading Washington journalist gave me when asked to explain why they hadn’t sought any proof for the fantastic Trig story that Palin spun: “Why ask questions when you know you won’t get an answer?” For Joe that was pathetic. As indeed it was.

We couldn't have said it any better: As far as the truth about Sarah Palin is concerned, "he came closer than almost anyone."

Also, he was not shy to talk about it, calling Sarah Palin for example "an utter fraud":

There is an interesting parallel to the case of the documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield, who also went to Alaska in order to find the "real" Sarah Palin. He had a similar strategy, went to Alaska, talked to various people who knew her very well, and apparently came to similar conclusions. However, his documentary was also not received very well, despite being totally "spot on" and also very gripping to watch, because the critics obviously had real difficulties in understanding that the "public life" of Sarah Palin is just a false, fraudulent misrepresentation.

The "big lie" theory worked well for Sarah: Only a few people obviously could imagine that somebody is bold enough to present one lie after the other to the world, always insisting that the lies are the absolute truth. As no intelligent person would ever do such a thing, Sarah Palin got away with it - and Joe McGinniss and Nick Broomfield simply were wrong. They had to be. They were "strange."

Nick Broomfield's documentary "You Betcha" feels almost like "the film to the book of Joe McGinniss":

)

This is certainly not the last time we will talk about Joe McGinniss. Finally, I have actually a little "anecdote" to tell from our email conversations, without breaching the privacy. 

On May 1, 2010, I said to him in an email conversation:

"By the way, I was delighted to find your name in a book I was reading recently - "Lost Over Laos" - in connection with Henri Huet. Long time ago, isn't it!"

This book is a thorough examination of the tragic helicopter crash in Laos in 1971 in which four war photographers were killed - amongst them the famous war photographers Henri Huet and Larry Burrows (they were 43 and 44 years old when they died).

Joe McGinniss was touched by my remark, responded and explained that

"Henri (Huet) was a great friend to me in Vietnam in '67, and in the early '70's both to Nancy Doherty, the photographer who later became my wife, and to me."

It is not very well known that Joe McGinniss spent quite a while in Vietnam as a journalist. Joe explained in the email that he had actually met Henri Huet earlier on the day Henri died, and said:

"That night, back at Quang Tri, having spent a full day at Khe Sanh, we looked for Henri so we could have dinner with him. I don't remember exactly who told us, or in what context--it probably was an AP reporter--that Henri's chopper had been shot down and that there were no survivors."

Joe added:

  "Roll of the dice. A fine man lost. Like so many others."

The same could be said of Joe, and even though he reached the age of 71, we lost him far too early.

The media strikes back! A mainstream news website calls Sarah Palin the "female Bill Clinton": "Someone who sleeps around" - Time for some truth about the pitbull with lipstick! - UPDATE

By Patrick

"Born and raised by hypocrites"

(Green Day, "Jesus of Suburbia")

It's Saturday! Time to write a new post! Most of the USA is in a big freeze, but that's not what is on Sarah Palin's mind right now. Believe it or not, she returned from her "remote cabin" just today, where she had "no cell phone service, no TV", the brave frontier woman and ex-Governor let the world know today via facebook.  (This "cabin", which is actually a proper house, is of course the cabin that Sarah and Todd didn't bother to pay property tax for).

So what else is Sarah Palin thinking about? About the evil lamestream media, of course! Today she also wrote on facebook about her "New Year's Resolutions:

Here's #4: Be even more aggressive in calling out media for practicing lapdog laziness. Hey reporters, we know that once Barack Obama got elected you bailed on keeping government accountable; you've been abject failures there. Case in point: Nixon's presidency was over once reporters busted him for allowing his people to spy on political opponents. Today, the Obama Presidency's hallmark is spying (in addition to violating economic and Constitutional liberties), for which you celebrate Barack Obama. Transparently hypocritical, much?

Hey Sarah, I guess some reporters also are sick something: Of being called "lapdogs" and "lamestream" by yourself, America's most hypocritical politician/pundit/TV-personality!

So veteran journalist Doug Thompson, founder and publisher of one of the oldest non-partisan news websites, "Capital Hill Blue", who once was also a former staff member for several Republican politicians (he is not a left-winger!), apparently thought that it is about time for some truth about the half-term Governor! In a remarkable commentary, he calls Sarah Palin out for her hypocrisy and labels her the "female Bill Clinton", describing her as "someone who sleeps around":

In politics, where hypocrisy abounds, Palin is a standout when it comes to being everything she rants and raves against.  The self-styled defender of family values is a female Bill Clinton:  Someone who sleeps around. While dating future husband Todd Palin, the then-Sarah Heath, a sports reporter for an Alaska TV station, reportedly shacked up for a night in a dorm room with a college basketball star in what those close to her say was just one of a string of casual flings by a sexually-adventurous woman.

In college, Palin was known as a wild child who attended five schools in six years.  A favorite photo of her from her college days showed a young woman on a bed in a college dorm room wearing a t-shirt that said:  “I may be flat broke but I’m not flat busted.” After marriage, she embarked on a six-month affair with Palin’s partner in a snowmobile business and news of his wife’s amorous activities led an angry husband to dissolve the partnership. Those closest to Palin say that while the one-time vice presidential candidate who became a political joke likes to spend time in bed with a variety of men, those who sample her favors is apparently not husband Todd.  The Palins, they say, have slept in separate bedrooms for years now.

After her aborted run for vice president with running mate John McCain, whose advisers picked her because they wanted “a celebrity” on the ticket, Palin ended up on Fox News, where channel executives admitted selecting her because “she’s hot.” They weren’t talking about her political appeal. Author Joe McGinnis, whose string of best selling books about politics and politicians have led to more than one downfall of those who claimed to be what they are not, documented Palin’s fling with basketball star Glen Rice while she was dating her future husband as well as her six-month dalliance with Todd’s business partner Brad Hanson after they married. Although Sarah and Todd talked about having a traditional wedding, they eloped and their son was born less than nine months later, suggesting the purveyor of family values was practicing acts that produce families before marriage. McGinnis also discusses use of cocaine by the Palins. Palin denies the drug use, along with reports of her rampant sexual adventures.

Ouch! Oh no, he didn't! But seriously: While Sarah Palin's numerous personal scandals have not been very "popular" among journalists for a long time (and even this commentary by Doug Thompson only scratches the surface), things might be changing. That would really be good news.

So what will Sarah Palin do now? Go again on her "shoutybook" and slam Doug Thompson for being an evil person? Or will she just ignore it? Because let's face it: Sarah Palin's extramarital affair with Brad Hanson for example is well know in Alaska and cannot be refuted. I myself have once spoken on the phone to a member of Brad Hanson's family who confirmed the sexual affair. The National Enquirer back then also had a family member giving a sworn statement about the affair, as I remember, and Joe McGinniss was never challenged by Sarah Palin in court for his assertions in his book "The Rogue." Sarah Palin's lawyer John J. Tiemessen only made an "empty threat" via letter back then, for the publicity, and in order to satisfy Sarah Palin's gullible fans, who love their "combative" Sarah Palin.

So kudos to Doug Thompson, who will certainly now come under fire for publishing this refreshing commentary, in which he mentions some simple, but devastating facts about Sarah Palin which most other journalists have chosen to ignore. After publishing his excellent book "The Rogue", Joe McGinniss was slammed by parts of the liberal media, notably the infamous review by Janet Maslin in the New York Times from September 14, 2011, one of the absolute low points of Palin-related media reporting in the "liberal" media. There, Janet Maslin, who obviously had no clue at all about the "real Sarah Palin", wrote:

Although most of “The Rogue” is dated, petty and easily available to anyone with Internet access, Mr. McGinniss used his time in Alaska to chase caustic, unsubstantiated gossip about the Palins, often from unnamed sources like “one resident” and “a friend.”

The media never liked the "real Sarah Palin" too much. Somehow the "real Sarah Palin" didn't fit into narrative. Isn't she the fearless "frontier woman", the "political warrior", the "pitbull with lipstick", the God-fearing "Saint Sarah", the once popular Governor and the forceful leader of the Teabaggers? This is the Sarah Palin the media learned to love, the Sarah Palin who often guarantees many clicks and high ratings.

Wouldn't it look strange, when this nice presentable narrative suddenly changes to: A woman who liked to sleep around (before and after the marriage), who took hard drugs, who entered into a highly questionable marriage with a highly questionable man, who shortly after the marriage gave birth to a son from a different man, who faked a pregnancy, whose description of her first "wite out miscarriage" is not believable, and so forth? And, most importantly, a woman who then spent much of her time trying to conceal her "private scandals", and spent even more time intimidating the media, with the clear message: If you mention anything from my "personal life", I will turn into a rabid dog and will let the Palinbots and the right-wing bloggers accuse you to be a pedophile and a pervert all over the internet, until your reputation is in the toilet.

One more thing: The "separate bedrooms" of Sarah and Todd. This of course has been confirmed by several other sources before, for example by Levi Johnston in his overlooked book "Deer in the Headlights", but also, unwittingly, by Bristol Palin herself in her "lost" myspace messages from 2007, which were discovered in 2009 (download the complete messages HERE). There, Bristol Palin said in one comment (click to enlarge):

June 14, 2007 9:59 PM
hey, my mon's going to back to juneau for a few days starting tomorrow. and my dad would pay us fat chedar if we painted and re-did her room.

Finally: In these moments, it is always a good idea to re-visit the excellent documentary "You Betcha" by British documentary film maker Nick Broomfield. This documentary, despite its brilliance and accurate depiction of Sarah Palin and her colourful history in Alaska, shared the same fate as the book by Joe McGinniss: It also was also not very enthusiastically received by some critics. Nick Broomfield's serious effort apparently also didn't fit too well into the narrative about "Sarah from Alaska." That's the woman that all the fuss is about? A vindictive, mean creature from a backwards part of Alaska? No, it just cannot be...!

Watch:

So many thanks again to Doug Thompson, who had a lot of guts to write about the inconvenient truth regarding Sarah Palin, exposing her "super-Christian" hypocrisy. But did you see on twitter? He is most likely a pedophile and a pervert. Who knew!

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UPDATE:

Doug Thompson commented on the responses to his article about the hypocrisy of Sarah Palin (h/t KalenaSmith):

I love it when rabid supporters of one public official or presidential wannabe finds their idol of the moment under the same spotlight that each side of partisan politics like to shine on those they don't like but then scream when the same tactic is used on one of their own.

From a personal point of view, I don't give much of a damn one or another over who Palin is banging or how often but her hypocrisy on such issues makes it something worth writing about. And the constant quoting of her laughable defense of Phil Robertson made it even more of a topic.

That was the point of the column in the lead paragraph. What I reported in the column are incidents that have already been reported in other media and detailed in the book by McGinnis. Rice appears to have confirmed the one-night stand and at least one member of Hanson's family went on the record and confirmed the affair with Palin and then backed off under pressure. What I wrote was based on what has been reported and the column's only conclusion was that Palin is a hypocrite. The headline simply asked the question of whether or not she is a female Bill Clinton. Did I say flat out that she sleeps around? No, I referred to already published reports that she does.

Interestingly, the predicted backlash of vitriol from Palin's so-called "supporters" did not erupt. Comments on the column have been both pro and con. Many comments did not make it through the spam filter but those rejected have been on both sides of the issue.

It would appear that, yes, her base of support is shrinking and some that once supported her without question now wonder why they did.

Sadly, reporting on the sexual romps of our elected officials becomes necessary when they engage in public hypocrisy on such issues. Consider the outspoken criticism of Bill Clinton' sexual dalliances unleashed by then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who was bedding a House committee staff member behind his wife's back at the same time. Or the revelation that grandfatherly Illinois Rep. Henry Hyde, chairman of he committee focused on Clinton's impeachment, fathered a child out of wedlock. Such hypocrisy makes my job all too easy.

The overlooked, but very valuable book about Sarah Palin: "Unlikely Liberal" by former Alaskan journalist Matthew Zencey

By Patrick

First of all, let me apologize for not having put up a post during the last two weeks. We should have put up an open post, but I am not the biggest fan of open posts and always thought that I will write a new post very soon. However, due to "restraints" of real life, I didn't come round to do it in the end. Maybe it was also a case of "writer's block", I don't know.

While we entertain and educate ourselves by discussing a lot of diverse topics in the comments, I thought it would a be good idea to revisit our favorite subject, Sarah Palin - the woman who left Alaska to seek fame and fortune and who was lucky enough to find a group of hardcore fans who are themselves so detached from reality that they believe every word she says and apparently also believe that she is the new messiah. It is just too interesting to witness the demise of this woman whose tweets and facebook post used to keep the mainstream media busy for days, over and over again. It now seems like light-years ago, but of course that only happened "yesterday." Today, however, only a handful of usually minor internet outfits continue to care about what she does or says. Let's just say that the stock of "Palin Inc." is not exactly rising.

So why continue to write about her? Well, first of all, Sarah Palin loves to connect herself with other right-wingers who might be far more dangerous than she ever was (dangerous at some fleeting moment in the past, that is). In 2012 she pretended to support the old scoundrel and adulterer Newt Gingrich and his martian wife, and now she is in love with Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. The good thing about all this is that one can be sure that anyone who Sarah picks or supports is either a rabble-rouser, liar, demagogue, extremist, adulterer, or all together. She has a real talent for picking the worst.

Regarding Rand Paul, let me add that I am absolutely disgusted about his very own and special brand of "libertarianism." He simply turns it into an ideology which wants to give all power to corporations, and demonizes anything positive a government could do, because this apparently would be "tyranny". Ever since I listened to an interview a long time ago, in which Rand's father Ron Paul said that the existing system of universal healthcare in the United Kingdom is "tyranny", I was thoroughly disgusted by those people who basically promote what could be called a system of "corporate anarchy." No rules, no protection, because don't you know, we want our "liberty." Unfortunately I can't find this interview with Ron Paul right now, but I clearly remember him saying that about healthcare in the United Kingdom. 

In addition, it's worth to continue to write about Sarah Palin simply because there is still so much to discover and to discuss. For the example the "official record" of her time as Governor of Alaska. Her fanatic fans still love to spam the blogs with lists of her glorious "accomplishments", but it's actually not easy to come across a fairly objective account about what really happened back then when Sarah was Governor and when Alaska still was the land of wine and honey, as her rabid fans apparently believe.

But in fact, such a detailed account exists, and it is the overlooked book "Unlikely Liberal" by former Alaskan journalist Matthew Zencey, who covered Alaskan politics for twenty years, for example as the editorial page editor of the Anchorage Daily News and who also knew Sarah Palin very well. 

The book's apparent lack of success in my view was probably caused by two main reasons: First of all, the book came far too late, which was unfortunate for the author. It was only published in September 2012, when the broader public simply wasn't interested any more in Sarah Palin's legacy as Governor of Alaska. Secondly, the choice of title for this book simply is awful. While it undoubtedly is one of the main premises of the book that Sarah Palin followed certain "liberal policies" while being the Governor of Alaska, the title of the book really should have reflected the fact that the author actually attempted to write an honest in-depth account of Sarah Palin's political actions while she was Governor. I just think that the title was a bad choice.

Matthew Zencey succeeds: The author soberly presents the facts, trying to be as objective as possible. The book is easy to read, well-written, nicely organized in smaller, precise chapters and contains a huge amount of facts. It is more than obvious that factual accuracy was of the utmost importance for the author. There are many fascinating facts to discover, even for "experts." The book clearly has no serious competitor in the ranks of the dozens of books which have been written about Palin, as no other book focuses on Sarah Palin's record as Governor in such detail. If the book had been published for example in early 2011, it probably would have been quite a big success, as far as sales are concerned.

As an example, let's mention the reasons for Sarah Palin's resignation. Sarah's fans spend much of their time screaming on the blogs that the evil liberals wanted to "bankrupt" Sarah and that she had no other choice than to resign. At Politicalgates, we also wrote about the fact that this claim has long been debunked. Matthew Zencey offers some addition insights and writes:

So why did Sarah Palin resign?

Was it because she spent so much time and personal money fighting ethics charges? Did being in the spotlight bring too much harsh scrutiny of her kids? Was it the chance to make real money, not her piddling $ 125,000-a-year salary as governor? Was it because she had accomplished the big things she'd set out to do? Was it her fading popularity? Her loss of political support in the legislature? The prospect of being stuck doing the boring work of passing a budget and other routine matters of state governance? Was it so she could have more time to burnish her national image? Did she think that being in office forced her to be "politically correct"? Was being the mom of a special needs kid too much while maintaining a full-time job far from her home? Did she simply hate the job?

In my humble opinion, the answer is all of the above.

Palin gave many of the above answers in public, and some of them in private. Here's what she told her Going Rogue writer, Lynn Vincent:

Created: 7/11/2009 7:36:23 AM
Subject: Re: Important dot-connecting

(By leaving I'm) "sending the message that 1) I'm not a professional politician; 2) I've accomplished the goals as Governor that I promised; ethics reform; mandated new clear and equitable share of Alaska's resource development for Alaskans; built vehicle to get gasline built; slowed the rate of growth of govt; eliminated personal luxuries the state used to fund for governors so we could set the example ... So handling the reins to Sean is just sensible and fair and efficient instead of suffering Alaskans through a lame duck session!" (Her emphasis.)

(...)

As is often the case with Palin, her complaints included exaggerations and problems of her own making. Instead of commuting from Wasilla, she could have chosen to spend her term living in state-paid housing - the governor's mansion in Juneau - just a couple of blocks from her office in the state capital. (Regaring her claim that she "can't afford to have security at my home"): She actually reduced her state trooper security detail, as documented in the Troopergate investigation. She could have had state-paid security at her home if needed - but it would have undercut her populist image as an ordinary Alaskan forgoing perks, accessible to the people.

The vast majority of Palin's legal fees were to defend herself in Troopergate, after she filed a formal ethics complaint against herself. It's unclear why she needed to pay her lawyer hundreds of dollars an hour, for example, to attack an ethics complaint filed under the pseudonym of a British TV character.

Palin complained that media scrutiny of her kids was grwoing intolerable, even though her status as a mother - a family-values hockey mom with a special needs kid - was an integral part of her political "brand", and she routinely displayed her children at political events.

Unfortunately, Matthew Zencey, as far as I could see, doesn't mention the additional detail we reported in February 2012, another fact which renders the usual claim that Sarah Palin was on the way to go "bankrupt" even more ludicrous:

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It it simply untrue that Sarah Palin was forced to pay the costs for her legal defense against the ethics complaints herself, was forced to "bankrupt her family" and was subsequently driven out of office, as Palin herself claims in an email from January 2, 2009. This often repeated myth can easily be debunked with hard evidence.

When Sarah Palin's first legal defense fund, the "Alaska Fund Trust", was declared unethical by the state-assigned investigator Tim Petumenos in June 2010 after an ethics complaint by Kim Chatman, Petumenos published an extensive report, and for the first time the following was revealed in public: The State of Alaska offered to pay for the defense against the ethics complaints, and even entered into a contract for legal services with Palin's lawyers, for an amount "up to $ 100,000 at public expense." This would have given Sarah Palin enough resources to mount a solid defense, but as investigator Petumenos notes: "No invoices were submitted."

The reasons for this untypical behaviour by Sarah Palin are completely unclear. The lawyers claim that it would have been "too difficult to separate the functions of representing Governor Palin in her official capacity in the pending state-related matters, and representing her in other related campaign or partisan matters beyond the scope of the state contract." This explanation is nonsensical, as every lawyer knows who has ever invoiced billable hours.

Screenshot from the Petumenos report:

Sarah Palin instead choose to set up her unethical "Alaska Fund Trust."

The meme that Sarah Palin was forced to bankrupt herself is therefore pure propaganda.

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Back to the current post:

Therefore Sarah Palin not only had by far the biggest expenses through filing an ethics complaint against herself as a tactical political move after the bipartisan Branchflower investigation concluded that she had abused her powers, but she also rejected a huge sum of money which was offered to her to defend herself against ethics complaints. This reminds us of the old Palin rule: Her version of reality has to be correct, because the rest of the world is always lying (and always hates her).

It is therefore only consequential that in her private emails and her resignation speech the subject of "bankruptcy" found little or no mention.

Well, there are many other interesting parts of this book which are worth quoting, but let's stop here. Matthew Zencey delivered a convincing and very valuable book, which unfortunately did not get the attention it deserved. But as I said, it simply came too late.

There seems to be virtually no serious person left in America who could imagine a political future for Sarah Palin. Even Bill Kristol is fed up with her.

But Sarah Palin still tries to influence the political discourse, and therefore her own record should not be forgotten. She was not the "hottest Governor", but certainly the "weirdest Governor."

Finally, you might ask whether Matthew Zencey mentions some of Sarah Palin's "private scandals", for example babygate, the desperately suppressed fact that Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy with Trig (which virtually half of Alaska knows about).

The answer is: No, these "private" matters are not being discussed in the book. However, Matthew Zencey preferred an "honest" solution for this "problem", for which I give him credit. He writes in the preface of the book:

You'll have to look elsewhere if you care about Bristol's pregnancy, the feud with Levi, Trig's birth, the state of Palin's marriage to Todd, her career in high school basketball, Piper's progress in school, and other parts of Palin's personal life. In my view, a politician's personal life is a public issue only if it reveals hypocrisy on a political question or significantly compromises his or her ability to do the job.

Of course disagree with the second sentence, because the faked pregnancy definitely does question Sarah Palin's ability to do the job, but I also think it was a very good idea by Matthew Zencey to address those topics directly in this manner right at the beginning of the book.

(For us "insiders", the following sentence in the "acknowledgements" of the book is also pretty interesting: "I appreciate Elizabeth Demer's willingness to recommend publishing my work and her guidance on the manuscript.")

In conclusion, I can highly recommend Mathew Zencey's book. Together with "The Rogue" by Joe McGinniss, "The Lies of Sarah Palin" by Geoffrey Dunn and "Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin" by Frank Bailey, it provides invaluable insights and facts. Also, concerning the topic of "Alaska, the oil and Sarah Palin" (as well as other topics), there is also the very detailed book "Crude Awakening: Money, Mavericks, and Mayhem in Alaska" by Tony Hopfinger and Amanda Coyne, which we have read and can also recommend.

Sarah Palin may fade from the spotlight, but a look at her botched legacy is always a good idea, especially now where she openly pals around with politicians like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. Hopefully they have heard about the famous Palin-curse...

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Bonus:

Many thanks to our wonderful reader JCos for this great variation of the above photo featuring Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin:

Fox News Refudiates Pit Bull Sarah Palin - BONUS

by Sunnyjane

That fat slob Ailes misrespected me, so I'm disenfrenching him!  He has misunderestimated THIS mom with a hockey pit bull, er, bull lipstick, er, 
oh whatever!

Sarah Palin has spit in God's eye one too many times, it would seem to me.  Here He's given her -- according to Queen Esther herself -- all these cracks in the door and she has managed to bumble her way through every one of them.  How much can one guy take, after all?

After she gave John McCain considerable assistance in losing the 2008 election, Palin still commanded a following that nubile Hollywood star wannabes and novice politicians would willingly kill for.  With their bare hands.

The Downward Spiral of a Twisted Sister

What?  My hair?  What's wrong with it?

After the election, Republican leaders with no sense whatsoever of the real Sarah Palin were sure she'd go back to Alaska, get down to work repairing her reputation with legislators in the North Star state, and study up on national and international policies and politics.  A rising star, they said.  Pah! 

She quit the governorship in July 2009 and published a work of pure fiction, Going Rogue, in November that was an instant best seller.  Went on a successful book tour.  Signed a contract with Fox in January 2010.  What could possibly go wrong?

Forget the cracks in God's door: the cracks in Sarah Palin began to show up during the first year of her contract.  She didn't maintain the first viewership ratings on Fox.  She had a few successes with the mid-term 2010 elections, but made some grievous endorsements as well.  Then, in January 2011, the solid waste hit the fan.  After Gabby Giffords was gunned down in Tuscon on January 10, Palin felt that she was being persecuted because of the gun sights targeting Democratic candidates on a map that she put on her Facebook page in honor of the 2010 elections -- and kept it up into 2011.  So upset was the ex-governor that she called Ailes and demanded air time to give a defensive statement.  Ailes refused.  The rest is history -- bad history for Palin.  She did the Blood Libel thingy, and Ailes was furious.

By May of 2011, old Roger was obviously rethinking his employment decision, saying behind closed doors according to someone close to the issue, that Roger is worried about the future of the country. He thinks the election of Obama is a disaster. He thinks Palin is an idiot. He thinks she's stupid. He helped boost her up. People like Sarah Palin haven't elevated the conservative movement.

Roger Ailes had been anxious to sign Palin.  I hired Sarah Palin because she was hot and got ratings, he said in November 2011. The ratings and the hot had all but disappeared.

You know you're in trouble when not one of the March 2011 Jeopardy contestants could give the correct response to a question in the Hearts category: Her latest book is titled “America by Heart: Reflections on Faith, Family and Flag."   OUCH!

A reality show that failed.  A new book that failed.  Speaking engagements were fewer and fewer.  An embarrassingly stupid tour/vacation of America in the summer of 2011 that went nowhere.  Sarah Palin's appeal was drying up.  Nevertheless, her dwindling base, consisting of fanatical low-to-no information voters, thought she would run in 2012.  She had promised Roger Ailes that she would announce her decision on Fox.  She lied.

In October 2011, Palin sent a letter to conservative radio host Mark Levin, which he read to his listeners and followed up with an interview with the fast-fading star of the Republican Party: Sarah Palin would not run for president in 2012.  Ailes was reportedly so angry with her that he considered refusing to put her on the air again and letting the remainder of her $1 million contract expire in 2013.

Breaking up is not that hard to do.

Ailes obviously decided he has had enough of the Diva.  It's been reported by The Daily Beast that Palin was offered a new contract for less money and decided not to take the offer.  (And no, there's no truth to the rumor that it was for $20.00 a month for two months, April and October!)

Look, let's be honest here.  How difficult can it be to rev up the old home studio equipment and occasionally blather for seven minutes on Fox News with all the other right-wing weenies and talk about how Barack Obama is ruining the country with his Colonial/Kenyan/Communist/Fascist/Nazi/Socialist agenda?  

Piper Diaper could do it, I betcha.

What Now?

Now that Palin has thumbed her nose at Fox, she's reduced to having someone write her Facebook screes and mouthing off about her version of the sanctity of life (or some damn thing like that) at the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network's Award Gala in a couple of months.  You can get your ticket for only $150 by clicking here!


End Note

 

 
Sarah Palin does not believe in coincidences; she's said so numerous times.  So it's kind of strange that less than two weeks after the publication of The Rogue: Searching For The Real Sarah Palin by Joe McGinniss, Sarah Palin announced that she wouldn't run for president in the 2012 election.

Remember, McGinniss and Ailes have been friends for many years; had they talked?  AND, McGinniss said of what he wrote: 90 per cent of what I learned is not in the book.

Hmmm....

End Note #2

It should be noted by all bloggers and the MSM that Politicalgates' friend Malia Litman was the first to confirm that Fox News had not renewed Sarah Palin's contract.

Grateful H/T to you, Malia.  Job well done!

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Bonus (by Patrick):

Let me allow to make an addition to Sunnyjane's wonderful post. First, I would like to quote an excerpt from the excellent and very well researched 2012 book "Boss Rove", written by Craig Unger. 

In the follwing excerpt, Craig Unger examines what I would call the the "unholy triangle" Roger Ailes - Karl Rove - Sarah Palin. There are also other parts in the book which examine the complex relationships between these people, and this excerpt is particularly enlightening (pp. 221, 222):

From a ratings point of view, of course, it made sense for Roger Ailes to keep Sarah Palin on the air as a talent. He had hired her because she was hot. "People are attracted to Fox News in part because that's where they can see Sarah Palin," said Pat Buchanan, who had one played a dual role as a candidate commentator. "So I would think he would want to keep them there."

But politics was a different matter. After a January 2011 shooting rampage by a lunatic gunman in Tucson, Arizona, killed six and severely wounded Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Ailes had advised Palin to lie low. Having just published an electoral map that identified vulnerable Democratic congressional districts, including Gifford's, with rifle crosshairs, Palin was under fire for heated rhetoric that, some said, helped fuel the violence. But instead of following Ailes's advice, Palin responded in a nationally televised speech that blaming her was a "blood libel," a reference to a heinous anti-Semitic accusation. After that, Ailes made no secret that he thought she "was an idiot" who was damaging the conservative movement. But in opting to go for profits and high ratings, Ailes risked losing something much more importantly: namely, the next presidential election.

Enter Karl Rove, who had never had any real fondness for Palin. During the previous election cycle, Rove had aggressively touted Mitt Romney as a stronger choice than Palin for the GOP vice presidential slot. In October 2010, just before the midterms, Rove had taken his first real shot at her, telling the London Telegraph that American voters would not regard Palin, who was about to launch a cable TV show exploring the Alaskan wilderness, as presidential material.

"With all due candor," Rove said, "appearing on your own reality show...I am not certain how that fits in the American calculus of 'that helps me see you in the Oval Office.'"

Later, Rove proceeded to mock Palin by imitating her fishing. "Did you see that?" he asked an interviewer when the show began. "Holy crap! That fish bit my thigh. It hurts!"

Palin struck back. "Karl has planted a few other political seeds out there that are quite negative and unnecessary..." she said. "I kind of feel like, why did he feel so threatened and so paranoid? I'm here to help the cause."

Such banter would have been innocuous enough coming from two ordinary talking heads. But that's not what was going on. Palin was a leading contender for the 2012 Republican nomination. Now she was in battle with Rove, who, with two White House wins under his belt and hundreds of million dollars in SuperPAC lucre, was effectively the party boss. In generations past, such intramural political conflicts took place in smoke-filled rooms, but now Fox's biggest stars grappled on air before a gaping audience. Behind the cameras, Ailes was rooting for Rove.

The recent developments certainly confirm Craig Unger's assertion: Ailes is indeed rooting for Rove. Karl Rove stays in, and Sarah Palin has to drop out. That is all what we need to know.

Against the power of Karl Rove, Sarah Palin never stood a chance. We should also remember the fact that Karl Rove openly expressed his criticism about Sarah Palin in such a harsh way that even Fox News themselves had to censor Rove on the air, as I revealed in a post from August 25, 2011.

Craig Unger mentions another smashing quote by Karl Rove, which was reported in March 2012. From page 234 in "Boss Rove":

Immediately after Super Tuesday, Sarah Palin proffered her once-sought-after endorsement to Newt Gingrich, whose campaign was all but dead. Rove carefully assessed its value. "It's not worth snot," he said.

Well said, Karl!

So let's see what Sarah Palin now plans to do with her officially confirmed irrelevancy.

Finally, I would like to point out Nick Broomfield's 2011 documentary "You Betcha" about Sarah Palin has been uploaded to youtube already several months ago. It is well worth watching, and I think that Nick Broomfield did a very good job, considering the difficult subject matter. The documentary was much better done than I expected, having read first the bad reviews which it received back in 2011.

But the criticism is in my view largely unfounded. Nick Broomfield talked to an impressive range of people in Alaska, including Walt Monegan, Lyda Green and "Trooper" Mike Wooten. He sincerely tried to uncover the "real" Sarah Palin, and he managed to expose Sarah Palin's obsession with her public image extremely well. One of the highlights of the film in my opinion is this creepy call which Nick Broomfield receives from Chuck Heath, in which Chuck wants to know whether it was true that Broomfield had spoken to Chuck Heath's enemy Colleen Cottle.  Yes, Broomfield has indeed spoken to Colleen Cottle, who knows Chuck Heath for decades, and conducted a very enlightening interview with her. For Chuck Heath, this was a treacherous act. Too bad, Chuck.

Watch:

So far virtually anyone who tried to investigate the real Sarah Palin had to endure unfair criticism. Sarah Palin's story is like a huge pile of mud. If you want to get to the bottom of it, you inevitably have to reach right into the dirt, and it is hard to get rid of it afterwards. Joe McGinniss made a similar experience. Writing his book ""The Rogue" was a thankless task as well. 

So will the world now be able to live in peace, undisturbed by the "screechs" of America's least favourite former female politician? There is hope!

In addition, it is worth to watch this interesting interview with Joe McGinniss again from May 2012 (h/t BanditBasheert & Older_Wiser):

Voting for an Illusion - Mitt Romney, the next Richard Nixon?

by Blueberry T

Joe McGinniss warned us about this.  More than four decades ago, McGinniss wrote a brilliant book called The Selling of the President, 1968.  (I wrote about it previously in this post.)  In what was then a ground-breaking approach, McGinniss “embedded” himself in the campaign, gaining unparalleled cooperation from and access to Nixon and all his handlers.  His sharp observations and clear, engaging style gave us an intimate view of history in the making.  His first book became a best-seller and instant classic of the genre, pulling back the curtain to show how Richard Nixon’s campaign remade Nixon’s image through very effective, in some cases subliminally manipulative, advertising and marketing techniques.  Nixon’s team (which included Roger Ailes, now of Fox News, among others) skillfully overcame the negative preconceptions that many people had of Nixon, stemming from his losing campaign against Jack Kennedy in 1960 and his bitter statement to the press (after losing the 1962 California Governor’s race) that “you don’t have Nixon to kick around any more.” The team successfully created a new impression – an illusion, really – of a warmer, more positive and somewhat more likable candidate.  Enough that people could overcome their initial reactions and vote for him. 

As we found out the hard way, over the years of his presidency and afterward, however, the illusion that they created was far from the truth.  The real Nixon was a complex and calculating man who did some good things (Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, EPA, China), and was far more moderate than any Republican currently on the national stage.  But as history showed, the mean-spirited, foul-mouthed, conniving and paranoid “Tricky Dick,” with his long list of enemies about whom he actively schemed and plotted, and who thought he was above the law, was a far truer image than the warm, fuzzy,“soft-focus” illusion of his 1968 campaign. 

McGinniss warned us, not only about Nixon, but about the manipulative false imagery of campaigns that sell voters a “product” that has little or nothing to do with reality.  Voters didn’t pay attention, but campaigns did.  The formula was repeated in 1980 with Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America” theme – and imagine how much easier a “sell” this was, working with a warm, personable guy who just happened to be a professional actor with a ready-made fan base!  Many voters bought the illusion, hook, line and sinker. 

It’s happened often since then – in fact, all modern campaigns use these techniques – but the attempt to sell Sarah Palin as someone with the qualifications to be Vice President of the United States should have been a major wake up call (or, more like sirens going off) to voters to start paying attention to the “man behind the curtain.”  As the Berenstain Bears teach young children, “appearances can be deceiving.”  In fact, they are often deliberately deceiving, usually by making something look good that is not at all good for you/us.  It is our job as citizens (and the media’s, though sadly they are not too good at it any more) to sort through what is real and what is fake.  Buyer beware.  Thankfully in 2008, Palin’s own woeful ignorance and word salad, along with the brilliant parodies by Tina Fey, the persistent questioning by Katie Couric, and the dogged investigative work by bloggers like us, helped to reveal her for the fraud that she is, and prevented that particular nightmare from coming to pass.  In a beautiful symmetry, Joe McGinniss played a key role in revealing “The Real Sarah Palin” and putting an end to her political aspirations going forward.

But now, here we are again in 2012, with the same fake imagery and marketing techniques being used to package a candidate as someone he is not.  Once again, the focus is on impressions and style, not substance.  How else to explain an image like this, where many media outlets reported that Mitt Romney lied through his teeth at the first debate, yet that message was lost and the debate was almost universally declared as a resounding victory for Romney over President Obama?  (I say this, fully recognizing that President Obama failed to take the many open goal shots he had to call Romney on his dishonesty.)

Plus, this time, Romney has upped the ante.  We’re not just dealing with a few lies about a Bridge to Nowhere and Palin’s executive experience as mayor of the booming metropolis of Wasilla, Alaska.  Now we are dealing with a candidate who is carrying lying, distorting and misrepresenting who he is to levels never before even contemplated.  The sheer number of lies that Mitt Romney has told during his campaign is beyond comprehension to anyone other than criminologists and psychologists who deal with pathological liars for a living.   But, he seems to get away with it.  People allow themselves to be duped.  (More on his lies here and here.)  

Voters could and should learn much more from the unscripted moments, because they are always a better “tell” than something for which a candidate has rehearsed.  That is why the 47% video should be disqualifying on its face.  Statements like:

·        “I’m also unemployed” 

·        “I like being able to fire people” 

·        “Corporations are people, my friend” 

·        “you people, ” “these people”

·        the London Olympics insults  

·        on Russia: “without question, our #1 geopolitical foe”  

·        “We don’t have people…who die in their apartments because they don’t have insurance”  

(and many more) tell far more about the Real Romney than his rehearsed performance at the convention, campaign stops or the debate.  His smirk during the press conference exploiting the crisis in Libya even as it was taking place revealed him for the opportunist that he is.  His beyond-the-pale secrecy, unspecified plans and little laugh while saying “trust me” are all “tells.”

There’s the old adage, “Actions speak louder than words.”  So, why is it that people ignore Romney’s actions?  He SAYS he is would bring American jobs back home – but what he and his companies DID (and still do) was to pioneer “outsourcing.”    He SAYS deficits are bad, but his business model is all about loading companies with debt and then sucking the capital out of them.  He SAYS he paid all the taxes he owed, but he stashed millions in offshore accounts and used aggressive and questionable tax shelters and dodges that most people cannot even fathom, let alone use.  Forbes reports that his company, Bain Capital, is under investigation for tax evasion.  He profited from Medicare fraud, SAYS government bailouts are bad, but he has made millions off them and they have saved his proverbial butt.  He SAYS he will not raise taxes on the middle class – but what he DID in Massachusetts was to raise fees. 

And then there are the flip-flops. I mean, how can it be that John Kerry was ridiculed for flip-flopping on one issue, and it was instrumental in his defeat, and yet Romney changes direction on every imaginable topic, like a weathervane, and isn’t laughed off the stage?  Not only that, but the more he flip-flops, the more he seems to gain in the polls.  

How can you trust someone who changes his position almost daily on almost everything?  His words are meaningless.  It seems that many people are just buying a hokey “Father Knows Best” illusion, and Mitt is portraying himself as that guy.

But the truth about Mitt is a lot different.

There were so many lies during the debates, that you would think this in itself would be enough to bury his candidacy in historical infamy.   Think Progress documented the lies here.  Many publications, including the MSM, wrote on the same theme of Romney’s dishonest remarks, yet he was almost universally regaled as the decisive winner of the debate. Why?  Impressions and illusions.  (But here is FoxNews incredulous critique of one reviewer who gave Obama-Biden the win in all four debates.)  Here are TP’s posts on Romney’s lies in Debate 2 and Debate 3 ; at least the consensus was that he lost those debates.  So, maybe we are learning…?

This illustration reminds me that Secretary of Explaining Things Bill Clinton is really good at putting things in plain language that people can understand; here he speaks in favor of “arithmetic over illusion.”  

EJDionne wrote an opinion piece in the WaPo on “Mitt Romney, the product” which touches on similar ideas about marketing a candidate as a product.  

Here’s an interesting article from PoliticusUSA about how, if American’s paid attention, Republicans would never win elections.  I would argue that it’s not only that American’s don’t pay attention, but that they are so easily manipulated by lies, even to the point of voting against their own interests. 

In the end, Romney is like a smooth used car salesman who put a cheap paint job on an old car, and who won’t let you look under the hood or even kick the tires, but says “trust me.”  You wouldn’t trust a car salesman like that – how could you possibly trust a presidential candidate who will affect your future and that of your children and grandchildren? 

So, my fellow Americans, please: WAKE UP!  NOW!  Stop being so easily conned.  Our future depends on it.

UPDATE:  Our reader HonestyinGov pointed out a blog post that Joe McGinniss put up just yesterday about Mitt Romney (quoting heavily from Andrew Sullivan); here it is. 

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UPDATE 2 (by Patrick): I am sure that Blueberry T won't mind if I add another update, inspired by our wonderful reader Mrs. TTB, who confessed in the comments that she fell in love with Joe McGinniss when she first read "The Selling of the President." Well, Kathleen and I just recently became the proud owners of an original 1969 copy of this book (you actually can buy these old hardcover editions for very reasonable prices), and we were pleasantly surprised to find a great portrait of a very young Joe McGinniss on the back cover of the book. So for all our readers, but most especially Mrs. TBB, I present this photo of the young Joe McGinniss (click to enlarge):